Thursday, February 26, 2009

David Mitchell on Twitter and Tory Wikipedia editing

Noticed David Mitchell mentioned the Conservatives changing Wikipedia in his column this week :

David Mitchell Twitter ye not, I adore Wikipedia

People who allow themselves to be made credulous by stylish typesetting and a serif font are screwed. And if Wikipedia, while being very informative in most cases, teaches a few lessons about questioning sources, then that's all to the good.

Not that that's any excuse for defacing it. Particularly not for those members of the Conservative party who falsified Titian's dates of birth and death just to stop anyone realising that David Cameron's political point-scoring on the subject was actually an own goal.

In a small way, that action is genuinely disgraceful. The Conservatives were happy to misinform the world in order to back up their boss's quip - to damage a charity that gives knowledge free to billions, for trivial political gain.

It's the act of someone who'd forge a disabled parking badge, a tiny unit of pure, sociopathic evil. Even politicians should be ashamed that they're harbouring anyone like that.

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