Howard Staff Busted Censoring, Editing Wikipedia Entries Critical Of Prime Minister

Weird Edits : "Freemasonry Is The Work Of Satan"

Wikiscanner has been getting a good workout in Australia by journalists, and researchers, curious to know just who might have been editing Wikipedia entries on Prime Minister Howard and controversial issues relating to his 11 years in power.

Why his own staff, of course.

An entry that referred to the "Mandatory detention in Australia" of illegal immigrants got a working over, with an all important "allegedly" added to a sentence that said detainees had been subjected to inhuman conditions.

Allegedly? Tell that to the eight year old girl who was detained for years, along with her parents, and was left so distraught by her experiences behind the wire that she smashed her head repeatedly into a concrete wall.

Staff in the Defence Department have also been hard at work, editing Wikipedia.

This story claims DD staff have made an astounding 5000 edits, including edits to entries on the 9/11 Truth Movement and the Pentagon Papers.

Some of the edits made by government staffers were just plain weird :

edits by department employees include adding sentences on various sites, including the additions "Freemasonry is the work of Satan", "Mormonism is the work of Satan" and "Jesus is god".

Someone needs to go and re-edit that last sentence. Everyone knows Jesus was the son of God.

Allegedly.

Defence Department officials are pissed off, and have now banned staff from wasting time editing Wikipedia. The site is in the process of being blocked by all DD computers.

No word on whether a similar crackdown will be enforced on the computers of the prime minister's staff.

Is the need to edit Wikipedia entries critical of John Howard one of the reasons why he has the largest, and most expensive, prime ministerial staff in the history of Australia?

UPDATE : Opposition leader Kevin Rudd has accused the prime minister of "editing history", before admitting that his own staff also 'fact-checks' entries on Wikipedia :

"My own personal staff, I'm sure, look through Wikipedia to make factual changes, no excuses about that, but using public service departments to make sure the truth is delivered according to Howard?"

That's a pretty pissweak argument from Rudd.

Prime ministerial Wikipedia editors have a near obsession with working on the entry for the Gang-Gang Cockatoo, but have also found the time to remove a damaging fact from the entry on Howard hugging propagandist Andrew Bolt.

Cosy.