On Monday night's episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert addressed the online resource Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone can read or edit. Colbert praised Wikipedia for "wikiality," the reality that exists if you make something up and enough people agree with you - it becomes reality.
In the segment, Colbert logs on to the Wikipedia article about his show to find out whether he usually refers to Oregon as "California's Canada or Washington's Mexico." Upon learning that he has referred to Oregon as both, he demonstrates how easy it is to disregard both references and put in a completely new one (Oregon is Idaho's Portugal), declaring it "the opinion I've always held, you can look it up."
Colbert goes on to declare that he doesn't believe George Washington had slaves.
If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact.
Colbert then urged his audience to find the Wikipedia entry on elephants and create an entry that stated their population had tripled in the last six months, a fact he freely stated to not know if it was "actually true," with his sidebar stating "it isn't." Subsequently, scores of internet users took Colbert's bait, repeatedly vandalizing approximately 20 articles on elephants before all being placed under a lock.
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In the segment, Colbert logs on to the Wikipedia article about his show to find out whether he usually refers to Oregon as "California's Canada or Washington's Mexico." Upon learning that he has referred to Oregon as both, he demonstrates how easy it is to disregard both references and put in a completely new one (Oregon is Idaho's Portugal), declaring it "the opinion I've always held, you can look it up."
Colbert goes on to declare that he doesn't believe George Washington had slaves.
If I want to say he didn't that's my right, and now, thanks to Wikipedia *taps keyboard* it's also a fact.
Colbert then urged his audience to find the Wikipedia entry on elephants and create an entry that stated their population had tripled in the last six months, a fact he freely stated to not know if it was "actually true," with his sidebar stating "it isn't." Subsequently, scores of internet users took Colbert's bait, repeatedly vandalizing approximately 20 articles on elephants before all being placed under a lock.
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