T.D. Adler 7 Jul 2020
An article in the Intercept last week reported that a Wikipedia editor was scrubbing the page of former Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), considered a prominent member of the shortlist to be Joe Biden’s Vice Presidental pick. The piece mentioned changes such as removing a past campaign finance scandal and Harris’ record as a hard-line prosecutor. Changes not mentioned include removals of the alleged role nepotism played in her early political career and significant favorable additions about Harris.
Other Wikipedia editors have begun working to undo the changes made to the Harris page, although many details remain missing. On Twitter, the Wikipedia editor responsible for most removals was identified as Bao Nguyen, a former volunteer organizer for the Harris campaign. Similarly, editors previously created pages for fellow Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang without disclosing their connections to them.
The Intercept article by Aida Chavez notes that in 2016, editors had been heavily involved in contributing to the article on Tim Kaine prior to him being announced as Hillary Clinton’s Vice Presidential pick. As a result, a user on Reddit created a script to monitor for activity about prospective VP picks for Biden and noticed significant editing of the page for Kamala Harris. Other Reddit users identified a single editor by the username “Bnguyen1114†as the primary party responsible for the activity.
Chavez delved into the editor’s activity on the Harris page and how he removed content potentially unfavorable to Harris. Among the edits noted was the removal of a paragraph regarding her defense of Orange County prosecutors implicated in widespread misconduct, which Nguyen claimed was removed for “proof-reading†yet not restored until after the Intercept piece. Nguyen also removed details about a campaign finance violation involving Harris’ campaign for District Attorney, removing most criticism of defenses Harris gave for the violation. A quote from Harris stating “it is not progressive to be soft on crime†was also removed by Nguyen, but restored shortly after the Intercept article.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/07/wikipedia-editors-sanitize-the-page-of-potential-biden-vp-kamala-harris/
