Civil servants: ‘Our work is seriously challenging…’

by | Mar 31, 2008


Banned from discussing issues of national security with the media, officials and serving officers from the MoD have turned their attention to the internet. Civil servants have been busy editing Wikipedia. Some 5,614 changes to the website were made from Ministry of Defence computers, 1,500 from the Department of Health, 103 from the DCMS and 25 at HMGCC.

According to the Telegraph newspaper the real life equivalents of James Bond’s “gadget man” Q from Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC) have been updating the Wikipedia entry for Avril Lavigne, the Canadian pop star  A description of her song Girlfriend as a “riff off the ever-classic love triangle” was amended to “based around the ever-classic love triangle” a story made all the more amusing given the following quote from their website:

HMGCC is much more than a centre of expertise – we are a community of exceptional minds. Over five hundred of us work here on a whole range of customer-driven projects. And make no mistake, our work is seriously challenging…

But beware all you bloggers and amateur editors the thought police are on to you… officials will now look at the electronic records to determine whether the Wikipedia changes were made while staff were supposed to be working, and if necessary will issue “reminders” about the need to prioritise work.

(Note: this blog was written during my ‘lunch break’)

Author

  • Charlie Edwards

    Charlie Edwards is Director of National Security and Resilience Studies at the Royal United Services Institute. Prior to RUSI he was a Research Leader at the RAND Corporation focusing on Defence and Security where he conducted research and analysis on a broad range of subject areas including: the evaluation and implementation of counter-violent extremism programmes in Europe and Africa, UK cyber strategy, European emergency management, and the role of the internet in the process of radicalisation. He has undertaken fieldwork in Iraq, Somalia, and the wider Horn of Africa region.

    View all posts

More from Global Dashboard

Let’s make climate a culture war!

Let’s make climate a culture war!

by | Sep 29, 2021

If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad?  No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...