An East German tribe called Vandal was known for looting and barbarianism. Barbarian and senseless destruction is known as vandalism after the Vandals. Legally, the deliberate act of destroying any property with an object to disfigure or defame anyone or to achieve some religious, political, or social objective is termed ‘vandalism.’ Some common acts of vandalism are: breaking window panes, damaging tires, spray painting walls with graffiti, and damaging a computer system through use of malware or through the introduction of a virus. Vandalism is a punishable crime, and the sentence depends upon the damage caused by the activity. Wikipedia is one of the most famous Websites in the world. It is mostly used by readers, authors, Wiki administrators, and system administrators. Everyone is allowed to add, delete, edit, or amend the contents of a Wiki page, and the reliability of a Wiki depends upon the degree of accessibility available to the users. Pages with limited access for editing require registration and are more reliable. The openness of Wiki is its beauty and simultaneously its weakness. The development of Wikipedia is like the process of evolution which, according to the theory, only the fittest can survive which only allows the selected species to survive.

1. Fuzzy Zoeller litigation

The professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, who is a member of the Naples National Golf Club, filed a lawsuit through his attorney Scott D. Sheftall against a Miami education consulting firm, Joseph Silny and Associates. It was alleged that someone using a computer at this facility vandalized Zoeller’s profile at Wikipedia. The following defamatory and false paragraphs were appended in his profile by the accused: ”¦After popping a handful of Vicodin pills, he further detailed the violent nature of his disease, recalling how he’d viciously beat his wife Dianne and their four children while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.’ According to the lawsuit, the posting damaged Zoeller’s reputation, caused mental agony and a loss of income. The page has been removed.

2. Seigenthaler Incident

Also known as the ‘Wikipedia biography controversy,’ the event began in May, 2005 with an online publishing of a biography of John Seigenthaler at Wikipedia. John Seigenthaler is a famous American journalist, and in the hoax article he was shown as a suspect in the assassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy and the Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The 78-year-old journalist called it ‘Internet character assassination.’ The hoax remained undiscovered for four months before it could be corrected. Seigenthaler wrote about his experience in USA Today. The incident caused dissatisfaction and questioned the reliability of the user-generated collaborated articles. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, banned and closed the Wiki page to check into further exploitation of the issue.

3. Definition of ‘Muslim’

The word ‘Muslim’ has been one of the most vandalized terms on Wikipedia. Corrections are made instantaneously, and at times they have been made about 12 times a day. This type of vandalism reflects bigotry and religious intolerance. Insulting, uncouth, and abusive language has been frequently used while defining the word ‘Muslim.’ Perhaps no other act of vandalism has caused more unrest in these modern times among the Muslims all over the world than the use of insulting words for them and their religion. One of the Wiki definitions of ‘Muslim’ was ‘an adherent of Islam that blows up innocent civilians by means of suicide bombing.’

4. Stephen Colbert’s Case

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian and political satirist best known for hosting the satirical news TV show The Colbert Report.  Many times he has made reference to Wikipedia, suggesting his viewers should vandalize selected Wiki pages. During a show in 2006, while it was on air, he publicly vandalized the Wiki article ‘Elephant.’ Consequently, Colbert was blocked from editing many elephant-related articles at Wikipedia. Prompted by a Fox News hypothesis, Colbert suggested his viewers to edit Wiki pages relating to Republican vice-presidential candidates. On account of the actions of viewers, Wikipedia administrators put the relevant Wiki pages under semi-protection. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, discussed the issue with Colbert on the May 24, 2007 episode of his show and jokingly remarked that he might have to lock the Spanish language Wikipedia pages completely for a few days.

5. Polish Wikipedia

Insertion of obscene pictures or profane language on Wiki pages is also a frequently used mode of vandalization A Wikipedia user from Lodz vandalized the Polish Wikipedia throughout the year 2006 and during the early months of the following year. He inserted profane material and obscene pictures on Wiki pages at random. His Internet provider, Neostrada, did not take any corrective or preventive action. Wikipedia initiated an action against him and not only was he  deprived from an Internet connection but also whole the city of Lodz had to be banned from editing Wiki pages for three days.

6. Miley Cyrus’ Death Hoax

Miley Cyrus is the famous teen star of the popular Disney television series Hannah Montana. Wikipedia falsely reported her death on September 5, 2008 stating that her vehicle was hit by a truck at a speed of 55 mph. According to the false report, she was rushed to Pacific Alliance Medical Center in a critical condition. Very soon the shocking news broke to the fans that she had succumbed to her injuries during surgery. The hoax was soon exposed, and the Post Chronicle reported ‘The post is a hoax planted by a cruel prankster on Digg.com and the ever-reliable Wikipedia.com.’

7. George W. Bush

George W. Bush’s Wiki page is the most vandalized with more than 42,000 edits, and most of them are vandalism. This was obviously on account of political opposition. In 2005, a new feature in the software was introduced by Wikipedia to lock selected pages and prevent their editing by anonymous users. Using an IP address and newly created accounts, the software provided what is termed as semi-protection. To test the effectiveness of this feature, it was applied to highly vandalized George W. Bush and John Kerry Wiki pages. The system decreased vandalism noticeably.

8. Bertrand Meyer Hoax

Bertrand Meyer was born in Paris in 1950. He is best known for creating the Eiffel programming language. He received his bachelor’s degree from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from the Universite de Nancy. An unknown user of German Wikipedia made an announcement about his death through his posting on the Internet. The announcement remained there for five days prior to being noticed by media in Germany and Switzerland. Meyer remarked about the hoax ‘The system succumbed to one of its potential flaws and quickly healed itself. This doesn’t affect the big picture. Just like those about me, rumors about Wikipedia’s downfall have been grossly exaggerated.’

9. Defamation of Tony Blair

According to Times Online, a Wiki in February, 2006 about Tony Blair stated that posters of Adolf Hitler were hung by him in his bedroom while he was a teenager. The posting also alleged that he started a false war against Saddam Hussein. The Wiki page was considered a political platform and vulnerable to vandalism for vested purposes by the political opponents. Taking a serious note of the incident, Wikipedia investigated to find any possibility of the postings coming from the House of Commons.

10. Collective Noun

The Wikipedia editors detect vandalism at the earliest stage and try to correct it as soon as possible. Nevertheless, the vandalized postings are viewed by many users before they are corrected. The vandalized version is kept as historical. On a Wiki page, ‘Collective Noun’ was defined as ‘This is so boring, dude.’ In linguistics, a collective noun is a word used to define a group of objects. These objects can be people, animals, emotions, or inanimate things. For example, in the phrase ‘a pride of lions,’ a ‘pride’ is a collective noun.  Wikipedia states about this page that ‘This is an old version of this page edited by 75.178.1777.210 (talk) at 23:05, 32 August, 2009. It may differ from the current revision.’

Conclusion:

A study by IBM researchers revealed that ‘vandalism is usually repaired extremely quickly ”œ so quickly that most users will never see its effects.’ It was also inferred from the study that Wikipedia had surprisingly self-healing capabilities and more than 42 percent of the damage was repaired almost immediately, still leaving a large number of damaged and unreliable articles available for use or unintentional misuse by many users who are unaware of the hidden misinformation.