ADL: Anti-Israel Wikipedia editors colluding in anti-Israel bias on site
At least 30 Wikipedia editors work together to inject the online encyclopedia with misinformation bias, watchdog claims
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
At least 30 Wikipedia editors are acting together in a coordinated campaign to fill the collaborative online encyclopedia with widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel bias, in likely violation of Wikipedia’s policies, according to a report Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL report is the latest volley in a battle between the antisemitism watchdog and one of the most popular websites in the world. While the ADL has repeatedly complained that editors use the platform to spread antisemitic rhetoric and misinformation, Wikipedia has dubbed the group a “generally unreliable” source of information on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including it on a list of banned and partially banned sources.
The ADL said that at least 30 Wikipedia editors “coordinate to change pages related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, downplaying Palestinian antisemitism, violence, and calls to destroy Israel while promoting criticism of Israel.”
These editors made twice as many edits over the past 10 years as comparable editors of other topics, and communicated with each other up to 18 times more actively, the ADL report said.
These edits have ramped up since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and include the systematic removal of citations to reputable sources and tandem voting to retain content critical of Israel while removing coverage of Palestinian violence and terrorism, it added.
In addition, Arabic-language pages of Wikipedia were found to glorify Hamas and perpetuate pro-Hamas propaganda, flouting Wikipedia’s rules on neutrality, the report said.
“Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “Recent Wikipedia efforts toward neutrality are nothing but a Band-Aid on a problem that’s getting worse, with persistent antisemitic and anti-Israel bias still far too present.”
In recent months, Wikipedia’s arbitration committee has banned several editors from the Israel-Palestine topic area. In February, eight editors were barred from making changes to articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — six from the pro-Palestinian side and two from the pro-Israel side — and new rules were introduced to help prevent further distortions.
“It’s clear that Wikipedia needs to do far more to address the very active antisemitic and anti-Israel bias and coordination,” said Daniel Kelley, interim head of the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society, which conducted the research for the report. “And until then, other platforms that rely on Wikipedia as a source – from Google Search to large language models like ChatGPT – must deprioritize unvetted Wikipedia’s content on issues related to Jews, Israel and the Middle East conflict so that they do not perpetuate this bias.”
Battles over narrative in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have raged for years on Wikipedia, where almost anyone can edit articles according to the site’s collaboration policies. The intensity has ramped up since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its war with Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 in a brutal attack.
Wikipedia editors regularly argue over whether terms like “genocide,” “settler colonialism” and “apartheid regime” can be applied to Israeli actions.
However, according to the report, the group of editors repeatedly removed references to acts of sexual violence and terror committed by Hamas. They also rewrote pages about Hamas to reframe the terror organization as a political and social entity, while presenting Zionism as a land-grabbing movement that seeks to eliminate Arab ties to Israel.
Conservatives, including billionaire Elon Musk, have increasingly been complaining that Wikipedia’s claim to neutrality is being used to help promote progressive agendas. Many news outlets, including Bloomberg and Pirate Wires, have reported on the efforts of pro-Hamas editors to hijack the site’s Israel-Palestine narrative.
The ADL offered several recommendations for Wikipedia, including the creation of a “reputable expert program” to review pages relating to the conflict, as well as a committee to vet “closure editors” who can make final decisions about contentious topics. (Currently, this is generally done by majority vote.) It also recommended that Wikipedia evaluate its existing tools for identifying bad-faith behavior to determine whether they are adequate.
The report also suggested that policymakers work with academics, Wikipedians, and others to identify and combat antisemitic bias on the site.
Last June, Wikipedia classified the ADL as “generally unreliable regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” despite the protests of more than 40 Jewish organizations that accused the online encyclopedia of “stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community.”
That decision was based on a two-month discussion with more than 120 Wikipedia volunteers, Wikipedia said at the time. Editors argued that the ADL’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism allows it to silence criticism of Israel, and that the organization had undermined its credibility by categorizing pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic incidents.
The ADL is still considered a credible source for topics outside of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it noted.
