Kamala Harris’ Wikipedia page redirects to ‘C**tala Harris’ minutes after she’s named Biden’s running mate
Minutes after Senator Kamala Harris was named as the running mate for presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, there was a not-so-polite edit on her Wikipedia page. The section with her basic biographical details dubbed her, "C**tala Harris". A brief check on the edits on her Wikipedia page showed that an editor, "Eee302", had redirected her page to open on the newly created "C**tala Harris" Wikipedia page, which was subsequently deleted and tagged as "offensive name" by Wikipedia's voluntary editors.
While the slur was spotted and rectified within two minutes, the "Featured Snippets" in the google search results still showed the derogatory 'edit' for several minutes and would have been noticeable to anyone googling her name, curious to know about the first Black woman to have secured a major-party U.S. presidential ticket, and slated to be the first woman vice-president if Biden becomes President.
Kamala Harris' Wikipedia page has been mired in controversy ever seen she was tipped to be Biden's possible running mate. But unlike the derogatory name edit, the previous edits were all directed at "scrubbing" her page by her online supporters, collectively known as the "KHive". An article on The Intercept website noted that Harris' page had been edited 408 times in June 2020, with most of the edits coming from one person, under the moniker "Bnguyen1114".
Since Wikipedia is one of the first places people look for general information on a vice presidential nominee, these changes were geared towards making Harris a more acceptable Democratic candidate in the running for the VP post. "Bnguyen1114" cleaned up portions detailing Harris' record as the California Attorney General, including her quote that "it is not progressive to be soft on crime", which contradicts her current stand of being a "progressive prosecutor".
Subsequently, this led to Wikipedia putting her page under "discretionary sanctions". However, the sanctions have obviously not discouraged those wanting to tamper with her page and consequently are keeping Wikipedia's voluntary editors on their toes. They have tagged the latest redaction of the offensive name under the policy category of "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material that has little or no encyclopedic or project value and/or violates our biographies of living people policy. This includes slurs, smears, and grossly offensive material of little or no encyclopedic value but not mere factual statements, and not 'ordinary' incivility, personal attacks, or conduct accusations. When pages with grossly improper titles are in question, the page names may also be removed from the page creation, move, and delete logs".