Stats SA whitewashes Wikipedia

A week or so ago, I noted the release of a clever new tool that tracks changes to Wikipedia entries and the IP addresses where they originate. Some red faces ensued, as predicted. ITWeb journalists Paul Furber and Kim Guest have discovered a crude bit of vandalism to the entry on HIV/AIDS in South Africa. To wit:

Wikipedia`s edit history for the article “HIV/Aids in South Africa” shows repeated vandalism from IP address 164.151.130.36. This address resolves to a machine called mx1.statssa.gov.za, located just off the Ben Schoeman highway in Centurion, and is owned and operated by the South African government.

In the first change, the person removed the introduction to the topic along with supporting references.

This was replaced with the comment: “I think that was all bullshit, thats why i deleted it. Thank you motherf***er! [sic]”

The second edit sees the “effects” section of the entry removed. The third and fourth edits remove references to Pieter Fourie`s article: “The Political Management of HIV and Aids in South Africa: One burden too many?” and the Aids Portal SA Web page respectively.

What remained of the entry was the section describing the actions being taken by government to curb the spread of the disease.

Nice work. On Paul and Kim’s part, I mean.