Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-07-04/In the media
Terrorism database cites Wikipedia as a source
A leak publicised on Reddit has revealed that "Thomson Reuters' terrorism database cites Wikipedia as a source", Motherboard reports.
On Tuesday, a security researcher obtained a mid-2014 copy of Thomson Reuters' controversial financial crime and terrorism database—a huge cache of publicly sourced information used by banks, lawyers, and governments to research individuals and organisations.
Just like your tutor might discover dodgy references in that late-night essay hastily cobbled together, Motherboard has found that a chunk of profiles in the database use Wikipedia as a source.
Using Wikipedia as a source for such claims can be problematic, given how attractive the crowdsourced project has proved to political activists, who frequently edit anonymously.
Motherboard found that more than 15,000 entries in the "World-Check" database referenced wikipedia.org as a source, including 6,500 profiles of political individuals, 624 profiles of people marked as being involved in some form of crime, and 178 profiles of people suspected of involvement in terrorism. Some of the Wikipedia articles concerned were stubs, or had flagged quality problems.
It's a potential worry to people like scholar Taner Akçam, who in 2007 was detained in Canada on the strength of an inaccurate version of his Wikipedia biography designating him a terrorist. And Motherboard notes that a number of well-known charities, activists, and religious institutions were reportedly listed in the database under the "terrorism" label—sometimes in part due to information found on blogs—despite facing no related charges.
However, a Thomson Reuters spokesperson sought to reassure Motherboard that the database:
uses only reliable and reputable public domain sources (such as official sanctions lists, law and regulatory enforcement lists, government sources and trustworthy media publications) for risk-based information or allegations about an individual or entity. We also provide secondary identifying information on individuals, such as dates and place of birth, and this will be similarly verified with reputable and official sources. If blog content appears, it is only as a supporting source for that secondary information, and is clearly identified as such.
(July 1) AK
In brief
- Wikipedia apps: Mac Stories has a round-up of Wikipedia apps. (On a related theme, see also the recent Wikiplorer.) (June 30) AK
- Devouring the web: In the wake of an agreement enabling Google to display "full song lyrics for millions of artists in a 'knowledge box' module at the top of the search page", Caitlin Dewey in the Washington Post likens the impending fate of lyrics websites, who are bound to see massive page view losses as a result, to similar losses reportedly experienced by Wikipedia and others when Google started displaying related content on its own pages. (June 28) AK
- "Anyone who believes Wikipedia is an idiot": Television New Zealand notes that Wikipedia claimed New Zealand rugby union player Elliot Dixon is a "cosplayer for his favourite character, Tintin" and that he is "the Chairman of Southland Cheese Appreciation Club and is known as the Brie King in those parts." The false claims, inserted by two IPs in July 2015 ([1], [2]), stood unchallenged for almost a year, being deleted only after the TVNZ piece appeared. All Blacks coach Steve Hansen commented: "Anyone who believes Wikipedia is an idiot." (June 23) AK
- Wikimedia Foundation loses lawsuit: Ars Technica and Techdirt report on the Wikimedia Foundation's loss in a lawsuit brought by the Reiss Engelhorn Museum. For further details see this week's News and notes. (June 23) AK
- The lopsided geography of Wikipedia: In The Atlantic, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales discusses Wikipedia's geographical and linguistic imbalance, and barriers to the project's expansion. (June 21) AK
- Wikipedia documents twerking: The New York Times Magazine presents Wikipedia as the publication of record for documenting the cultural significance of twerking and other matters. The piece touches on Wikipedia's gender gap and Kyraocity's comments from a March 2016 Art+Feminism event in the context of online archiving. (June 21) B
- Wikipedia in the classroom: In a piece published in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times and widely picked up elsewhere, Caitlin Dewey reports on the work of the Wiki Education Foundation, funded in part by the Stanton Foundation and Google, which has seen Wikipedia editing become a part of students' coursework. (June 20) AK
- Share price collapse: The Times reports on the ongoing share price collapse of Jimmy Wales' "ethical telecoms company", The People's Operator, titling its piece "Investors hang up on Wikipedia founder". (June 15) AK
Discuss this story
I commented on a related issue back in April here. (I haven't yet looked into this story to see if there is any relationship to Dataminr or In-Q-Tel) Wnt (talk) 20:55, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]