This week, Florida Atlantic University announced a deal to rename its football stadium after GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies in the world. The deal came with a $6 million dollar price tag, the “largest one-time gift in the history of FAU athletics.”<\/p>\n
But GEO Group has a history of human rights abuses that it would rather keep secret, especially once 30,000 screaming football fans begin seeing the company’s corporate sponsorship. So, in all the excitement surrounding the announcement, GEO took to quietly covering up parts of its shady past–by scrubbing its Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n
As Brave New Foundation\u2019s Jesse Lava reported, a GEO Group employee deleted the entire \u201ccontroversies\u201d section of the company\u2019s Wikipedia page and replaced it with some glowing propaganda. Before GEO\u2019s lackey doctored the article, it outlined a slew of horrific abuses in the company\u2019s prisons, including reports of squalid conditions and the deaths of dozens of prisoners.<\/p>\n
Wikipedia editors quickly noticed the changes and restored it to its original form Wednesday evening. The highly educational, yet alarming article is available for your perusal\u2014controversies and all\u2014 here. And just before they changed it back, Wikipedia took a jab at the company that tried to game its netizen-dependent editing process, posting this delightful disclaimer on the top of the page:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the Wikipedia cover-up is just the beginning of this story’s deceit. Details are emerging on how the GEO\u2019s stadium buyout is only part of a university-prison circle jerk of unprecedented proportions. As the New York Times notes, GEO Chairman George Zoley, and several other employees in the ranks, are all alumni of Florida Atlantic University. And GEO Group\u2019s headquarters sits only four miles away from campus. GEO and university officials laughably claim that the deal is strictly philanthropic, and in no way, shape or form a corporate sponsorship, or, worse, a way to recruit new employees and desensitize people to the horrible private of for-profit prisons. <\/p>\n