Wikiscanner - Identify Anonymous Wikipedia Edits

Wikiscanner is a great tool that I discovered through an article on Lifehacker. Wikiscanner lets you identify anonymous edits on Wikipedia, including edits that look like they came from the government and corporations.

On the front page of Wikiscanner, there is a list of interesting organizations such as:

• The Republican Party
• The Democratic Party
• Walmart
• The EPA
• The Vatican
• and many more...

Clicking on one of those organization names leads you to a page that shows anonymous Wikipedia edits that Wikiscanner thinks came from that organization. By clicking on the number (highlighted below in red), you can see the diff output from that Wikipedia edit.

Some interesting examples are below:

Here is an example of an edit that Wikiscanner thinks came from Walmart. Someone has replaced text that says:

In the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart had a "Buy American" campaign, but it was eventually cancelled. As of 2004, about 70% of the products sold in Wal-Mart stores have at least a component manufactured in [[China]].

with

In the mid-1990s, Wal-Mart had a "Buy American" campaign, but it was eventually cancelled. Eve today, though, Wal-Mart buys merchandise and services from more than 68,000 U.S suppliers and supports over 3.5 million supplier jobs in the United States.

Al-Jazeera — Israel:

Israel is only created in 1948 after the Jews fled from the hands of Hitler. The Jews did to the indiginous people of Palestine what Hitler had done to them. Jews were the first people to stsrt the terorist attacks in the reagion. they have stolen the land of the Palestinians. Jews believe that they are chosen by God and that they are better than other people.

FOX News — Brit Hume:

Original:

Controversy surrounded Hume when he was awarded the National Press Foundation's Broadcaster of the Year award in [[2004]]. The head of the [[University of Missouri]]'s Washington journalism program, Geneva Overholser, furiously resigned from the Foundation's board due to her belief that Hume's political views are connected to his journalistic work. Past recipients of the award such as National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg have also been criticized for allegedly biased journalism, only bias from the liberal perspective.

Edit:

Controversy surrounded Hume when he was awarded the National Press Foundation's Broadcaster of the Year award in [[2004]]. The head of the [[University of Missouri]]'s Washington journalism program, Geneva Overholser, foolishly resigned from the Foundation's board due to her belief that Hume's political views are connected to his journalistic work. Past recipients of the award such as National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg have also been criticized for allegedly biased journalism, only bias from the liberal perspective.

(The word "furiously" has been changed to "foolishly" on a couple of occasions.)

Also listed under FOX News: An apparent attack on Al Franken by replacing Franken's quote with one that makes him look less credible:

Original:

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the [[National Public Radio]] program ''[[Fresh Air]]'' on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox's case against him was "literally laughed out of court" and that "wholly (holy) without merit" is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

Edit:

Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal [[National Public Radio]] program ''[[Fresh Air]]'' on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox's case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.

Reputation management by Diebold? The following criticism section looks like it was entirely removed from Wikipedia:

Together, ES&S and Diebold Election Systems are ([[as of 2004]]) responsible for tallying approximately 80% of the votes cast in the United States. The [[software architecture]] common to both is a creation of Mr. Urosevich's company [[I-Mark]]. Some experts claim that this structure is easily compromised, in part due to its reliance on [[Microsoft Access]] databases. [[Britain J. Williams]], responsible for certification of voting machines for the state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] and a consultant to Diebold, has provided an assessment based on his accounting of potential exploits.

In August [[2003]], [[Walden O'Dell]], chief executive of Diebold, announced that he had been a top fund-raiser for [[President of the United States|President]] [[George W. Bush]] and had sent a get-out-the-funds letter to [[Ohio]] [[United States Republican Party|Republicans]]. When assailed by critics for the conflict of interest, he pointed out that the company's election machines division is run out of [[Texas]] by a registered [[United States Democratic Party|Democrat]]. Nonetheless, he vowed to lower his political profile lest his personal actions harm the company. [and more...]

If you haven't tried it yet, check out Wikiscanner...

UPDATE 17 Aug 2007: I just found a post that describes more of FOX News' Wikipedia edits.