By
Jeffrey Simons
“The control of
information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form
of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control
information, you can control people.”
-- Tom Clancy
“On March 14, 2013, at a
sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered what
was considered to be a racially-insensitive remark at a candidate running for
the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative. Frazier apologized for his remarks several
days later.”
The exchange was caught on
tape by CDT reporter Mike Dawson and posted to youtube:
Frazier’s apology came in
the form of a Centre Daily Times letter on 3/17/13, and once again we were all asked to put this
behind us and move on.
However, the story behind
Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page is a little more revealing, one that undermines
the sincerity of his apology and shows how he is still trying to control the
narrative, even when it comes to public information about himself.
Wikipedia is a web based
encyclopedic resource, created and maintained entirely by a community of
registered volunteer users. Pages can be
created, edited, re-edited, or updated by any number of public users at any
time. There is a group of moderators who
can lock pages to prevent further updates and temporarily ban users if the
edits violate the rules governing the users.
(For a full account of the following actions, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenneth_Frazier&offset=&limit=500&action=history)
(For a full account of the following actions, please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenneth_Frazier&offset=&limit=500&action=history)
On the morning of March 17,
2013 – before Frazier’s apology had run in the CDT – a user with the screen
name “BroadSt Bully” restored a paragraph that had been deleted 2 days before
describing Frazier’s role in hiring Louis Freeh and firing Joe Paterno. BroadSt Bully also added a paragraph about
the racially insensitive comment made by Frazier 3 days earlier:
On March 14, 2013, at a sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered a racist and bigoted remark at a candidate running for the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative.
On March 14, 2013, at a sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered a racist and bigoted remark at a candidate running for the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative.
BroadSt Bully also removed
the qualifier “blue ribbon” which described the Special Investigative Task
Force (“commission”).
12 hours later, a user
identified only by his IP address 67.165.19.29 removed both of those
paragraphs. This IP address traces back
to a Comcast user in Doylestown, PA.
3 hours later, a user in the
Netherlands (possibly an administrator) restored the paragraphs with the
qualifying edit note:
“The previous
edit deleted balancing material that provides criticism of the figure in
question. Wikipedia articles are not "fluff pieces" that say only
positive things”
Approximately 14 hours later (11:54 18 March 2013), the
previous user once again deleted these 2 paragraphs. 40 minutes later, they were restored by an
admin in Connecticut.
Merck Corporate Works on the Cover-up
An hour later a user identified by the IP address
155.91.28.231 once again removed those paragraphs. However, this IP address traced back to a
corporate ISP: Merck.
General IP Information
IP:
|
155.91.28.231
|
Decimal:
|
2606439655
|
Hostname:
|
155.91.28.231
|
ISP:
|
Merck and Co.
|
Organization:
|
Merck and Co.
|
Services:
|
|
Type:
|
|
Assignment:
|
|
Blacklist:
|
Geolocation Information
Country:
|
United States
 |
State/Region:
|
New Jersey
|
City:
|
Old Bridge
|
Latitude:
|
40.3958 (40°
23′ 44.88″ N)
|
Longitude:
|
-74.3255 (74°
19′ 31.80″ W)
|
Area Code:
|
732
|
Postal Code:
|
08857
|
And then the internet sparks began to fly. Over the next 3 hours, users would attempt to
restore those 2 paragraphs, only to be deleted within minutes by the Merck
user.
At 14:03 user “Cornmd” restores the 2 paragraphs. 14:15 the Merck IP address deletes them.
At 14:16 user “Ubiquity” restores the 2 paragraphs. 14:21 the Merck IP address deletes them.
At 14:22 user “BroadSt Bully” restores the 2
paragraphs. 14:22 the Merck IP address
deletes them.
User “Arctic Kangaroo” tries to restore the paragraphs
and within minutes, the Merck IP address deletes them. Arctic Kangaroo restores the content at
14:25, at which point the content is temporarily removed for discussion by
“Edgar181” at 14:31.
At 14:39 BroadSt Bully restores the content with the edit
note: “Re-added sourced material. User's IP address traces to Merck,
who is Frazier's employer”
At
14:57 BroadSt Bully adds titles to the 2 paragraphs “Jerry Sandusky sex
scandal” and “Racially insensitive outburst."
At 15:30 the Merck user deletes them. Over the next 2 hours, the Merck user makes 5 more attempts to delete content, and add flattering career highlights for Ken Frazier, until an admin warns him that he is violating 4 different Wikipedia terms of service.
Five minutes later, the Wikipedia admins lock down edits of the Wikipedia page.
Two hours later, the Merck user is blocked for one month from editing ANY web pages.
At 15:30 the Merck user deletes them. Over the next 2 hours, the Merck user makes 5 more attempts to delete content, and add flattering career highlights for Ken Frazier, until an admin warns him that he is violating 4 different Wikipedia terms of service.
Five minutes later, the Wikipedia admins lock down edits of the Wikipedia page.
Two hours later, the Merck user is blocked for one month from editing ANY web pages.
This
was not the first time this user was blocked by Wikipedia. Here is the discipline history of
155.91.28.231 which warranted the one month penalty for “disruptive editing”:
21:53,
18 March 2013 Ronhjones (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon.
only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 month (Disruptive
editing)
22:21, 10 July 2012 Materialscientist (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry
time of 1 week (Copyright violations)
20:11, 7 November 2008 RoySmith (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only) with an expiry time of 24
hours (Repeated reversion of text to Yak shaving contrary to prior AFD decision)
22:13, 25 January 2006 Hall Monitor (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with an expiry time of 48 hours (massive
content removal)
21:00, 1 December 2005 Brian0918 (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with
an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalisms)
Previous edit on Freeh Report entry on Frazier's wiki page
Interesting to note Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page had a
previous edit disputed.
On October 21,
2012, a user named “Callancc” described the Freeh report as being accepted
“without review, but was reported to be riddled with conjecture, research with
gaping holes, and unsubstantiated conclusions.”
It was revised on November 5, 2012 by an IP address from Boston
University to say the Freeh report was accepted “and used as the basis for the
NCAA sanctions against Penn State.” With the edit note:
“The last
sentence was ridiculously partisan, clearly there only to attempt to discredit
the Freeh report which was widely seen as fair and thoroughly done.”)
The
Merck user created an account on Wikipedia on October 10, 2005 and spent most
of his early time updating the Wikipedia pages of Ann Coulter and Ron Dellums
(a long time member of the House of Representatives from California, who became
the Mayor of Oakland in 2007).
Controlling the PSU Narrative
Ken
Frazier’s comments to Bill Cluck had been widely circulated among the Penn
State community the day he made them, but they never reached a global audience
until they were posted in Wikipedia.
There is a dogged determination from this Merck user to remove this
content from Wikipedia. In addition, the Merck IT team has been hard at work over the weekend to bury any negative articles circulating about Frazier on the internet and pumping up his bio and other positive articles as they appear in google searches.
Once again, it
appears that Frazier is trying to control the narrative by controlling the
information available to the public.
Which begs the question, what audience is he really trying to control?
