#1
Online
Post rating: +++++
so I came across this story recently... theres this wikipedia editor called Philip Cross that edits a lot of wikipedia entries. a LOT. in fact hes been active every single day for the last 5 years, including Christmas etc, so 1721 days in a row, and over 14 years he's accumulated 133,612 edits. Theres a lot of questions about if hes a single guy, or some pseudonym used by a collective, or if it's being paid for or if it's just a true believer.

but regardless of the answer there, the user has a clear agenda: he targets anyone who defies the neocon line on foreign policy, he pushes the labour anti-semite scandal hard, and so on. like anytime someone in right-wing media attacks a left figure, he hops onto wikipedia and edits the attack into the target's entry, or he goes through and deletes things that might put left-wing perspectives in a good light, usually using wikipedia rules technicalities to do so. He seems to march in lockstep with Oliver Kamm and Nick Cohen specifically, transcribing all their stuff into wikipedia wherever he can do so, and he also cleans up right wing media wikipedia entries, taking out things that reflect poorly on them.

heres a quick example of the sort of things he does absolutely everywhere he can, in this case to the keyboardist from ska bnand Madness:

this specific example underscores a fundamental shortcoming with wikipedia, which is that it only allows "official" msm sources, thus edits like the above can be "correctly" applied, as the detail about this guys corbyn support can apparently only be included in a wikipedia article if covered by theguardian or some other site that will obviously never give the left any column inches, thus keeping these details off wikipedia entirely.

heres a somewhat longer primer about "Cross":
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/the-philip-cross-affair/

And here's haaretz running the now typical interference, saying "Russian media" and "Kremlin-backed media" are on a witch hunt:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/russian-and-leftists-witch-hunt-against-pro-israel-wikipedia-editor-1.6115917

This post is all just recapped from Craig Murray's blogs. Murray also points out that when the Philip Cross conspiracy started coming out, no less than wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales himself (who has the same politics as Cross btw) started going at people on twitter in defense of Cross, telling them they didnt understand how wikipedia works, etc. And the official wikimedia account did some of the same. so now wikipedia itself is involved, elevating this a bit more from "lone wolf" status

But what really pushes this over the top into full-fledged media conspiracy comes from another of Craig's updates. the twitter account associated with "Philip Cross" was completely unknown, and why shouldn't it be, since this is allegedly some completely anonymous right-wing shut-in, and NOT a paid operative or some mover and shaker in right politics. But as this story starts to unfurl, Murray checked the twitter account's followers, and what does he find?

“Philip Cross” has just 200 Twitter followers, but has more MSM journalists following him than are to be found among my 42,300 twitter followers.

...

Why then does James LeMesurier, founder of the “White Helmets”, follow Philip Cross on twitter? Why does ex-minister Tristram Hunt follow Philip Cross on Twitter? Why does Sarah Brown, wife of Gordon, follow Philip Cross on twitter?

Why then do so the following corporate and state journalists follow “Philip Cross” on twitter?

Oliver Kamm, Leader Writer The Times
Nick Cohen, Columnist The Guardian/Observer
Joan Smith, Columnist The Independent
Leslie Felperin, Film Columnist The Guardian
Kate Connolly, Foreign Correspondent The Guardian/Observer
Lisa O’Carroll, Brexit Correspondent The Guardian
James Bloodorth, Columnist The Independent
Cristina Criddle, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme
Sarah Baxter, Deputy Editor, The Sunday Times
Iain Watson, Political Correspondent, The BBC
Caroline Wheeler, Deputy Political Editor, the Sunday Times
Jennifer Chevalier, CBC ex-BBC
Dani Garavelli, Scotland on Sunday

Prominent Freelancers

Bonnie Greer (frequently in The Guardian)
Mason Boycott-Owen (The Guardian, New Statesman)
Marko Attilla Hoare (The Guardian)
Kirsty Hughes
Guy Walters (BBC)
Paul Canning

Let me recap, The official story is that “Philip Cross” is an obscure and dedicated Wikipedia editor who edits every single day for five years. His twitter feed has never contained any “news”. Yet among the 160 followers he had last week before the media spotlight was turned upon him, were all these MSM journalists, many more than follow anyone but the most prominent individuals, more than follow an activist like me. Plus big figures like Sarah Brown, Tristram Hunt and James Le Mesurier. What does this tell us about who Philip Cross is.

The largest single category of Philip Cross’s historic 160 followers is anti-left and anti-Corbyn twitter accounts, especially those that specialise in making accusations of anti-semitism against left wing or anti-war figures. These include:

UK Media Watch “promoting accurate coverage of Israel”; ALT Putin’s Capitalist Wealth “@medialenswipe”; Antinat; Jeremy Corbin Prime Minister; Jewish News; Anti-Nazis Utd ; Labour Against Anti-Semitism; Jews Aganst Jeremy Corbyn. A very much larger number of individual followers of “Philip Cross” have twitter streams which predominantly consist of attacks on Jeremy Corbyn or the anti-war left in general, and of vociferous support for Israel. Of personal interest to me, there are at least seventeen of Philip Cross’s supporters who have made utterly unprovoked attacks on me on social media over the last twelve months.


so, somehow all these media figures were following this supposed schlub who sits on wikipedia all day. are they just big fans of the wikipedia editing scene? or (as is obviously the case) is this some right wing cabal who were all "in the know" on this guy, and what he was doing, and how he was working for them, editing wikipedia on a fairly massive scale?

Edited by ilmdge ()

#2
[account deactivated]
#3
Post rating: +
If they're following him that's probably so they can DM with each other.
#4
Post rating: +
readspooks.org
#5
Post rating: +
#6
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
the cross line to cover up the boss line
#7
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
if anyone still thinks Wales’s interest is simply to defend the “integrity” of Wikipedia as an information source, fyi he’s a Randroid Wall Streeter whose latest political involvement was as adviser to one of those go-nowhere technocratic single-issue presidential campaigns, if there is beige he is of it and if there is a beigist class he is in it
#8
Post rating: ~
i watched a clip of george galloway talking about this on his radio show and how he had with help from friends identified a 'vulnerable individual' who is philip cross (including his address etc) and also a 'powerful individual' who was somehow exploiting philip cross to post stuff. in his garbled old man way of talking about internet things it was hard to tell how seriously to take this but it occurs to me that what they might have is a philip cross whose details correspond with an IP address associated with the wiki account, and if that person is not capable of posting what has appeared under that account, perhaps it's a matter of certain people hijacking the IP as cover? hard to say but intriguing nonetheless
#9
Post rating: +
ahh holy lol
#10
[account deactivated]
#11
Post rating: +
From 2007:
"Wikipedia Edited by CIA Computers"

Among the pages that were edited by the CIA individual(s), we find:
The 2003 invasion of Iraq (modified on 2004-11-09 15:57:47)
William Colby (modified on 2005-06-23 22:45:00, 2005-06-24 16:32:11, 2005-06-24 16:34:19 and 2006-06-20 18:32:45)
The Iraq Intelligence Commission (modified on 2005-06-30 21:27:22)
The Central Intelligence Agency (modified on 2005-07-18 17:54:46)
The United States Intelligence Community (modified on 2005-08-15 15:05:43)
Ahmed Chalabi (modified on 2005-12-09 18:13:04)
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (modified on 2005-12-15 16:38:49)
The National Counter Terrorism Center (modified on 2005-12-22 16:24:26)
The National Security Council (modified on 2005-12-27 13:42:09 and 2005-12-27 13:44:14)
Porter J. Goss (modified on 2006-01-25 00:08:00 and 2006-01-25 00:10:10)
George Tenet (modified on 2006-02-10 10:36:53)
Kyle Foggo (modified on 2006-05-08 17:00:42)
Encryption (modified on 2006-10-27 16:41:05)
The list of Yale University student organizations (modified on 2007-01-23 23:54:42)
China and Weapons of Mass Destruction (modified on 2007-02-05 17:27:24)
The Director of National Intelligence (modified on 2007-04-24 20:07:24).


the author of the above draws some parallels with the P.Cross affair

#12
Post rating: ~
Why read Wikipedia when you can just read Marx?¿?
#13
[account deactivated]