Wikipedia as defense industry propaganda tool

A co-worker showed me a neat trick last week: how to look up who has written what on Wikipedia!

Could I use this new tool to discover whether defense contractors use Wikipedia to spread propaganda about their products, or, alternatively, to trash their rivals?

The answer, as you'll see, is definitely yes!

Here's how it goes: Every time someone creates a new page or edits an existing one, they create a digital trail that can be tracked. The authors can be identified not by name, but by their IP address – the Internet’s equivalent of a forensic-quality fingerprint.

Without further ado, here’s what I’ve found so far:

-- On March 6, 2006, someone using a Boeing IP address re-fought the Joint Strike Fighter competition, explaining that Lockheed Martin’s victory was not due to superior performance but because the “Air Force did not want an airplane monopoly”, adding: “The Boeing entry, which was designed for ease of manufacture, may be, in retrospect, the better choice due to its lower cost and less complex design.” (This particular edit has since been removed.)

-- On February 14, 2007, a Boeing employee made a small change to the page for the C-17, adding the word “amazing” in this sentence: “The Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) C-17 Globemaster III is an amazing strategic airlifter manufactured by Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.”

-- On April 26, 2007, a Lockheed Martin IP address was used to modify the page for the Hellfire II missile, inserting a couple of gratuitous sentences about the status of the Hellfire’s would-be replacement – the Joint Common Missile (JCM). After a sentence explaining that JCM was cancelled, the Lockheed user added: “… although some military and industry sources have produced data showing JCM is the most cost-effective way of adding performance across multiple platforms to meet projected threat growth on a timely basis.”

These are just a few examples. Feel free to go dig for yourselves. Here’s the link you need. Just type in a company’s name into the search bar, and search for edits by IP address. Good hunting!