In May 2005, an unregistered editor posted a hoax article onto Wikipedia about journalist John Seigenthaler.[1] The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
After the hoax was discovered and corrected later in September, Seigenthaler, a friend and aide to Robert Kennedy, wrote in USA Today that the article was "Internet character assassination".[2]
The incident raised questions about the reliability of Wikipedia and other websites with user-generated content that lack the legal accountability of traditional newspapers and published materials.[3] In a December 13, 2005, interview,[4] co-founder Jimmy Wales expressed his support for Wikipedia policy allowing articles to be edited by unregistered users, but announced plans to roll back their article creation privileges as part of a vandalism-control strategy.[4] The incident ultimately led Wikipedia to introduce stricter referencing requirements for biographies of living people.