Big (Ambani) brother is watching over Wikipedia

Sidin Vadukut — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:02:00 GMT

Blogger and sofware consultant Debashish has an intriguing post at his blog Null Pointer:

Recently while adding some information (link to a Hindi Podcast that dwelled on the subject of the first stone pelting student at the “Reliance Fresh” outlet at Ranchi) to the English Wikipedia article Reliance Fresh I came across a user “Ril editor” who would repeatedly delete my entry. The user is apparently a worker of Mukesh Ambani who keeps an eye on anything “malicious” towards the company and promptly deletes it.

Check on user "Ril editor"'s profile and the wording is ominous:

This id is being used by the Chairman's office (Office of Mr. Mukesh D Ambani) at Reliance Industries Limited from Mumbai - India. Information updated from this ID should not be changed or removed as the information from this ID originates from Mr. Mukesh Ambani's office and will be authentic.

Active since September 2006 the user has been regularly making changes to just a few pages on the free online encyclopedia: those of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani, Ambani confidant Anand Jain and, rarely, Reliance Fresh.

There are the odd typos being corrected but the "Ril editor" has also removed negative references including the stone pelting mentioned by Debashish above and also corrected Mukesh Ambani's entry when someone mentioned that he "dropped out" of business school.

The entire list of "Ril editor"'s correction can be seen here.

A cursory glance at the edits made by "Ril editor" shows that the user does not seem to be uploading falsifications or propaganda of any kind. But any changes to those critical Mukesh Ambani pages are being watched very carefully indeed.

Personally I like the fact that companies take their Wikipedia pages seriously. But having a user id whose information "should not be changed" because it is from the MDs office is a little spooky.

Know of any other companies that guard their Wikipedia pages closely?

Drop us a line and tell.

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Play Things : Mukesh Ambani

Big (Ambani) brother is watching over Wikipedia