Wikipedia temporarily defaced by vandal who edited template to show Nazi flag
The reference website Wikipedia was targeted by a vandal on Monday who edited a template used to support page functionality to show a Nazi flag. The issue was reported by a number of users on social media who were shocked to see swastikas appear across the site.
When people tried to look at pages, including those belonging to a number of actors, TV shows and politicians, they would instead be greeted with no text or images, just the Nazi symbol presented on a red background.
The problem only seemed to affect the site for a short period of time around 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT, and Wikipedia returned to normal before CNET was able to replicate the issue.
This morning I visited a @Wikipedia page, and it was a red background with a swastika filling the page. It eventually reverted to normal, but it shows no edits. I have a screenshot, but don’t want to post it, because, swastika. Anyone else see something like that?
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia and described the incident as "particularly vile," said that the vandalism was identified and reversed by volunteer administrators within five minutes of it occurring. Within 15 minutes of the hate symbol appearing on the site, the volunteers had made changes to the template to ensure it was protected from further vandalism.
