Saskatoon police delete Wikipedia content about police brutality
CBC News reports (March 31) that someone using a Saskatoon police computer blanked information on the infamous "starlight tours" from the article on the Saskatoon Police Service. The "starlight tours" involved "police taking aboriginal men and women to the edge of the city in the winter and abandoning them". The practice has been linked to several deaths; a report published in 2004 after a government inquiry advocated adding aboriginal officers to the force.
The deletions (e.g. [1], [2], [3]) were spotted by university student Addison Herman:
The deletion came to light when Herman started to research the Saskatoon police as part of a history class.
He went to the Wikipedia page on the Saskatoon Police Service.
"I noticed there was no section on the starlight tours. So I looked in the article history and there was an IP address that took it off the page," he said in an interview.
"I looked at the info for the registration on the IP address, and that IP address pretty much is registered to Saskatoon Police Service, which means that a computer from their office went on Wikipedia and took it off."
And it happened more than once. The section was deleted, added back and then deleted again between 2012 and 2013.
A Saskatoon police spokeswoman confirmed deletions were made from one of their computers, but said it would be impossible to identify the person who made the edits, as server logs are only kept for 30 days. The story has also been picked up by CTV News.
In brief
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- Best deleted articles: Gawker's Ashley Feinberg has another round-up of "the best articles Wikipedia deleted this week". (March 31)
- Gender gap: The Huffington Post and Verily Magazine cover the gender gap. (March 29, 31)
- Wikipedia editing replaces "unappealing essays": Times Higher Education reports on University of Sydney assessments asking students to edit and write Wikipedia articles. (March 31)
- Mustaine: Loudwire has the second second installment of its Dave Mustaine interview. (March 30)
- Angola: The Angola Wikipedia Zero story (see detailed report in last week's "In the media") has attracted further coverage in Forbes, Tech Times, PC Magazine, Firstpost and Engadget. (March 27–30)
Discuss this story
Saskatoon Police Service, welcome to the Streisand effect. Jonathunder (talk) 20:51, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I love these "Wikipedia: act or Fiction" videos, though I'm getting a bit burned out on heavy metal. The genre goes back to at least 2009 with WBEZ's "Wikipedia files". A lazy journalist does his homework by printing out a Wikipedia article, maybe highlights a few phrases, and then just lets the subject talk about his or her Wikipdia article. I think every BLP article should have one. You get to see the subject move, hear them talk, behave admirably or otherwise. A picture is worth a thousand words - this type of video is worth a billion. My favorite is in the Ice-T article: quote "fuck Wikipedia".
Most subjects end up saying the article is just a bit off, but often it seems more like spin or quibbling.
Setting up the external video template takes a bit of time, but the hardest part is finding a photo that kinda matches the video. There's been lot's of talk about a "right of response" in BLP articles. Anybody who can make a video and put it on YouTube already has that right - just let me know on my talk page. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:04, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]