Russian Media Scores Own Goal

Russian Media’s Lies are Exposed

Media companies throughout the world are beginning to learn that some of the dubious practices they have taken part in over the years, don’t really work in the modern, digital age.   The days where a newspaper or a TV station can effectively control the news feed are virtually gone.  Fortunately there are reliable sources of information online too like the BBC World News for example.

There is the odd exception, places like North Korea are still living in the 20th century thanks to a digital lock down and a paranoid dictatorship.   They also seem slightly insane, just recently announcing to the population that the North Korean Football team had reached the World Cup Final (despite not being there or even qualifying).

Here’s the mocked up shot from the Youtube video with Kim Jong-Un receiving the plaudits in Rio.  We’re not quite sure if it’s really been released by the North Korean state media or if it’s just a spoof.  Either eventuality is equally likely and indeed North Korea have done this before.

But for the rest of us, the truth is out there and tends to be fairly accessible despite the best efforts of certain world Governments.  This is what the Russian State media have just found out, and are left looking even more guilty than when they started.

The allegations refer to the ill advised edit of a Wikipedia page recording the Malaysian Airlines (MH17) disaster which took the lives of 298 innocent people. The page described the disaster as being caused by

“by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation.”

However about an hour later the Wiki page was changed to

“the plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers.”

Nice little subtle change which completely shifts the blame from Russian State supported rebels to Ukranian soldiers. The problem was that whoever did it, rather amateurishly did it from a computer owned by the All-Russia State television and Radio Broadcasting Company. Like the vast majority of websites, all IP addresses are logged and recorded and indeed on Wikipedia they are even publicly displayed which is how a Twitter Bot picked up the edits.

Your IP address is linked to the computer you are using and unless you take steps to hide it and stay anonymous, such as using Identity Cloaker then it could potentially become public knowledge.  Wikipedia edits are always being highlighted in these situations from technically naive individuals trying to make sneaky changes.  Politicians, celebrities and media employees in all sorts of areas are always being caught, indeed I’ve seen a local footballer once being caught modifying the ‘goals scored’ stats on his own page!

 

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