A false wikipedia biography by john seigenthaler and family

A false wikipedia biography by john seigenthaler youtube

Misinformation in Wikipedia became a hot topic again last week when a retired journalist publicized his complaints about an article. The incident prompted considerable discussion in the media generally and among Wikipedia editors specifically, while renewing discussion of measures to address such problems. The piece recounted his efforts to have the falsehoods removed and his inability to trace the person responsible. The text Seigenthaler complained about was originally posted 26 May It indicated that he had "briefly" been suspected of involvement in the assassinations of both John and Robert Kennedy, adding the caveat, "Nothing was ever proven.

Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident

The Wikipedia biography controversy, also known as the Seigenthaler incident,[1] was a set of events that began in May Anonymous Wikipedia editors posted a hoax article in Wikipedia about John Seigenthaler.

The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the deaths of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Hoax

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The thenyear-old Seigenthaler, who was a friend of Robert Kennedy, described the Wikipedia article about him as "Internet character assassination".[2]

The author of the hoax article was later identified as Brian Chase.[3] On May 26, , Chase added a new article that contained, in its entirety, the following text:

John Seigenthaler Sr.

was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early s. For a short time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby.

A false wikipedia biography by john seigenthaler For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven. It could be your story. I have no idea whose sick mind conceived the false, malicious "biography" that appeared under my name for days on Wikipedia, the popular, online, free encyclopedia whose authors are unknown and virtually untraceable. I was wrong.

Nothing was ever proven.

John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in , and returned to the United States in

He started one of the country's largest public relations firms shortly thereafter.

The hoax was not discovered and corrected until September Afterwards, Seigenthaler wrote about his experience in USA Today.

The incident raised questions about the reliability of Wikipedia and other websites with user-generated content that lack the legal accountability of traditional newspapers and published materials.[4]

Aftermath

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In a December 13 interview,[5] co-founder Jimmy Wales expressed his support for Wikipedia policy allowing articles to be edited by anonymous users – describing the participation of editors in China and Iran in terms of privacy issues – but announced plans to roll back their article creation privileges as part of a vandalism-control strategy: "we've decided that we want to slow downso starting in January we're preventing unregistered users from creating new pages, because so often those have to be deleted".[5]

References

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  1. ↑Cohen, Noam (August 24, ).

    "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People". The New York Times.

    A false wikipedia biography by john seigenthaler and wife He was known as a prominent defender of First Amendment rights. Seigenthaler joined the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean in , resigning in to act as Robert F. Kennedy 's administrative assistant. He rejoined The Tennessean as editor in , publisher in , and chairman in before retiring as chairman emeritus in Seigenthaler was also the founding editorial director of USA Today from to

    Retrieved April 7,

  2. ↑Seigenthaler, John (November 29, ). "A false Wikipedia 'biography'". USA Today. Retrieved October 27,
  3. ↑"The wiki principle". Economist.

    Wikipedia biography template The Wikipedia biography controversy , also known as the Seigenthaler incident , [ 1 ] was a set of events that began in May Anonymous Wikipedia editors posted a hoax article in Wikipedia about John Seigenthaler. The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the deaths of U. President John F. Kennedy and U.

    April 20,

  4. ↑"The State of the News Media " The Project for Excellence in Journalism. Retrieved on September 14,
  5. ↑ Helm, Burt. "Wikipedia: "A Work in Progress"". BusinessWeek Online. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved October 16,

Other websites

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