From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 19, 2025
ADL: Wikipedia bans several editors for spreading antisemitic rhetoric, misinformation on Gaza war
Zev Stub is the Times of Israel's Diaspora Affairs correspondent.
Wikipedia has banned several editors for using the platform to spread antisemitic rhetoric and misinformation about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the Anti-Defamation League says.
These users have spread “malicious, false and biased information about Zionism and Israel across the platform,” says the ADL.
An arbitration committee for the collaborative online encyclopedia banned the users Iskandar323, Selfstudier, Nableezy, Levivich and Nishidani from the Israel-Palestine discussion for operating in bad faith, the watchdog says. Another editor, Ivana, was previously banned from all editing.
Following the decision, “it is now imperative for Wikipedia to begin work immediately to undo the harm caused by these rogue but prolific editors who literally have wreaked havoc across the platform,” the ADL says.
“As we have said before, Wikipedia needs to wake up to the reality that this is a systemic problem across the platform that needs immediate action. There is still a lot more that must be done to ensure that Wikipedia can live up to its policy around the encyclopedia holding a neutral point of view.”
The ADL was labeled as “generally unreliable” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Wikipedia’s editors in June. The organization charged that all of the banned users had taken part in a coordinated campaign to smear its credibility.
