Wikipedia entries for some of the candidates running for mayor next year are being re-written — by aides to those candidates.
The biography of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio used to report that he was born Warren Wilhelm.
On May 8, however, a de Blasio staffer removed that name and replaced it with word that he is of “German-American and Italian-American heritage.”
“Of course, we update the page,” said de Blasio spokesman Wiley Norvell unapologetically. “That’s become standard practice for public officials.”
The public advocate has said that he began phasing out the use of his given name while in high school because he was raised by his mother’s family. It’s not a secret, but most voters aren’t aware of the story and presume a guy named de Blasio has to be Italian.
The City Council communications office on Nov. 23 made 11 changes to council Speaker Christine Quinn’s life story on Wikipedia.
Most were minor, explaining for example that she graduated Trinity College, not just attended it.
There was also updated news from The Post that a federal investigation of the widely-publicized “slush fund” controversy was over.
Somehow, the revision removed all mention of the controversy, in which the council parked $17 million in discretionary money meant for real organizations under fictitious group names — one of the most embarrassing chapters in the council’s history.
Along the way, another entry was removed — one that accused Quinn of being impolite for chewing gum during speeches and of approving a 40 percent budget cut to the office of the Public Advocate in 2009.
“It is our job to provide the most accurate, up-to-date and complete information about every member of the New York City Council,” said Quinn spokesman Jamie McShane.
The wonder of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit its entries, which is why lots of politicians spend considerable time adding and subtracting on their own.
Naturally, the end result accentuates the positive and downplays — or even eliminates — the negatives.
But not everyone is removing information deemed unsuitable for public consumption.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office has edited his site but has left in a section labeled “Controversy,” which mentions a 2001 Village Voice story “questioning how Stringer’s parents had benefited financially from his political ties.”
Comptroller John Liu doesn’t seem to mind that the Wikipedia discussion of his fund-raising irregularities includes “foreign fund-raising issues.”
Former Comptroller Bill Thompson isn’t challenging an unflattering assessment that he wasn’t a “ferocious antagonist to Mayor Michael Bloomberg” and “smiled on his economic policies.”
“Anyone who is an intelligent person knows that Wikipedia is not reliable because anyone can go on and say anything they want about anyone,” said de Blasio’s press secretary in 2007, when he got caught up in a Wikipedia showdown as fierce supporters and opponents of Atlantic Yards repeatedly altered his site, sometimes to burnish his image, sometimes to attack him.
“It’s OK. It’s a public page. But they’re not facts.”