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From: HonestReporting
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Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 3:30 PM
Subject: Special Report: Exposed - Anti-Israeli Subversion on Wikipedia
Dr. Oboler and HonestReporting also found that despite Wikipedia's clear policy against
political advocacy, initiatives such as "Wiki Project Palestine" and the Yahoo group
"Wikipedians for Palestine" used the Wikipedia platform to promote their ideological
views, largely unopposed by the Wikipedia community. CAMERA, however, was singled
out by the administrators in order to "send a strong message to lobbying groups,
campaigns and other advocacy groups."
But despite its popularity, Wikipedia does not always provide the most accurate
information. What sets the encyclopedia apart from other sources is its reliance on the
"wisdom of crowds" - allowing any user who spots an error in any entry to simply change
it himself, anonymously if he chooses.
Not surprisingly, this feature turns controversial topics such as "Jerusalem" or "Terrorism"
into battlegrounds between people with sharply different agendas. To counter the
problem, Wikipedia established the neutral point of view (NPOV) as one of its guiding
principles. The NPOV policy is meant to ensure all sides are presented equally on a topic
until a consensus eventually emerges, a process that can take many months of intense
debate.
But according to Dr. Oboler, EI's manipulations on Wikipedia pale in comparison to other
pro-Palestinian groups such as "Wiki Project Palestine" - an effort supposedly aimed at
improving articles related to Palestinian culture and society but misused to promote a
political agenda, and the Yahoo group "Wikipedians for Palestine."
The real organized effort [to recruit outsiders to promote pro-Palestinian views on
Wikipedia] appears to be from "Wikipedians for Palestine," a group that was
advertised to individuals both on Wikipedia and through at least one Palestinian
campaigning organization. That group was active for over two years. It was
detected, questions were raised on and off Wikipedia, and then …nothing seemed
to happen, then or now.
People commenting on the CAMERA case who were shown to be involved in this
Palestinian group first proclaimed the group's innocence. Then they made a
number of misleading claims off Wikipedia, stating, for example, that they "never
recruited neophytes to edit Wikiepdia," and that their group is "independent and
never bankrolled and backed by any organization, let alone one as well staffed
and funded as CAMERA." They were challenged by an administrator to give
access to their group so the archives could be checked, as was done to CAMERA.
They promptly deleted the group - destroying all archives.
Wikipedia apparently dropped the issue because no one had infiltrated the group or had
evidence revealing the content of the deleted archives. According to Dr. Oboler, it is
impossible to know exactly what it accomplished over the past two years.
What is clear is that its claims on the group's home page were designed not only
to defend themselves but also to attack CAMERA. The group may or may not have
actually recruited people who were not editors, but they certainly tried to. The
penalties to CAMERA are for trying to recruit people, not for any problematic
editing on Wikipedia (itself a very unusual thing in a Wikiepdia investigation -
normally only actions on Wikipedia are considered).
A more insidious form of bias is the use of false information. An example can be seen on
the 'Egypt' 'Camp David Accords' entry, where clear anti-Semitic incitement in the
Egyptian press was dismissed as simple 'Anti-Zionist criticism'. This entry alone attracts
150,000 viewers a year, and the related 'Egypt' entry, which doesn't mention the issue at
all, is viewed 3.5 million times annually.
More common are attempts to marginalize Israeli and Zionist content and lend more
weight to the Palestinian or Arab narrative. The entry "Massacres committed during the
1948 Arab-Israeli war," for example, lists only those allegedly committed by Jews.
Another example is the original 'Hebrews' entry, which fails to mention the undisputed
fact that Jews always prayed in Hebrew, and that it became their primary everyday
language in Israel since the early 20th century.
This category also includes entries that serve to diminish the perception of threats
against Israel. For example, several Iran articles are apologetic about Iranian president
Mahmoud Admadinejad's calls for erasing Israel from the map, reassuringly explaining
the threat as mistranslation of Farsi, which supposedly only meant 'erase off the pages of
time.' However they fail to mention that the same slogan was also painted on ballistic
missiles in Iranian army parades.
The 'Palestine Project' goals, stated on its page, fall within the accepted Wikipedia
guidelines: To "Maintain information on Palestine including history, culture, geography
and contemporary political, socio-economic and ideological context; Improve Palestine-
related articles by expansion, verification and copyediting." And finally: "Be thorough and
watch for POV in particularly controversial articles."
Despite the warning, however, the actual content promoted by the project appears
geared towards online advocacy. There are 210 articles marked as "high importance".
About half are related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Many appear because of their influence
on public opinion on the Palestinian cause.
In its hall of fame for best articles, the Palestine Project page lists four best biographies.
One is by Norman Finkelstein, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, whose
controversial bestseller "The Holocaust Industry" accused Jews of exploiting the
Holocaust for financial and political gain.
There is also a large number of small articles that appear to have been posted to add
weight to the Project's page, giving it the appearance of significant substance. Many of
these articles are posted by anonymous users so that they will be difficult to track. This is
particularly suspicious behavior considering the community-building nature of
WikiProjects.
According to Dr. Oboler, the entire project appears to be an organized effort to promote
the Palestinian point of view on Wikipedia.
CAMERA was right about the problems on Wikipedia. People should consider
getting involved in Wikipedia and making use of the resources they have (such as
books) to improve the accuracy of articles they take an interest in (on any topic
imaginable). The first goal must be to improve Wikipedia. That this helps reverse
manipulation of the truth is one side effect. Good well-sourced arguments will not
only expose mistakes, they will also make Wikipedia better.
Editing Wikipedia is not hard and, in time, people will learn how it works and
become part of the community. If you do want to get involved, pay attention to
the policies, the five pillars and other information you will be shown when you
join. If you run into problems there are plenty of people on Wikipedia more than
happy to help or provide clarity about Wikipedia itself.
The truth will win out, but someone needs to make sure it is heard, footnoted and
properly sourced.
Dr. Oboler is also a post-doctoral fellow in Political Science at Bar-Ilan University where
he is researching online public diplomacy. This research covers Facebook, YouTube,
Flickr, Google Earth and Wikipedia among others online platforms. More on his research
can be seen at http://www.zionismontheweb.org/internet_warfare/ . Details on
Wikipedia (the background data of which was shared with HonestReporting) are being
added during this week.
HonestReporting. com