“This article appears to be an autobiographical or self-centered page that has been substantially modified, either by the principal concerned or by one or more people closely related to the subject. Here is the content of the red frame which now appears on the Wikipedia page of the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu. According to Mediapart, an adviser to the minister has been striving for two years to remove embarrassing passages from the online encyclopedia.
“When I took office in the summer of 2020, I realized that there was incorrect information, information was missing, dates were wrong. So I decided to take it back, ”defended the newspaper Aminata Diakité, digital communication advisor to the former mayor of Angers (Maine-et-Loire). With Mediapart, the one who does not work in the minister’s office, but is an employee of the town hall of Angers, evokes about thirty modifications.
Disturbing passages removed
According to the history of modifications available on Wikipedia, which Mediapart has dissected, Aminata Diakité wanted to delete paragraphs in reference to a critical report by the Court of Auditors on the management by the mayor of Angers of the Terra Botanica plant park or on the municipal decision to remove HIV prevention posters in November 2016.
Other modifications were made by this same collaborator, also reports Mediapart in its article. Withdrawals and edits have mostly been revoked by other contributors.
Already precedents
Asked by Mediapart, Christophe Béchu said he ignored his collaborator’s approach. What she also confirms with the newspaper, saying that she acted on her own initiative. Even if these modifications were made from the town hall of Angers on his working hours.
This is not the first time that similar events have occurred. At the beginning of 2022, Stop on images had thus told how an adviser to Marlène Schiappa had written the Wikipedia page of the minister. In June 2022, Le Monde had revealed that more than 50% of the Wikipedia pages of the outgoing legislature had been modified at least once by the elected official or a member of his team. At the start of 2022, it was revealed that a cell of pro-Zemmour activists had been actively working to modify the Wikipedia pages of the candidate and his supporters in his favor.