Government Makes Anti-Gay Wikipedia Edits
Office computers belonging to the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa have been used to vandalize Wikipedia articles with anti-gay comments. (Wikipedia, for the benefit of the recently non-comatose, is an online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute.)
A reporter for the St. Catharine’s Standard found several anti-gay themed edits—including one asserting that a Conservative MP who voted in favour of same-sex marriage was gay himself, and another declaring that Mussolini and Hitler were gay lovers.
A quick search using the Wikipedia Scanner revealed even more Parliament edits. One in particular, made to an article entitled Members of the 39th Canadian Parliament and same-sex marriage, replaced the unbiased phrase “opposite-sex marriage” with “normal and traditional marriage,” and the phrase “an anti- gay marriage website had indicated […]” with “a real marriage website had indicated […]” The vandal also inserted a new sentence into the article: “However, it seems that the Canadian public is still firmly against same-sex marriage by a large majority.” A demonstrably false claim.
Each instance of vandalism was reverted almost immediately, as is the Wikipedia norm, but it’s great to know what our Government workers do with their our time, no?
- Beware of what you read on Wiki; Government computers used to make peculiar edits on website [St. Catharine’s Standard]
