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How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit

135 points by sasvari 14y ago

jvrossb 14y ago
I'm ashamed to admit in my youth I created a fake Wikipedia page in a couple hours (between 3 and 5AM) that lasted for months before a friend of mine accidentally exposed it as fake by being silly in the talk section. It was flagged as dubious because the date that the fictional piece the fictional composer I created had supposedly been performed the day of a new Pope's election didn't match the date on that Pope's wikipedia article. Turns out we had the right date and the Pope's wikipedia article the wrong one. So our hoax ended up resulting in another article being corrected. From then on, anyone who looked at the talk page saw that someone had already flagged the page as dubious but that it had been resolved in our favour. This gave the hoax quite a bit of credibility. Made me realize how easy it is to create convincing hoaxes.
- rangibaby 14y ago
  Or the person who had an extra name added by a Wikipedia editor, which was then copied by mainstream media. The hoaxers then used that as a citation, creating "truth". Wow!
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Well, wikipedia doesn't talk about truth, but about verifiability. That's a bit of a problem because most people (even most wp editors) don't get the difference. Certainly people visiting wp expect it to be both truthful and verifiable.
    - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
      Well "verifiability" means the ability to show that it is true. Something verifiable is demonstrably true. WP verifiability means something different. 'being cited as true by a trusted source' seems close but you can't blame users for Wikipedia's misuse of a word. Of course that just shifts the focus to what is a trusted source ... presumably the answer is one that is true ... I can prove it too ... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verify http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verify [lol!].
kulkarnic 14y ago
I'd rather have a link to the actual Atlantic web page for this story, not the Print view. It's at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-the-professor-who-fooled-wikipedia-got-caught-by-reddit/257134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-th... I think directly linking to the print view is dishonest: telling the Atlantic you plan to print an article, and instead posting it to HN is essentially stealing their ad revenue. PS: Even if you claim ads are distracting and this is actually a service to the community, I'd rather install ad blockers and make such decisions myself.
- reneherse 14y ago
  What annoys me is the complete loss of affordances for navigation, date, author info, context, etc.
- masklinn 14y ago
  I often prefer print pages for BI-type "articles" where 300 works are split across 5 different pages, but yeah in this case the article is a single page originally, and the site's own chrome isn't overbearing. There was no reason to link to the print version.
masklinn 14y ago
> It's tough to con Reddit. That is debatable, Reddit has been conned a lot in the past. But one error when trying to con the site seems to be too much information: many users apparently love snooping around and digging (and are pretty good at it), so giving more information initially makes claims more credible, but also gives more strings on which users can pull risking unraveling the whole thing. Furthermore, there's a high level of dependency on the subreddit in which things go "viral", some subreddits are far more credulous than others (and credulity depends on the subject matter as well, you can get both /r/atheism and /r/libertarian to lap up claims unchecked, but it's unlikely the same claim will work on both) (this also means hoaxes are far more likely to unravel as they spread outside of a given subreddit and get wider exposure in the community)
- wyck 14y ago
  Exactly, the hive mind at work, for example: http://gawker.com/5751581/misguided-internet-vigilantes-attack-college-students-cancer-fundraiser http://gawker.com/5751581/misguided-internet-vigilantes-atta... Also every once and a while a hoax reaches the front page, usually some highly suspect family situation or someone finding a treasure chest in their basement and asking reddit what to do.
tomdtpink 14y ago
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tomdtpink 14y ago
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tomdtpink 14y ago
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SagelyGuru 14y ago
I wonder if you also find this professor really really objectionable? I certainly do. First off, any bona-fide academic ought to have respect for the truth, not deliberately set out to build his carreer on lies. One has to wonder: does he also encourage lies in academic publications? Does the publishing outlet, i.e. traditional paper journal versus the internet justify that much difference to the principle of being honest in research? I think anyone this confused about the necessity of the truth should not be an academic. If I was his colleague, I would support steps to have his tenure terminated forthwith. Secondly, the techniques prof. Kelly teaches and employs are classical disinformation tools, as practiced by Hitler, KGB and other such illustrious preceptors of his. Presumably some of his college funding is intended 'for the public good'. I really question prof. Kelly's idea that expanding the skills base in the disinformation field is for the public good. Thirdly, and most importantly, one has to ask: what is his real agenda? Clearly it is to disable/discredit/damage/destroy the free exchange of valid information on the internet. If there ever was a real 'information terrorist' it must be him.
- cirwin 14y ago
  I agree that this behaviour is quite objectionable, though for a subtly different reason. In particular it's not a case of malicious spreading of misinformation, it seems that in the case that the hoax worked the lies were deleted. Rather it's a case of abusing a public resource. It feels to me somewhat like training a group of school-children to play Rugby on a village bowling green. Sure the damage to the grass will be undone over time, and sure the chance of knocking over any real old ladies is very small; but it's still an irreverent gesture that shows a dangerous lack of respect. In the real world we have checks to make sure this kind of behaviour doesn't get too out of hand; on the internet we've so far managed to avoid the need. I hope that continues.
  - Robin_Message 14y ago
    That certainly makes sense. But hopefully, since he is in some sense a public figure, we rely on him to make sure the good done is in excess of any damage caused, since he would be censured if that were not the cases. For example, if he had got students to break into museums and make actual changes to historical documents with bleach and ink, he'd make the cons more believable but the harm would be too great. I don't think he did cross that line though. Some solutions if he did: what if he escrowed (and set a time to release) the pranks in case they aren't caught? What about donating to wikipedia, since it's their green they are mainly playing rugby on?
spodek 14y ago
Speaking of Reddit, People on HN often jab them when they discipline others for violating community norms, as in "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." Not once have I seen the Reddit jab helpful. I've only seen it superfluous and petty. I like people saying "Please keep on topic," but why jab another community? I don't even use Reddit. I say this hoping it helps people simply remind others of this community's norms without needlessly jabbing others.
- mmahemoff 14y ago
  It's not a jab. It's just different community norms. HN wouldn't be HN if people were allowed to open up 10-level nested comedy threads. If I want to read those - and sometimes I do - I know I can go to Reddit.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > It's not a jab. It is a jab. > It's just different community norms. There are no "community norms" for reddit, each subreddit has its own norms and things which work in one may get all your comments mod-deleted in an other.
    - libria 14y ago
      > It is a jab. By "jab" do you mean derogatory remark? Does that not depend on the poster's perception of Reddit? If one considers them equal but different, then the remark is merely one of contrast. > each subreddit has its own norms Granted... > There are no "community norms" for reddit From what I've observed, there most definitely are. Their forms of humor are often upvoted across subreddits (e.g., inside jokes, meme's, animated gif's in lieu of discourse). This is how I interpret the reddit "jab" comparison: go there for funny, come here for info; neither is better than the other. If you personally feel HN is superior to reddit, than I can see why you'd consider it a jab.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
willvarfar 14y ago
So these students failed. A new batch will be back next year, and they'll not slip up this way - they could well be creating wikipedia aliases already in preparation for taking the course later, for example, or using other collaborative sources. The key thing is that reddit hasn't just saved us. It hasn't just demonstrated you cannot put out bias and falsehood on the Internet. Its just whacked a mole because the students were, well, students.
- scott_w 14y ago
  I don't think it's about success or failure. What's more interesting is how the different communities responded to the attempted hoaxes. This can help us understand how different hoaxes, memes etc. are spread and how they are, or aren't, debunked.
rbanffy 14y ago
I feel strangely compelled to check on Reddit if this really happened ;-)
cafard 14y ago
How big a feat is fooling Wikipedia? I doubt I look 50 pages per year.
- uxp 14y ago
  It's not hard. A friend of mine nicknamed a very rare disease on Wikipedia. A few months to a year later a news organization used the Wikipedia page's nickname for the disease when writing an article for it. He then cited the use of that nickname on the Wikipedia page with the news article, and thus, the nickname had a validated citation, and will possibly never go away.
  - Robin_Message 14y ago
    Obligatory xkcd refernce: http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/
    - DenisM 14y ago
      Now you'll have to wonder if the events in the parent post were inspired by the xkcd comic you cited. :)
SagelyGuru 14y ago
I posted some comments below laying out the reasons why I don't like this. I got heavily downvoted and the majority opinion is clearly against me, saying essentially that he is a great teacher with the white hat for teaching everyone not to believe what they read on the internet. I guess I ought to gracefully admit defeat and bow out to oblivion. Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. You seem to consider this to be of some great educational value but I must admit that the value escapes me. Let me extrapolate one step further. What is the point of reading anything if it is all likely to be false? Exactly. Stop reading and sit on your dumb asses watching TV.
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  Snipping some insults in return and focusing on the issue here: "graduates, all experts at disinformation" — snort!?!? The world is full of experts in disinformation, and they're not the graduates of a short University course on History that couldn't even fool reddit (no offense redditors!) They are politicians, lobbyists, campaigners of all political stripes, bureaucrats, journalists, historians etc. Knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff (and knowing it necessary to do so) is half the point of education, especially in History. And that's what the professor is helping achieve, not a systematic destruction of the written word through a single demonstration as part of a 3 credit University course. Experts at disinformation my hat!
- eru 14y ago
  And you think not having this one course will make it easier for you to keep your illusions?
- tytso 14y ago
  >Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. As others have pointed out, masters of disinformation have existed long before this class existed. To take just one example, if you're left-leaning, Fox News (to liberals, Faux News). If you agree with Fox News, then you'll consider everything from the the "Mainstream Media" (or "Lamestream Media") to be disinformation. Furthermore, there is a grand tradition in explaining about how the "darks arts" are done so you can defend against it. In order to devise defenses to nerve gas, you need to understand how to effectively deploy nerve gas. If you want to understand how politicians and other masters of disinformation use statistics, the book "How To Lie Using Statistics" is an invaluable guide. > What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Yes, this. You should never blindly trust anything that you read. That's what critical thinking is all about. The point of reading is to find alternate points of view and information that you might not have known before, but everything should be cross-checked to some degree. In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class). But the point of what people are trying to point out with respect to wikipedia is that just because one Wikipedia article has been proven to have a reliable secondary source of information, aggregating multiple primary sources into a handy reference article, is absolutely no guarantee that that particular article will continue to be reliable, or that any other Wikipedia article is guaranteed to be reliable. Using Wikipedia to expose yourself to something that you didn't know before: Good. Not cross-checking anything you read at Wikipedia with primary source material to learn more and to verify the facts that you found in the Wikipedia article? Foolhardy.
sevenstar 14y ago
The top of the page says, "...helps reveal the shifting nature of the truth on the Internet". It makes it sound like the ►internet is a different reality. The internet is just a reflection of what is already going on in the world. What people do offline is what people do online.

135 points by sasvari 14y ago

I'm ashamed to admit in my youth I created a fake Wikipedia page in a couple hours (between 3 and 5AM) that lasted for months before a friend of mine accidentally exposed it as fake by being silly in the talk section. It was flagged as dubious because the date that the fictional piece the fictional composer I created had supposedly been performed the day of a new Pope's election didn't match the date on that Pope's wikipedia article. Turns out we had the right date and the Pope's wikipedia article the wrong one. So our hoax ended up resulting in another article being corrected. From then on, anyone who looked at the talk page saw that someone had already flagged the page as dubious but that it had been resolved in our favour. This gave the hoax quite a bit of credibility. Made me realize how easy it is to create convincing hoaxes.

rangibaby 14y ago
Or the person who had an extra name added by a Wikipedia editor, which was then copied by mainstream media. The hoaxers then used that as a citation, creating "truth". Wow!
- DanBC 14y ago
  Well, wikipedia doesn't talk about truth, but about verifiability. That's a bit of a problem because most people (even most wp editors) don't get the difference. Certainly people visiting wp expect it to be both truthful and verifiable.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    Well "verifiability" means the ability to show that it is true. Something verifiable is demonstrably true. WP verifiability means something different. 'being cited as true by a trusted source' seems close but you can't blame users for Wikipedia's misuse of a word. Of course that just shifts the focus to what is a trusted source ... presumably the answer is one that is true ... I can prove it too ... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verify http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verify [lol!].

kulkarnic 14y ago

I'd rather have a link to the actual Atlantic web page for this story, not the Print view. It's at http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-the-professor-who-fooled-wikipedia-got-caught-by-reddit/257134/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-th... I think directly linking to the print view is dishonest: telling the Atlantic you plan to print an article, and instead posting it to HN is essentially stealing their ad revenue. PS: Even if you claim ads are distracting and this is actually a service to the community, I'd rather install ad blockers and make such decisions myself.

reneherse 14y ago
What annoys me is the complete loss of affordances for navigation, date, author info, context, etc.
masklinn 14y ago
I often prefer print pages for BI-type "articles" where 300 works are split across 5 different pages, but yeah in this case the article is a single page originally, and the site's own chrome isn't overbearing. There was no reason to link to the print version.

masklinn 14y ago

> It's tough to con Reddit. That is debatable, Reddit has been conned a lot in the past. But one error when trying to con the site seems to be too much information: many users apparently love snooping around and digging (and are pretty good at it), so giving more information initially makes claims more credible, but also gives more strings on which users can pull risking unraveling the whole thing. Furthermore, there's a high level of dependency on the subreddit in which things go "viral", some subreddits are far more credulous than others (and credulity depends on the subject matter as well, you can get both /r/atheism and /r/libertarian to lap up claims unchecked, but it's unlikely the same claim will work on both) (this also means hoaxes are far more likely to unravel as they spread outside of a given subreddit and get wider exposure in the community)

wyck 14y ago
Exactly, the hive mind at work, for example: http://gawker.com/5751581/misguided-internet-vigilantes-attack-college-students-cancer-fundraiser http://gawker.com/5751581/misguided-internet-vigilantes-atta... Also every once and a while a hoax reaches the front page, usually some highly suspect family situation or someone finding a treasure chest in their basement and asking reddit what to do.

tomdtpink 14y ago

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tomdtpink 14y ago

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tomdtpink 14y ago

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SagelyGuru 14y ago

I wonder if you also find this professor really really objectionable? I certainly do. First off, any bona-fide academic ought to have respect for the truth, not deliberately set out to build his carreer on lies. One has to wonder: does he also encourage lies in academic publications? Does the publishing outlet, i.e. traditional paper journal versus the internet justify that much difference to the principle of being honest in research? I think anyone this confused about the necessity of the truth should not be an academic. If I was his colleague, I would support steps to have his tenure terminated forthwith. Secondly, the techniques prof. Kelly teaches and employs are classical disinformation tools, as practiced by Hitler, KGB and other such illustrious preceptors of his. Presumably some of his college funding is intended 'for the public good'. I really question prof. Kelly's idea that expanding the skills base in the disinformation field is for the public good. Thirdly, and most importantly, one has to ask: what is his real agenda? Clearly it is to disable/discredit/damage/destroy the free exchange of valid information on the internet. If there ever was a real 'information terrorist' it must be him.

cirwin 14y ago
I agree that this behaviour is quite objectionable, though for a subtly different reason. In particular it's not a case of malicious spreading of misinformation, it seems that in the case that the hoax worked the lies were deleted. Rather it's a case of abusing a public resource. It feels to me somewhat like training a group of school-children to play Rugby on a village bowling green. Sure the damage to the grass will be undone over time, and sure the chance of knocking over any real old ladies is very small; but it's still an irreverent gesture that shows a dangerous lack of respect. In the real world we have checks to make sure this kind of behaviour doesn't get too out of hand; on the internet we've so far managed to avoid the need. I hope that continues.
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  That certainly makes sense. But hopefully, since he is in some sense a public figure, we rely on him to make sure the good done is in excess of any damage caused, since he would be censured if that were not the cases. For example, if he had got students to break into museums and make actual changes to historical documents with bleach and ink, he'd make the cons more believable but the harm would be too great. I don't think he did cross that line though. Some solutions if he did: what if he escrowed (and set a time to release) the pranks in case they aren't caught? What about donating to wikipedia, since it's their green they are mainly playing rugby on?

spodek 14y ago

Speaking of Reddit, People on HN often jab them when they discipline others for violating community norms, as in "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." Not once have I seen the Reddit jab helpful. I've only seen it superfluous and petty. I like people saying "Please keep on topic," but why jab another community? I don't even use Reddit. I say this hoping it helps people simply remind others of this community's norms without needlessly jabbing others.

mmahemoff 14y ago
It's not a jab. It's just different community norms. HN wouldn't be HN if people were allowed to open up 10-level nested comedy threads. If I want to read those - and sometimes I do - I know I can go to Reddit.
- masklinn 14y ago
  > It's not a jab. It is a jab. > It's just different community norms. There are no "community norms" for reddit, each subreddit has its own norms and things which work in one may get all your comments mod-deleted in an other.
  - libria 14y ago
    > It is a jab. By "jab" do you mean derogatory remark? Does that not depend on the poster's perception of Reddit? If one considers them equal but different, then the remark is merely one of contrast. > each subreddit has its own norms Granted... > There are no "community norms" for reddit From what I've observed, there most definitely are. Their forms of humor are often upvoted across subreddits (e.g., inside jokes, meme's, animated gif's in lieu of discourse). This is how I interpret the reddit "jab" comparison: go there for funny, come here for info; neither is better than the other. If you personally feel HN is superior to reddit, than I can see why you'd consider it a jab.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

willvarfar 14y ago

So these students failed. A new batch will be back next year, and they'll not slip up this way - they could well be creating wikipedia aliases already in preparation for taking the course later, for example, or using other collaborative sources. The key thing is that reddit hasn't just saved us. It hasn't just demonstrated you cannot put out bias and falsehood on the Internet. Its just whacked a mole because the students were, well, students.

scott_w 14y ago
I don't think it's about success or failure. What's more interesting is how the different communities responded to the attempted hoaxes. This can help us understand how different hoaxes, memes etc. are spread and how they are, or aren't, debunked.

rbanffy 14y ago

I feel strangely compelled to check on Reddit if this really happened ;-)

cafard 14y ago

How big a feat is fooling Wikipedia? I doubt I look 50 pages per year.

uxp 14y ago
It's not hard. A friend of mine nicknamed a very rare disease on Wikipedia. A few months to a year later a news organization used the Wikipedia page's nickname for the disease when writing an article for it. He then cited the use of that nickname on the Wikipedia page with the news article, and thus, the nickname had a validated citation, and will possibly never go away.
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  Obligatory xkcd refernce: http://xkcd.com/978/ http://xkcd.com/978/
  - DenisM 14y ago
    Now you'll have to wonder if the events in the parent post were inspired by the xkcd comic you cited. :)

SagelyGuru 14y ago

I posted some comments below laying out the reasons why I don't like this. I got heavily downvoted and the majority opinion is clearly against me, saying essentially that he is a great teacher with the white hat for teaching everyone not to believe what they read on the internet. I guess I ought to gracefully admit defeat and bow out to oblivion. Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. You seem to consider this to be of some great educational value but I must admit that the value escapes me. Let me extrapolate one step further. What is the point of reading anything if it is all likely to be false? Exactly. Stop reading and sit on your dumb asses watching TV.

Robin_Message 14y ago
Snipping some insults in return and focusing on the issue here: "graduates, all experts at disinformation" — snort!?!? The world is full of experts in disinformation, and they're not the graduates of a short University course on History that couldn't even fool reddit (no offense redditors!) They are politicians, lobbyists, campaigners of all political stripes, bureaucrats, journalists, historians etc. Knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff (and knowing it necessary to do so) is half the point of education, especially in History. And that's what the professor is helping achieve, not a systematic destruction of the written word through a single demonstration as part of a 3 credit University course. Experts at disinformation my hat!
eru 14y ago
And you think not having this one course will make it easier for you to keep your illusions?
tytso 14y ago
>Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. As others have pointed out, masters of disinformation have existed long before this class existed. To take just one example, if you're left-leaning, Fox News (to liberals, Faux News). If you agree with Fox News, then you'll consider everything from the the "Mainstream Media" (or "Lamestream Media") to be disinformation. Furthermore, there is a grand tradition in explaining about how the "darks arts" are done so you can defend against it. In order to devise defenses to nerve gas, you need to understand how to effectively deploy nerve gas. If you want to understand how politicians and other masters of disinformation use statistics, the book "How To Lie Using Statistics" is an invaluable guide. > What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. Yes, this. You should never blindly trust anything that you read. That's what critical thinking is all about. The point of reading is to find alternate points of view and information that you might not have known before, but everything should be cross-checked to some degree. In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class). But the point of what people are trying to point out with respect to wikipedia is that just because one Wikipedia article has been proven to have a reliable secondary source of information, aggregating multiple primary sources into a handy reference article, is absolutely no guarantee that that particular article will continue to be reliable, or that any other Wikipedia article is guaranteed to be reliable. Using Wikipedia to expose yourself to something that you didn't know before: Good. Not cross-checking anything you read at Wikipedia with primary source material to learn more and to verify the facts that you found in the Wikipedia article? Foolhardy.

sevenstar 14y ago

The top of the page says, "...helps reveal the shifting nature of the truth on the Internet". It makes it sound like the ►internet is a different reality. The internet is just a reflection of what is already going on in the world. What people do offline is what people do online.