After NSFW vandalism, Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page will be permanently locked

Earlier this afternoon both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton’s Wikipedia pages were vandalized. Hillary’s page was edited so that the following image of a woman on her knees with her genitals exposed (edited below, but still slightly NSFW) appeared when you navigated to the page:

The message left over the image is ostensibly from @meepsheepy, who’s been gleefully taking credit on the Twitter, and the self-described “Gay Nigger Association of America,” a group of trolls who’ve been around for several years:

Reminder that voting for Hillary Clinton this Novmeber means proving how much of a spineless, boring cuck you are. Nuclear war will be inevitable, as will be Bill Clinton raping more women and children. Save the America you know and love by voting for Donald Trump. Also girls send as pics to @Meepysheepy.

This message has been brought to you by Meepsheep and the Gay Nigger Association of America. Thank you for your time.

Cuck, short for cuckold or “cuckservative,” is a perjorative that’s been popular among online racists for some time, but has gained heavy use and attention this election season.

Both Clintons’ pages have been reverted, and a Wikimedia spokesperson noted that this wasn’t hacking per se: “Occasionally high traffic or popular articles can attract vandalism, leading Wikipedia editors to quickly revert and limit the amount of editing to an article — which is what has happened here.”

Specifically, the spokesperson elaborated that the Hillary Clinton article “is now protected permanently so that only ‘template editors’ or admins (advanced long-term users) are able to edit it.”

When asked for clarification, I was told the article will be locked for an indefinite period of time. This limits the number of people who can edit it to 1,280, the current number of Wikipedia admins, only 533 of whom are considered active. Beyond the immediate misogyny and racism that makes up the content of the vandalism, this means anyone who wants to work on the article but hasn’t achieved admin status is out of luck.

In other words, many people on the internet are still awful and tomorrow the sun will still rise.

Ethan Chiel is a reporter for Fusion, writing mostly about the internet and technology. You can (and should) email him at [email protected]