More BBC bias

There is a new word sweeping the blogosphere and starting to impinge on the consciousness of the MSM, that word is "Wikigate". In case you are new to this concept, I will explain; Wikigate concerns the politically biased editing of Wikipedia entries by organisations or people working within organisations. If you do not frequent the blogosphere then the first you may have heard about this in the UK would probably have been from this page on the BBC web site. This page within the technology subsection of the news area started by concentrating on claims that the CIA had been editing Wikipedia entries on the Iranian President and others. The page has now been amended to include claims that others have been doing the same, including: the Vatican, the Democratic Party in the US and Microsoft. One example this page does not include is that of the organisation that was the first to be accused this week of amending entries - the BBC.

Take a look at this page from the Wikiscanner website, it shows the ip addresses used by the BBC and you can dig into the Wikipedia edits made from these addresses. Now we know that the BBC is unbiased and reflects the full spectrum of the British people so these edits must have been to correct factual errors only, mustn't they? Don't be daft...
Here is one edit made from a BBC computer, the changing of George Bush's middle name from "Walker" to "Wanker".
Here is another changing "terrorist" to "freedom fighter".
Here is another where changes were made to Tony Blair's entry to make it seem as though his heart problems were brought on by drinking "vodka" rather than "coffee" and by exercising too much in the "bedroom" rather than the "gym".
Here is one that shows the level of BBC journalism off beautifully; a long diatribe against Islamophobia containing such phrases as "last year during the 7/7 attacks all muslims in britain were under threat. the media managed to hang a hook on them and whenever they refer to terrorists its allways Muslim terorists" and the beautifully crafted "just like how the press make up stuff about celebrities, they also make up shit about muslims. just because 4 people decided to something because of their own personal beliefs does not mean all muslims beleive the same way"; don't forget, it's our licence fee paying for these entries, do read the rest of that "edit" it's a real insight into the BBC mindset.
Here are some edits to the Wikipedia entry on the Balen report that tones down the original.
Here is one regarding the expulsion of Syrian Jews, changing "The Jews slowly left Syria after years of torture at the hands of former president Hafez Al-Assad and his government{{fact}}. Most were not allowed to leave and had to pay government officials to get out, or risk their lives by sneaking across the borders." to "Many Jews left Syria after agreement with the US in the 1990s allowed them to immigrate to Israel, although important Jewish communities still thrive in Damascus and Aleppo. Jews in Israel maintain ties to their homeland". Another insight into the BBC mind-set there.
Here is just the addition of a "?" after "Economic competence" on the page concerning the Conservative party.
Here is an addition to the entry on Tariq Aziz regarding George Bush's Christianity.
Here is an addition to the page on the Jewish National Fund which adds "Palestinians regard it as a key element of what they call Israel's 'apartheid' character in that its existence prevents non-Jewish use of the land it controls." and other claims of apartheid to the entry - I wonder if any claims regarding the apartheid nature of Saudi Arabia where non Muslims have no rights to religious assembly etc. have ever been made by someone at the BBC.
Here is a nasty one that tries to depersonalise Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by a Palestinian terrorist organisation in 1994, by changing references to "Gilad" to "Shalit" or "he".

There are more to be found and I will try and put a list up when I have the time to collate one, some are major, some are minor but they are all posted from a left wing, anti-Bush, anti-Blair, anti-USA, anti-Israel stance. For an unbiased organisation their employees do seem to all post from one political point of view.

As a nice bureaucratic organisation, the BBC do have a policy on "the responsibilities of all staff when using the email and Internet. The main principle is to safeguard the BBC network and its data." You can read it along with links to the "Obligations for Users policy" here.

The BBC has "form" in it's political bias, watch this video regarding a poster comparing George Bush to Adolf Hitler being on the wall of a BBC news room.

The bias is relentless and the licence paying public are now catching up with the blogosphere and are realising and resenting what is being promoted in their name and with their money, more strident protests may not be far off.

UPDATE:
The BBC have added a rather weaselly recognition of their part in Wikigate, right at the end of the original article is this sentence - "BBC News website users contacted the corporation to point out that the tool also revealed that people inside the BBC had made edits to Wikipedia pages."
Come, come BBC - some examples would be nice; there are some within this article, please use them.

UPDATE:
Take a look at the News Sniffer records of the changes to the BBC page on Wikigate as time has passed. A lovely change occurs between version 1 and version 2 which shows how the BBC are still smarting from George Bush's victory in the 2000 election. Version 1 includes this sentence "One in particular is Diebold, the company that supplied electronic voting machines for the controversial US election in 2000.", version 2 drops the attitude and reads "One in particular is Diebold, a company which supplies electronic voting machines in the US.".

A query on News Sniffer, why does this page show a highlighted sentence in each version when they are the same?