An interesting post at Velvet Glove, Iron Fist details the many, many Wikipedia sockpuppets under the control of Independent journalist Johann Hari:
Johann Hari, the plagiarist and liar, has been allowed to keep working at the Independent despite being caught bang to rights as a fraudulent troll. I was barely aware of this fellow’s existence until his journalistic techniques were exposed a few months ago. They should have been enough to get him sacked. Instead, the Independent have let him off with a whining, self-serving apology.
More interesting than the shoddy journalism is the Wikipedia trolling. Rumours have abounded for some time that ‘David Rose’ — Hari’s number one fan on the internet — is Hari himself. This has now been confirmed by the bubonic plagiarist. He operated several sockpuppets on Wikipedia to make himself out to be, as Nick Cohen put it, “one of the essential writers of our time”. More seriously, he has also persistently edited the Wiki pages of people he dislikes, including Cohen, with libellous glee. This, too, is not a sackable offence at the Independent.
Nothing is deleted on Wikipedia and the entries of David Rose (or ‘David r from meth productions’) stand as a testimony to the extraordinary scale and range of Hari’s six year trolling campaign. Certain themes emerge. Much of his time was spent emphasising his own importance as a major cultural figure. He pushes to have his every award and nomination put centre stage. As a left-wing journalist, he is eager to downplay his privileged education. He consistently edits the pages of his heroes such as Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot to portray them in their best light. He repeatedly edits his enemies to make them look like racists, or thugs, or loonies.
H/T to James Delingpole for the link.
