CongressEdits

CongressEdits was written by and was run by Ed Summers, who was inspired by a friend's tweet about Parliament WikiEdits,[2] which performs the same function for the staffers of Parliament of the United Kingdom.[3] It has since been credited for inspiring additional bots for Australia,[4] Canada,[5] South Africa,[6] Switzerland,[7] The Netherlands,[8] Israel,[9] Chile,[10][11] Italy[12] and Greece.[13] Summers wrote that his "hope for @congressedits wasn't to expose inanity, or belittle our elected officials."[14] He emphasized that he did not see edits to such articles as Step Up 3D, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or Horse head mask as "something to make fun of," and points to "substantial edits like changing a Congressperson's party affiliation from Democrat to Independent."[15] Ultimately, he wanted to see Congressional staffers log into Wikipedia, identifying themselves to use their knowledge of the issues and history to help make Wikipedia better.[11]

Tweets since November 6, 2017 included screenshots of the specific changes made to the article.[16]

The code for the bot itself is open-source software,[17] and can be configured to watch for anonymous edits from any IP ranges or individual IP addresses.

On July 25, 2014, Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales told the BBC that the @congressedits Twitter feed may have been counterproductive. Referring to a Wikipedia administrator's 10-day editing block, imposed on July 24 against a shared address within the range assigned to the U.S House of Representatives, for disruptive editing, Wales said, "There is a belief from some of the [Wikipedia] community that it only provoked someone—some prankster there in the office—to have an audience now for the pranks, and actually encouraged them rather than discouraged them."[18]

CongressEdits was credited[19] with bringing to light edits to Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture by a United States Senate shared address on December 9 and 10, 2014, which removed the phrase "(a euphemism for torture)", with revision notes of "removing bias"; however, these edits were soon reverted.

In 2017, the bot revealed many instances of disruptive edits by apparent Congressional interns,[20] ranging from commentary on pop culture[21] to inserting unsourced and controversial information about living people[22] to direct communication with followers of the account.[20][23]

In September and early October 2018, during the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court appointment hearings, Republican senators were doxxed by Congressional IP editors who inserted home addresses and phone numbers into Wikipedia articles. The private information was tweeted to the bot's approximately 65,000 followers before it was removed from the articles.[24] Following additional doxxing by Congressional IP editors, Twitter suspended the account.[25]

A Democratic staffer named Jackson Cosko, who had worked as a systems administrator for senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and had been fired before the incident, used a colleague's key to sneak into the office, install keylogging software, and collect personal information on senators.[26] He was arrested, charged with 7 crimes, and eventually convicted in the court case United States of America v. Jackson A. Cosko.[27][28][26] Cosko was sentenced to four years in prison.[26]

• United States Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia

• Hughes, Sarah Anne (July 14, 2014). "Congress Edits On Wikipedia: It's Always Sunny, Corpus Christi, And Horse Head Mask". DCist. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014.
• Gallagher, Sean (July 11, 2014). "@Congressedits tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits from Capitol Hill". Ars Technica.
• Levine, Gregg (July 11, 2014). "Those who do not learn history are doomed to retweet it". Al Jazeera. Archived from the original on September 28, 2018. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
• Connors, Devin (July 14, 2014). "@CongressEdits Twitter Bot Highlights Anonymous Congress Wikipedia Edits". The Escapist.
• Murphy, David (July 12, 2014). "New @congressedits Twitter Account Tracks Anonymous Wikipedia Updates". PCMag.com.
• Mak, Tim (July 14, 2014). "@CongressEdits Helps You Track Your Congressman's Vanity in Real Time". The Daily Beast.
• Garber, Megan (July 15, 2014). "Okay, Who Edited the 'Choco Taco' Wikipedia Page From Congress?". The Atlantic.
• Uberti, David (July 15, 2014). "6 Wikipedia edits made from Capitol Hill". Columbia Journalism Review.
• Collins, Ben (December 21, 2017). "The Congressional Intern Secretly Vandalizing Wikipedia". The Daily Beast.
• Beutler, William (January 17, 2019). "What Happened to CongressEdits? The Thrilling Life and Untold Death of Twitter's Most Important Wikipedia Bot".