I can't believe I missed this. Apparently on Monday, Colbert's "Word" segment was on "Wikipediality" ...:
Colbert goes on to declare that he doesn't believe George Washington had slaves.
"If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact."
Here's the fun part - Colbert actually did this. The Wikipedia articles on his show and George Washington were both edited by the user Stephencolbert to reflect the changes he declared on air as he tapped at his computer around 23:35 UTC - which is 6:35pm on the East Coast, during the taping of his show, hours before it aired.
It gets better.
Colbert then urged his audience to find the Wikipedia entry on elephants and create an entry that stated their population had tripled in the last six months, a fact he freely stated to not know if it was "actually true," with his sidebar stating "it isn't."
Guess what happened next? Scores of internet users took Colbert's bait, repeatedly vandalizing approximately 20 articles on elephants before all being placed under a lock. The move also subsequently caused Wikipedia administrator Tawker to block Stephen Colbert from the website, reportedly to verify his identity.
-- Stephen Colbert Causes Chaos on Wikipedia, Gets Blocked from Site"If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact."
Here's the fun part - Colbert actually did this. The Wikipedia articles on his show and George Washington were both edited by the user Stephencolbert to reflect the changes he declared on air as he tapped at his computer around 23:35 UTC - which is 6:35pm on the East Coast, during the taping of his show, hours before it aired.
It gets better.
Colbert then urged his audience to find the Wikipedia entry on elephants and create an entry that stated their population had tripled in the last six months, a fact he freely stated to not know if it was "actually true," with his sidebar stating "it isn't."
Guess what happened next? Scores of internet users took Colbert's bait, repeatedly vandalizing approximately 20 articles on elephants before all being placed under a lock. The move also subsequently caused Wikipedia administrator Tawker to block Stephen Colbert from the website, reportedly to verify his identity.
It's good to note that the Wikipedia seems to have survived the assault. Funny as hell, just probably not to the fine folks who admin the place.
Update: speaking of things I missed - I'll have to find this on the net later.
tagged: colbert report, wikipedia
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