Computers linked to Polish internet addresses have made nearly 130 spam edits to Wikipedia in a blatant effort to promote the campaign websites of Conservative candidates in target seats, Political Scrapbook can reveal. The news comes after staff for the Tories’ controversial election guru Lynton Crosby were caught removing legitimate, sourced criticism of him from the crowd-sourced website.
Wikipedia rules state that new information should carry a reference at the bottom of the page. But the changes ostensibly made via Eastern Europe either insert the names of Tory candidates with directly-clickable links to their campaign pages or — in a move which lays bare the motivation for the edits — replaces accurate, properly-formatted and referenced information about a Conservative candidate with a direct link.
The edits were made over the course of at least three days earlier this month and from at least three IP addresses (37.30.22.112, 37.31.23.238 and 46.204.191.75). Reverse DNS lookups show that the addresses are associated with hosts on subdomains of t-mobile.pl, the domain of T-Mobile’s Polish operation — suggesting the culprit may have been using a mobile SIM.
Spending days making boring spam edits to Wikipedia doesn’t seem to Scrapbook like the kind of activity undertaken without payment.