Durham mayor, City Council members pressed attorney to handle mysterious Wikipedia edits
Three elected officials in Durham instructed the city attorney to identify the editors of their Wikipedia pages and remove some content, records reveal.
The findings were first reported in INDY Week.
The officials, who often vote together, are Mayor Elaine O’Neal and City Council members DeDreana Freeman and Monique Holsey-Hyman.
Local elections will be held this fall. O’Neal, a lawyer and retired judge, said last month that she will not run for a second term. Freeman is running for mayor. Holsey-Hyman is running for City Council.
The edits were primarily tied to a scandal that began unfolding in March. A developer accused Holsey-Hyman of trying to extort him, an allegation Holsey-Hyman denies. The incident remains under law enforcement investigation.
Holsey-Hyman, who has spent nearly three decades in social work and now teaches at N.C. Central University, told The News & Observer on Tuesday she is innocent and has not been charged with anything.
“I put my name in the hat to serve the people of Durham. I continue to say — the truth will come out,” she said.
“And honestly, do you think that if I did not really care about the people of Durham that I still would be standing in here and standing up for what’s right?” she continued. “I would have went home, which is what people wanted me to do. The truth will come out.”
Neither O’Neal nor Freeman responded to The N&O on Tuesday.
Why did officials want Wikipedia pages edited?
City Attorney Kimberly Rehberg wrote to the Wikimedia Foundation on June 29 to request the “identity and real name” of three users who had made edits to the officials’ pages, according to a certified letter shared by INDY Week.
She wrote that she was writing “at the express request of three of the seven elected officials on the Durham City Council in their official capacities.”
O’Neal had penned a lengthy letter three weeks earlier requesting “a formal investigation.” Freeman and Holsey-Hyman also signed the document. Emails show they began documenting their concerns in early May.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia hosted by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. All entries are written and scrupulously maintained by volunteers.
Rehberg asked the site to prohibit images of O’Neal’s signature block, despite that being routinely printed on proclamations the city issues. O’Neal believed it was “problematic for her professionally and personally,” according to Rehberg’s letter.
Rehberg reached out directly to the user who uploaded the image. They were apologetic and said the mayor’s signature was on a pamphlet handed out at a show at the Durham Performing Arts Center. They said they had seen signatures on the pages for high-profile leaders like Roy Cooper and Joe Biden.
“I assure you I meant no harm,” the user, Johnson524, wrote Rehberg on June 29.
Rehberg said in light of that reply, she would hold off on reaching out to Wikimedia, but O’Neal emailed back: “Our request still stands and it is a specific request.”
In requesting Rehberg’s help, Freeman called edits to her page “unflattering” and was alarmed that a page was only created for her in April though she has been in office since 2017, according to the letter to Wikimedia.
Freeman has repeatedly come to Holsey-Hyman’s defense since March, and became physical in a shouting match that broke out in City Hall the day the ethics allegations were made public, witnesses said.
Her page described this incident, for which Freeman has partially apologized.
‘Indefensible’
Stuart Benjamin, a Duke University law professor, said he was shocked by the letter.
“I really just can’t see any justification for an official directing the city attorney to send this letter. I just think it’s indefensible,” Benjamin said.
He said publishing accurate information about public officials is “fully protected by the First Amendment and important to democratic deliberation and public discourse.”
“I understand why public officials do not want unflattering information published about them, but it is deeply troubling that any public official tried to unmask someone who posted this accurate information,” Benjamin said.
Rehberg said Tuesday that she hasn’t heard back from Wikimedia’s legal counsel and didn’t have anything else to say about the matter.
Rehberg copied the entire City Council on an email after sending the letter, saying she wanted them aware given the “underlying issue is not clearly related to representation of the City of Durham.”
The signature remained on O’Neal’s Wikipedia page until about 3 p.m. Tuesday. Holsey-Hyman’s page contains a lengthy section dedicated to “Extortion allegations and investigation.” Freeman’s page maintains a paragraph about her argument in City Hall.
All three of the officials’ pages were updated with a summary of the INDY Week’s reporting on Tuesday night.
The city has not yet shared with The N&O the records that INDY Week obtained.
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