I wonder what that person's answer was when as a kid they got asked what they want to be when they grow up. Fireman? Astronaut? Pedophile PR? Well congratulations.
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
440 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
81078 readers
4029 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Coincidentally, when I was poking around https://jmail.world/ after the first tranche released, there was correspondence with the exact person talking about editing Wiki and Google seo for Epstein himself.
https://www.theverge.com/report/876081/jeffrey-epstein-files-seo-google-digital-footprint-emails
I have wondered the same about scammers. Like, if their mother knew they were going to do that with their life, she'd probably regret all of that wasted effort raising them.
Or their mothers just did a terrible job of raising them. Look at J.D. Vance and his street urchin mother.
I haven’t heard. What’s the deal with Vance’s mom?
I guess it's fixed now... there are 61 mentions of Epstein on his page lol.
Good ol' Streisand, coming to save us from people's bullshit coverups.
Paid editors are a scourge on wikipedia. Everyone with an axe to grind hires them. From revisionists trying to rehabilitate feudalism, or any of history's great monsters it appears, to any monied interests. Whether it's a polluting industry, and or a company exploiting workers in SE Asia in virtual slave labour, or a government official somewhere, there are dudes on wikipedia that are paid to do these things.
Wikipedia is only a good source on non controversial topics, at least unless you look at the actual sources submitted and can cut through the agendas, something most people can't seem to do well honestly.
Wikipedia is only a good source on non controversial topics
There's research showing that controversial topics ultimately get better Wikipedia articles, because they get more attention, and because editors more strongly feel the need to get good quality sources.
Very true, I've had whole cited paragraphs removed by non-registered users. Of course, IF you've got the time, you can look through the article history pages. For recently embarassed subjects, it's not hard to spot the deletions over the past month or two, as they're colored in red.
at least unless you look at the actual sources submitted
You can't check the source for information that's entirely been omitted. In any case, never assume Wikipedia provides the full story, or even a condensed and accurate one. What has been mentioned might be correct, but the devil is in what's been left out.
Wait, so this editor made paid edits without disclosure and was not banned on the spot? And then it came back to add more edits? At least its banned now, right?
It doesn't say when they told Wikipedia about the paid editing, but once Wikipedia investigated it they banned them and denied the appeal. The account never came back to make more edits after they were discovered.
That editor has since been blocked for making undisclosed paid changes.
Ok, I misunderstood this part. I tough it means they can't do more undisclosed paid edits.
Wonder what other pages they "edited"
Hope all its edits get audited
Of course! As soon as this kind of thing comes to light, the pitchforks come out. The checkusers have some advanced tools to find linked bad-actor accounts, for example.
It's a good thing that lots of people have full backups of wikipedia.
I saved a copy for myself at the start of 2025. It took about 23GB of space if I'm remembering right. Maybe I'll burn a blu-ray copy for long term storage
You should print it out: 
Is that the compressed version? Kiwix's latest copy is roughly 100GB including images.
I assume it was a subset of languages. Only EN is much smaller than full with all languages.
Wikipedia isn't important because of its data. Rather because of the fact it is continuously updated, extended, and fixed at a gigantic scale.
If Wikipedia ever dies, its information will lose relevance by the day. After a decade or two without a similar-scale replacement, will anyone even care?
No, the data itself is inherently valuable even when it's a little bit dated. We don't need daily updates to learn about historical events, methods of irrigation, 20th century election results, mineral composition of transistors and diodes, and millions of other well-documented topics. It's an incredible resource of collected knowledge with immense inherent value.
Imagine having a collection of Wikipedia backups and disclosing that on a first date.
What are we reading today, babe? 2020q1, the Covid hoaxes? Yeah, that's the shit.
