Shapps contacts Wikipedia founder over allegations he edited profiles
Tory party chairman Grant Shapps has claimed he spoke to the Wikipedia boss, amid allegations of editing his own profile and those of political rivals.
After being mocked by senior politicians this week for denying that he edited his Wikipedia page and those of his rivals, Shapps sought to clear his name by directly speaking to Jimmy Wales.
Shapps told the Welwyn Hatfield Times: “He [Wales] said that the administrator who had posted (we now know he’s a Lib Dem activist) quote to the Guardian didn’t represent the ‘corporate position of Wikipedia’.”
The tory party chairman also said that an internal Wikipedia investgation had been triggered
The site blocked a user account called ‘Contribsx’ saying it was being used for those purposes by him “or someone acting on his behalf”. Shapps told the paper, that the Wikipedia administrator that had banned the account should have instead raised it with their bosses.
A third of the changes were to Shapps’ own entry, with embarrassing references to his past deleted, while the rest were “largely unflattering changes” to the pages of political rivals, including fellow Tories. Wikipedia’s administrators said: “Based on the evidence the account is either run by Shapps directly or by someone else – an assistant or a PR agency – but under his clear direction.”
Shapps, who is co-ordinating the Conservatives’ election campaign, dismissed the claim as “some random story” and “categorically false and defamatory,” adding that “nobody has ever been authorised to make such changes”.
His team said that on one of the four occasions when changes were made, he was in synagogue for Yom Kippur.
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