According to law enforcement, the Highland Park shooting suspect wore women’s clothing as a disguise so he could escape the scene of the mass shooting. The username “2dgirl” might be a reference to either anime or paper doll figures. TSD added that while the foundation’s Trust & Safety team could use the tool to gather information to comply with lawful requests from law enforcement, it is unlikely that the foundation would turn over that data to members of the press based on historical practices.Įven if it is not immediately possible to tie the Wikipedia username 2dgirl to the Chicago region, there is perhaps still enough there to construct a profile. “CheckUser data is never accessed or released except in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation’s privacy policy and additional restrictions,” said TheSandDoctor, the username of a volunteer Wikipedia administrator.
Though we will update this if the users who have access to this special tool release this info, they seem unlikely to do so. However, a request from Slate to English Wikipedia’s checkusers has not received a response as of press time. There is a small group of trusted Wikipedia users called checkusers who have the technical ability to determine the IP addresses used by a Wikipedia user account, a tool that has historically been used to prevent vandalism and sockpuppetry, the inappropriate use of alternate accounts. For instance, the user 2dgirl wrote that Crimo “plays it loosely with his soft smooth vocals.” They also said, “Just like the jack of trades or the joker card, Awake is diverse with his style.” The phrasing sounds like a poorly written advertisement-not the impartial tone required by Wikipedia’s standards. The 2018 sandbox page (now deleted) described Crimo with flattering language that is inconsistent with Wikipedia’s neutrality principles. The draft article, which Slate obtained from a Wikipedia admin with special access to deleted content, begins “Bobby Crimo (born September 20, 2000), professionally known as ‘Awake the Rapper’ is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter.”īesides the draft article for creation, 2dgirl kept text in their sandbox area, an environment that Wikipedians tend to use as a drafting space. The following year, a Wikipedia user with the registered username 2dgirl submitted an article for “Bobby Crimo.” A Wikipedia reviewer declined this article on May 3, 2018, on the basis that the references in the article did not adequately show the subject’s notability. Besides those websites, investigators are also poring over Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok accounts that are believed to be associated with him.
Thus far, a substantial amount of press coverage has focused on Crimo’s YouTube videos, including his most recent post, which showed him draped in an American flag following a school shooting his Spotify music, where he used the rap alias “Awake the Rapper” to upload albums that had been listened to millions of times before the streaming service took them down (though it’s unclear how many people were listening before he was named a suspect) or his Discord channel, where he shared a photo of Budd Dwyer, a politician who killed himself during a live press conference in the late 1980s. Crimo, the 21-year-old who prosecutors say has voluntarily confessed to the shooting, frequently posted online content that showed his disturbing interest in violence. In the aftermath of Monday’s mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, which left seven people dead and dozens more wounded, law enforcement, journalists, and interested civilians alike have been reviewing the shooting suspect’s entire online history. Welcome to Source Notes, a Future Tense column about the internet’s information ecosystem.