Stefan Mileschin

A local council has found itself in hot water down under after it dealt with a protest movement by vandalising the outfit's Wikipedia page.

Occupy Melbourne's official Wikipedia page was edited twice by a person using a City of Melbourne computer to remove contentious words. The move seemed to be to help re-elect lord mayor Robert Doyle last year.

Two edits removed the word "peacefully" to describe Occupy protesters and also purged references to the council's alleged involvement in shutting down the protest.

Occupy protesters were removed from the City Square by more than 100 police.

The City of Melbourne confirmed the IP address used to edit the Occupy Melbourne Wikipedia page belonged to it but said that it was not aware of any authorisation.

But it also pointed out that anyone could make changes on Wikipedia and the council allowed limited personal use of council computers.

For his part, Doyle said neither he nor any of his staff made the changes to the Wikipedia page. However, he stood by his decision to clear the protesters from the streets.

He told the local press that if he was going make any alterations he would make it to his own entry which has a particular view of those events as well, which he does not like.

Melbourne City Labor councillor Richard Foster was concerned that the editing removed a reference to the council's alleged involvement in the shutting down of the protest was controversial. But Doyle said the changes did not warrant an investigation at the council.

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