Wikipedia Suspends Pro-Palestine Editors for Behind-the-Scenes Coordination
Wikipedia's arbitration committee has taken action against several editors involved in coordinated efforts to influence Palestine-Israel related content, resulting in indefinite bans for two editors and restrictions placed on three others.
The committee found these editors engaged in "canvassing" - the practice of recruiting other editors to influence discussion outcomes in a particular direction. This behavior violates Wikipedia's consensus-based editing principles and is considered disruptive to the platform's standards.
The suspended editors were accused of making edits after organizing off-platform coordination and encouraging others to circumvent editing restrictions. These activities took place through email and social media platforms like Discord, despite Wikipedia's rules prohibiting such coordination.
An investigation published on "The Wikipedia Flood" blog revealed how certain editors were operating "war rooms" with weekly meetings to coordinate editing efforts. Some participants allegedly described themselves as an "instrument of the Gaza war for the elimination of Israel."
The Jerusalem Post recently highlighted issues of bias on Wikipedia's Arabic version, including problematic content related to Jewish people and coverage of the October 7th events. A separate investigation by Pirate Wires identified approximately 40 editors working together to alter Israel-related content, including removing information about Hamas from various articles.
The "Tech for Palestine" campaign, which aimed to coordinate editing of 8,000 Wikipedia articles, deleted their pages and chat records after their activities were exposed.
Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder, has expressed concerns about the platform's neutrality, stating in 2021 that he would not trust it as a source. He suggested that behind-the-scenes manipulation has changed the platform from its original commitment to neutral content.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, typically maintains a hands-off approach to content moderation, making this disciplinary action by the arbitration committee particularly notable.
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