US Congress Appears To Edit Wikipedia To Deny ‘Reptile Overlord’ Claims

Fact checked

According to a report on The Huffington Post today, they discuss an interesting bet placed by a Twitter user that was seemingly fulfilled by an anonymous US Congress source.  The article (link) says, “Is the world secretly run by 12-foot-tall shapeshifting lizards?  It’s a surprisingly complex issue — or at least it has been since David Icke first announced his theory on prime-time TV back in 1991.

That’s not really because more than a minority consider Icke to be right, however. It’s mainly down to the ongoing debate (reported on brilliantly by Jon Ronson about a decade ago) about whether Icke’s use of “reptile” is a codeword, or whether he really does mean “reptile”.  Either way, despite the outlandish nature of the claim, it appears its still proving a headache for those in power. One way or another.

For a time yesterday it appeared that someone in the US Congress was upset enough by the theory it to go into Wikipedia and make a few key edits to that effect. A Twitter account designed to automatically note any edits to Wikipedia made by an IP address inside congress picked up an attempt to change the record on the topic.

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This is the passage with the addition underlined:

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Alas, this edit itself is not quite what it appears. It turns out to be the result of a bet made by enterprising and charitable nerds:

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Resig’s request was swiftly picked up and his donation was then made — to the Wikipedia Foundation, of course.

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So what’s the lesson? Well, the world isn’t run by reptiles at all — it’s actually run by geeks and their obedient hacker/US Congress official servants. But then we already knew that.”

Read the original report on The Huffington Post (link)