"Zlatan Ibrahimovic has a brazen and arrogant style of playing football." This and other questionable information about Sweden's number one soccer striker can be found on the Swedish version of Wikipedia. The online encyclopaedia is known and appreciated for its openness. Everyone can go online and share individual knowledge. But this openness also means there's a risk of spreading untrue claims.
The Swedish television channel TV8 reports that several Wikipedia articles on celebrities and politicians here have been edited to provide false information. Thanks to the computers' id's - the IP-addresses - TV8 was able to prove that the edits were made from computers located in the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. And because you can look up the history of every edit in Wikipedia articles, it is possible to tell which information was rewritten or simply deleted.
TV8 tracked down 55 edits in Wikipedia made by either members of parliament or their staff. Each was made during working hours, in other words paid for with tax money. Some of the edits are smears on Swedish and international celebrities such as the American actor George Clooney, who is described as a Communist. Other edits have simply lead to the removal of sensitive information about politicians.
Apparently this clandestine method of deleting unpleasant information can be found among every political party. If you're looking for the article about Green MP Ywonne Ruwaida and the allegations she might have improperly used her parliamentary credit card: Well, you won't find that article anymore.
The same goes for Christian Democrat MP Mikael Oscarsson. The paragraph on Oscarsson's complete opposition to any kind of abortion has been deleted - making the Christian Democrat look a little more moderate on the Web.
It remains to be seen if TV8's revelations will have any consequences and if honest Wikipedia users as well as the Swedish tax-payers will ever find out who is responsible for the dishonest editing of online articles.
