Wikipedia Runs Interference for Kamala Harris Occurred on 2 Jul 2020

Over the prior few months, Kamala Harris’s Wikipedia page saw a significant increase in edits. This seemed to have been noticed first in May 2020 by a Reddit user, but it didn’t garner increased media attention until early July 2020 when The Intercept reported on it, explaining why this is important:

Presidential vetting operations have entire teams of investigators, but for the public, when the pick is announced, the most common source for information about the person chosen is Wikipedia. And there, a war has broken out over how to talk about Harris’s career.

The edits were overwhelmingly either removing negative / damaging language or adding positive language regarding the many shady aspects of Harris’s political career. About a week later, Breitbart reported that the article from The Intercept had caused reversal efforts, but they were being slowed:

Since the Intercept article, editors have attempted to reverse a number of changes Nguyen made to the article, though have so far rejected completely undoing his removals, arguing every change should be vetted carefully.

Kamala Harris was picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate just over a month later on August 11, 2020. It seems to be a pattern that the person who is eventually chosen for the VP slot sees their Wikipedia page heavily edited before being publicly announced as the running mate.