Virgil Griffith’s WikiScanner has already outed politicos, company spokesmen, and college employees as occasional, but biased, contributors to Wikipedia. Now the site has managed something a bit more surprising: It has prompted Johan Friso, the prince of Holland, to admit that he too did a bit of tinkering with the encyclopedia.
According to The New York Times, Mr. Friso took issue with a Wikipedia’s article on his wife, Mabel Wisse Smit. The article stated that the princess had provided the Dutch government with “incomplete and false information” about a liaison she had had with a drug dealer, but early last year someone in the Dutch royal palace softened the clause by removing the words “and false.” The couple now say they were the culprits.
The contested Wikipedia entry has been locked down, but it’s likely that the prince and princess, now suitably chastened, would have stayed away from the Web site anyway. —Brock Read
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