Steve Hofmeyr’s Wikipedia page hacked

Controversial South African Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr had his personal Wikipedia page hacked on Monday.

The page now describes him as a prominent member of a Mormon split, called The Morons and an honourary chairman of ‘Avrikaanirs met Leer Probleeme’ (Afrikaners with Learning Disabilities).

The majority of the changed content was in the opening paragraph, which read:

He is a prominent member of the Mormon Church split group, known as The Morons, who believe members should conceive as many children with as many women as possible. In addition, Hofmeyr is the honorary chairman of Avrikaanirs met Leer Probleeme (Afrikaners with Learning Disabilities), which he often consults for ideas for his songs and lyrics. He moonlights as the popular drag queen, Eugèníè, in an act involving horses and pumpkins.

Full size

Wikipedia is a user-run encyclopaedia which means that any registered user can make changes to the site. Abuse of this ability is well-known but Wikipedia relies on peer-review and proper referencing to keep information open and honest.

Hofmeyr is no stranger to controversy with regular rumours in the newspapers of inappropriate dalliances, multiple illegitimate children and his outspoken opinions against South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress.

In 2011 he threatened to release a song with hate-speech included unless the courts found former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s singing of “Shoot the Boer” also as hate speech. Hofmeyr later removed the offensive word saying it would offend his black friends.

Update:

By Monday afternoon the information on the page had been changed. The opening paragraph now says that Hofmeyr is simply a “South African singer, songwriter and actor.”