Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 8 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein asserts that Wikipedia editors "has been deleting within minutes any mention of eligibility issues surrounding Barack Obama's presidency, with administrators kicking off anyone who writes about the subject," citing the experience of "Wikipedia user 'Jerusalem21'" in trying to add the information to Obama's page.
What you won't learn from Klein's article: "Jerusalem21" may very well be Klein himself.
As the posting history of "Jerusalem21" demonstrates, the only other Wikipedia article "Jerusalem21" has edited is the one on ... Aaron Klein. Indeed, "Jerusalem21" created the article on Klein and added numerous links and pictures. This alone strongly suggests that "Jerusalem21" is either Klein or someone close to him acting on his behalf, if not his direction.
Don't take our word for it. Here are a couple comments from the discussion area for Klein's Wiki page and its puffery-laden claims:
- "We might surmise that the subject is once again editing his own article."
- "This article in its current state is absolute garbage. It reads as a total puff piece and was obviously heavily influenced by Klein himself and cronies/sockpuppets at WND."
Full disclosure: We've previously attempted to add factual information about Klein to his page that we've previously reported at ConWebWatch -- much of which was deleted by "Jerusalem21." Ironically, it appears that Klein is guilty of doing the exact same thing to our edits that he's accusing Wikipedia editors of doing to the edits by "Jerusalem21."
Now it's Klein's turn to disclose. Is he "Jerusalem21," or is that person acting on Klein's orders? He needs to stop pretending he's not writing about himself.
UPDATE: An alert ConWebWatch reader alerts us that Klein fails to mention the existence of an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the Obama citizenship conspiracy.
UPDATE 2: NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard regurgitates Klein's story. But then again, Sheppard also embraced a guy who believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories.
UPDATE 3: We've published an expanded version of this post over at Huffington Post.
UPDATE 4: This is not the first attack WND has made against Wikipedia.
UPDATE 5: Klein denies he's Jerusalem21 -- but WND has scrubbed his story of all references to Jerusalem21.
