Climategate: Wiki Distortion and Censorship?

Check the wiki entry for climategate.

Notice that editing is now blocked until the end middle of the month, which means for the whole period in which Copenhagen convenes, this entry will be the popular take on Climategate and will set the parameters of what can be debated and how:

Type in “climate gate and wiki” into google and you get an entry titled

“Climatic Research Unit email hacking incident”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

Then check the revision history

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident&action=history

(Update, Dec 9, 11.20 PM) I notice that this has become considerably longer than when I saw it this morning December 9. A number of the revisions appear to have taken place since I posted, and hopefully address the issues I commented on  here).

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This page is semi-protected.

Editing of this article by new or unregistered users is currently disabled until December 23, 2009.
See the protection policy and protection log for more details. If you cannot edit this article and you wish to make a change, you can request an edit, discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or create an account.

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Update: December 9, 11: 23

Notice the change in the notice on top of the page.

It now has the following added:

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Here is the link to the log of the change in protection level on this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=protect&page=Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident

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Now look at the article itself:

Note the distortions:

1. The title focuses on the email “hacking” and calls it an “incident.”  — trivializing the affair and placing a misleading emphasis on the outing rather than on the scientific crimes revealed.

2. The article doesn´t mention that there is good evidence to show that the emails were outed because of stonewalling of a freedom of information act (foia) request (correction: foia requests) that no  personal messages were taken, and that the emails and data were originally sent to media outlets like the BBC, which refused to publish them.

In other words, this was clearly a responsible attempt at whistle-blowing not a malicious hack.

3. The scientists who committed the wrong-doing are quoted extensively, while scores of independent scientists who have criticized the research manipulation are not quoted.

4. The wrong-doers and the comments from media sources and experts who support climate change are given far more prominence than the actual substance of wrong-doing.

5. The main critics quoted are people whom the culpable scientists had previously tried to trash. This makes it look as if the only people objecting to the cooking of data are people who were in personal conflict with the data-cookers anyway. It becomes a question of “he said, she said.”

6. Lengthy exculpatory statements by the guilty scientists are prominent. Testimony of scores of disinterested scientists and journalists who have reacted negatively to the revelations have been ignored.

4 thoughts on “Climategate: Wiki Distortion and Censorship?

  1. Pingback: Climate-Gate: Hacked Emails Set Blogosphere on Fire (Updated/Corrected) | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic

  2. Good catch! I noticed it too. Hopefully enough people have downloaded the emails so that it becomes impossible to lose, as was the “accidental fate” for the original climactic data.

    This is why I don’t want Kindle. I want to read what I want to read, without any unseen hand finding a way to censor it! Orwell was correct in 1984, but 25 years late.

  3. Pingback: Delingpole On Wiki Manipulation | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic

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