Comment by hansword
3 years ago
All the comments here are positive, the range is from slightly amused to comparing her to Borges (rofl).
I didn't like it the moment I heard this, but now contrarian mode has kicked in:
Why isn't this destruction of essential information infrastructure? Why isn't this a 'fuck you' to the millions of volunteer hours W is based on? Why isn't this potentially infecting millions of minds with lies?
Why isn't this absolutely deplorable?
(COI Statement: i am a wikipedia editor for 15+ years, I am a member of my local wikimedia chapter)
Completely agree. If she had released this in a different medium it would be a wonderfully fun achievement (which I think is what most of the comments are responding to), but what she actually did is quite literally a detriment to humanity. It goes against basic, fundamental principles of what it means to be a good person.
> Why isn't this destruction of essential information infrastructure?
Because it doesn't scale. Unlike spam / fake news, the effort to take down something like this is smaller than the effort of creating it.
Now sadly when people start using GPT-4 for the same thing, the balance changes, and we're not far from that..I'm much more worried about that.
That's an interesting take on balance. Although, the determination, not to speak of the will, would usually add to a sentence, the plain damage taken as base-line by some meassure, whereas the individu prospect of future damage is a priori limited by the hope that measurate judgement will deter, because you shan't condem future crimes before they happen.
The problem with fake information on Wikipedia is that poorly sourced documents will source it, which will then be sourced by Wikipedia down the line until the misinformation is self- legitimized.
I'm also quite surprised that the impact this could have on how the Chinese view Russia and Russians in general is not mentioned. It's likely not major (I'm not sure how easy it is to access the Chinese Wiki in there), but I'd imagine it's non-negligible.
> Why isn't this destruction of essential information infrastructure
It may be deemed "vandalism" by seasoned editors, though Arb might chose more salient descriptors.
I don't recall right now what the legal opinion on destruction of data is, ie. irrecoverable erasure in the most trivial case, and I think they wouldn't introduce specific new laws around IT systems if it were that easy. But if it is, then analogies from destruction to somewhat impeding property is well precedented (in .de) even if it's entirely reversable in theory.
1mil words isn't that much work though, so I'd consider this a fairly quick end and not exactly news.
Probably because it's not merely destruction but creation with volume. As a wikipedia reader I guess I have the luxury to laugh about it knowing stuff like this is eventually discovered and corrected
It's of little help to you if it is corrected a day or decade after you read the article.
The thing to remember is to check the cited sources whenever the information is remotely important to you.
See https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... or this from Charles Seife:
"Wikipedia is like an old and eccentric uncle. He can be a lot of fun—over the years he's seen a lot, and he can tell a great story. He's also no dummy; he's accumulated a lot of information and has some strong opinions about what he's gathered. You can learn quite a bit from him. But take everything he says with a grain of salt. A lot of the things he thinks he knows for sure aren't quite right, or are taken out of context. And when it comes down to it, sometimes he believes things that are a little bit, well, nuts. If it ever matters to you whether something he said is real or fictional, it's crucial to check it out with a more reliable source."
—Charles Seife, Virtual Unreality, Appendix, "The top ten dicta of the internet skeptic", Dictum no. 1.
Charles Seife describes my feeling about every scientific or journalistic text I read.
What he does not describe is my disability to understand most topics good enough to find out if a source is reliable or not. That a paper got into a famous money-making journal certainly is not a guarantee for reliability.
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Controversial, but I largely disagree. I don’t think I’ve ever read the wiki page on something I’m an expert on and found any inaccuracies that weren’t due to advances in the last couple of years.
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I have a herd of elephants. I decide one day I get them all really really well fed, and then lead them to the marketplace where they then take a really really big dump on the stalls and the produce and the sellers and the customers. In the end, everything and everyone is just covered, and people are walking knee-deep in elephant poo.
That's not merely destruction but creation with volume.
Though my personal experience with Wikipedia editors has been imperfect, thank you for your commitment to providing accurate information, thank you for your service.
Even worse, what if it isn't a single actor on a single website but a whole swarm of army faking humanity?
E.g. The CCP recently declared that Hong Kong was never a colony of the UK, but "under ruling of a colonial government" [1]
1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-61810263
Are we aware that in China, people mostly support Russia's invasion to Ukraine because of state level propaganda?
I don’t really see how that example is supposed to be that egregious?
“A colony of the UK” vs “under the ruling of a colonial government” are pretty similar.
Given that the basis of the UK’s colonization of Hong Kong was based on a treaty granting it control over the territory for 150 years, after which it was returned to China. The Chinese portrayal seems apt, given that it was a temporary, though long, occupation.
> The CCP recently declared that Hong Kong was never a colony of the UK, but "under ruling of a colonial government"
Is this supposed to be a difference of fact or a difference of perspective? Colonies are ruled by colonial governments.
edit: e.g. if I kidnap a woman and force her to marry me, her family may not want to refer to her as my ex-wife after they get her back.
> E.g. The CCP recently declared that Hong Kong was never a colony of the UK, but "under ruling of a colonial government" [1]
I don’t really understand the strenuous objection to this. This seems less like “1984-style rewriting of history” and more like completely routine nationalism that you see all around the world.
"You don't need to cite that the sky is blue" applies.
The thing is, in cz.WP they could do that if they want.
> Are we aware that in China, people mostly support Russia's invasion to Ukraine because of state level propaganda?
I cannot say that because of state propaganda I became aware of that. But I sense that you are low key shilling, no offence, so yeah
Yeah this problem affects all countries to varying degrees. Usually not as bad as the CCP. Most of the west have no opinion or don’t support Yemen against the oppressive Saudis who are backed by the US and more of the west. Same issues: propaganda/how News and media is handled.
To be clear: The Russian Govt invasion of Ukraine is awful. They are completely in the wrong. Putin needs to go and another strong man duplicate must not replace him. Don’t get me started on how bad the CCP is!
What always does my head in here is Wikipedia's claim or requirement to present a "Neutral Point of View".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie...
Theoretically, this would mean "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
The way that Wikipedia justifies not presenting, say, Russian or Chinese views on global politics as prominently as Western views is that Russian and Chinese sources are simply not "reliable".
But of course, that merely begs the question.
In a way, it would be interesting to read a publication that really does present all the competing narratives, if only to learn what people elsewhere are told by their media.
The downside is that it would contain not just different viewpoints but also an even greater number of outright lies, as one would actively have to abandon any attempt to present the truth to the best of one's ability. :/
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>Are we aware that in China, people mostly support Russia's invasion to Ukraine because of state level propaganda?
Are you aware that in USA people mostly supported Middle East invasion because of state-level propaganda? China isn't an outlier here.
> essential information infrastructure
lol
I completely agree. This almost feels like a state-sanctioned act. Isn't "Fake News" the theme of the last six years? It's undoing pieces of our society. This is just one more log on the fire.
Wikipedia, despite all odds, has proven the most effective distributor of facts of our time. Shame on those who undermine its credibility.
No, "Fake News" is a term coined to allow a blanket dismissal of anything made public that political leaders don't want to be heard. There certainly can be factual falsehoods in news, and it is worth evaluating how well news organizations are reporting facts... but "Fake News" was the opening salvo before following up with stating that fact-checking is insulting.
Let us not validate the concept by embracing the term. It is a weasel word for people who want to promote their own flavor of misinformation.
As far as Wikipedia goes, this shows a loophole that needs to be closed. I'm amused by it - I can also understand why others are not.
One nit:
"Fake News" is now exactly as you describe: "a term to allow a blanket dismissal of anything made public that political leaders don't want to be heard."
However, IIRC, the original coinage of the term was about disinformation and/or news organizations that consistently traded in misinformation or disinformation.
The speed with which it got co-opted by political leaders as a blanket dismissal was impressive. I'm not sure it even lasted months in its initial meaning.
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The website reporting this is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Tone
But the story is perfectly real: the link to the community discussion on Wikipedia checks out.
Chinese state media do enjoy reporting – often intelligently – on Wikipedia's foibles (I've been quoted by them a number of times). And I have sometimes wished Western media were equally diligent about digging up stories like this, rather than always reflexively singing Wikipedia's praises. Wikipedia would actually profit from the scrutiny, as I and some Signpost colleagues pointed out at the 2015 WikiConference:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Journalism_and_the_o...
(The Signpost is the English Wikipedia's community newspaper, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost )
But it is also clear that this Sixth Tone article is designed to support a political narrative. I would not completely exclude the possibility that it was a state-sponsored effort. The apology the user posted (in Chinese) on the English Wikipedia (someone linked it below) does read quite wooden (I had DeepL translate it). On the other hand, this may simply reflect cultural differences.
This is not serious because if you believe something you read online, you are a sucker.
I am not saying that this is funny or anything, but I feel like it's irrelevant. I assume many articles contain lies or are downright fabricated. This just confirms my assumption, and makes me think of how many things like this one are left to discover yet.
Everyone is a sucker?
I would not believe anyone who claimed they did not believe something they read online. What is the distinction between online and offline these days as a source of information?
It made sense when online was a bunch of random people with no businesses or editors behind it. But when all major organizations and institutions have an online presence, it seems meaningless to differentiate online and offline.