The “Break the Wicked-Pedia Link Campaign”

Who ever thought that Joseph Farah would be my inspiration in sending an early Christmas present to victims of Wikipedia? But it was Farah who launched a “dragon-slaying mission” trying to force accountability on the free, online encyclopedia that inspired CFP techie Brian Thompson’s “Break the Wicked-Pedia Link Campaign”. “I can’t kill this beast alone. But with your help and the help of other people of goodwill and good conscience, we can defang this monstrosity,” Farah wrote in his WorldNetDaily banner column today.

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“A couple of years ago, the “editors” there claimed that I had an affair with a prominent female syndicated columnist. Now they characterize me as a “noted homosexual”. Neither one of these accusations has any basis in truth, of course.” “Joseph Francis Farah is an Evangelical Christian American journalist and noted homosexual of Lebanese and Syrian heritage,” was Wikipedia’s latest slime job on the publisher of WND. Tossing the word homosexuality in the same sentence with 
Evangelical Christian” was bound to get reader attention. And of course, Christmas has become the most popular time to victimize Christians and Christianity. Someone should ask Wikipedia what a “noted” homosexual is, and notice how the self-touted “online collaborative encyclopedia” which caters to everything politically correct identifies Farah “of Lebanese and Syrian heritage”. This from a multi-million dollar institution that Farah points out “intellectually rationalizes displays of child pornography”. “You can actually join the forum over at Wikipedia where the subject is debated openly--even while an FBI investigation continues.” Wikipedia, which boasts 684 million annual visitors, would be more honest if it climbed down from hype to identify itself for what it really is, a massive character assassin, which depends on today’s instant gratification style in what Farah calls “too many people looking for easy and cheap sources of information” and turning to this “wholly unreliable website run by political and social activists promoting their own agenda.” “Wikipedia claims “anyone” can edit its information. But, in the past, try as I might, the defamations kept coming back. I was even told I was not a reliable source of information about me. Others apparently knew me better, according to the Wikipedia gatekeepers.,” Farah wrote. That’s because Wikipedia works in such a way that you would have to be Batman to write stories, sell ads or do anything else in order to have the time to keep editing the erroneous and untrue statements on its site. That was the frustrating reality for CFP when we followed their rules to try to remove from my “biography” that I was the mistress of a well-known Holocaust denier, a man I’ve never even met. Ditto for when Wikipedia accused Yours Truly of being involved in a shakedown of Toronto restaurants with a member of the Toronto Police Force. But the most outrageous example of Wicked-Pedia at work was written by Katharine Q. Seelye in a December 4, 2005 New York Times article aptly headlined, “Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar”. For four consecutive months, Wikipedia had depicted the then 78-year-old John Seigenthaler as a suspected assassin of two Kennedys! “John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven,” stated Mr. Seigenthaler’s “biography” on Wikipedia.” Read the impact Wikipedia’s cruel treatment had on this elderly gentleman in his own words: ”At age 78, I thought I was beyond surprise or hurt at anything negative said about me. I was wrong. One sentence in the biography was true. I was Robert Kennedy’s administrative assistant in the early 1960s. I was also his pallbearer. It was mind-boggling when my son, John Seigenthaler, journalist with NBC News phoned later to say he found the same scurrilous text on Reference.com and Answers.com. “I had heard for weeks from teachers, journalists and historians about “the wonderful world of Wikipedia,” where millions of people worldwide visit daily for quick reference “facts”, composed and posted by people with no special expertise or knowledge--and sometimes by people with malice. “At my request, executives of the three websites now have removed the false content about me. But they don’t know, and can’t find out, who wrote the toxic sentences. “Mr. Seigenthaler telephoned Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s founder and asked, “Do you...have any way to know who wrote that?” “No, we don’t,” he said. “Representatives of the other two websites and their computers are programmed to copy data verbatim from Wikipedia, never checking whether it is false or factual,” said Mr. Seigenthaler. “Naturally, I want to unmask my “biographer”. And, I am interested in letting many people know that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool.” Within an hour of posting his column, Wikipedia pulled the defamatory accusation that Farah is a “noted homosexual” from its bio. Later, most of the bio was pulled. However, the cached version still remains. Wikipedia has deservedly lost a lot of face over the past few years and is scorned by media, libraries and teachers who have discovered its ugly truth. Wikipedia editors have resigned in controversial circumstances, but the website continues its character assassinations. It’s time to `Break the Wicked-Pedia Links’ and to cast them out into the cleansing sunlight. Meanwhile, Joseph Farah’s “dragon-slaying mission starts right now.