![]() Whitaker's football career plays an important part in this investigation. It contains the false statement that Whitaker was awarded the prestigious Academic All-American honor while playing college football. A resume that Whitaker sent to WPM is included in the released documents. ![]() Other suspicious edits include the creation of the English Wikipedia article on Whitaker as a possible autobiography. "Joe jobs" are possible, where a user account is created to embarrass the named person. It should be remembered, of course, that no purely on-wiki evidence can prove the editor's real world name. Attorney General is unprecedented.Ī Signpost investigation of the released documents has revealed that an editor with an account name almost identical to that of a WPM PR agent, as named in the FOIA release edited the article on Whitaker, adding external links in the text to both WPM's website and Whitaker's law office. But the possible combination of edits made by outright scammers with the possible participation of an official who later achieved a position as high as Acting U.S. Politicians and government officials have also edited articles promoting their careers, including Corey Stewart, who ran in the 2017 Virginia Republican gubernatorial primary while telling CNN of his campaign's Wikipedia edits. For example, editing by employees of binary options scammer Banc de Binary was at times openly declared. The FOIA release included an email from the head of the scam company, which stated "Let's build a Wikipedia page and use Whitaker to make it credible." The editing of Wikipedia articles by scammers is nothing new. Four hundred former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials have petitioned Trump to replace Whitaker. The appointment is being challenged as unconstitutional in several court cases because it avoids the process of confirmation by the Senate. His November 7 appointment by President Donald Trump is widely viewed as having the potential to limit the Mueller investigation into the President. Whitaker's selection would be controversial even without his involvement in an obvious patent scam. WPM was fined $26 million, the total of its alleged fraudulent take, and was shut down by the FTC in May of 2018. The company was a scam, taking up to $400,000 from any hopeful inventor it could hook, while providing few if any services to them. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker's work on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing (WPM). On November 30, 2018, the United States Federal Trade Commission released a series of emails and other documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) related to the Acting U.S. That is why we are bringing this to you, the readers: Like the rest of Wikipedia, we also value consensus in determining what to publish-and not just the local consensus that may be achieved in the newsroom. We write for you, so your input is paramount in deciding the content of what we write and if you write, we publish. While the support is encouraging, the criticisms, some of which are borderline personal attacks and harrassment in a venue that is considered by some to be a safe haven from our Wikipedia policies, and complaints tell us where we may be falling short of the hopes and expectations of our readers.Īt The Signpost, as in Wikipedia generally, the readers come first. Prior issues have contained content which criticized specific people, and which reported on conflicts and controversies between particular users reader responses have been mixed, with some condemning it, others criticizing it, and still others commending the commentary. For example, what type of Wikimedian-specific content, if any, should we cover? Are critical pieces of specific Foundation members acceptable? What about controversies surrounding members of the community, such as chapter board members or notable Wikimedians? Is the line drawn at trawling AN/I for juicy threads, or is that acceptable, too? At what point does investigative journalism become sensationalism, or community news become gossip? One of the struggles that has recently cropped up is in how to deal with reporting that involves specific members of the Wikipedian community and wider Wikimedia movement. As anyone paying attention to The Signpost this year has noticed, the publication has been struggling.
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