update deskIsrael-Palestinian Conflict

‘Wikipedia editors colluded to delegitimize Israel’

A group of some 40 editors is "hijacking" the online encyclopedia and "pushing pro-Palestinian propaganda," according to U.S. media company Pirate Wires.

The Wikipedia logo is seen on a tablet screen. Photo by Kirill Kudryavtzev/AFP via Getty Images.
The Wikipedia logo is seen on a tablet screen. Photo by Kirill Kudryavtzev/AFP via Getty Images.

Scores of Wikipedia editors have led a coordinated campaign to delegitimize Israel and present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light over recent years, according to a report published last month.

The report, released by the American media company Pirate Wires as the war against Hamas in Gaza entered its second year, found that “a powerful group of about 40 editors is hijacking Wikipedia, pushing pro-Palestinian propaganda, erasing key facts about Hamas, and reshaping the narrative around Israel with alarming influence.”

The Oct. 24 report, titled, “How Wikipedia’s pro-Hamas Editors Hijacked the Israel-Palestine Narrative” found that this effort on the popular online encyclopedia only intensified after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

According to the report, one of the editors removed mention of Hamas’s 1988 charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, from an article on the Islamic terror group just six weeks after the massacre.

The editors also attempted to promote the interests of the Iranian government by editing various articles that documented the human rights violations of officials in the Islamic Republic, the report found.

A separate effort carried out by a group called Tech for Palestine to alter over 100 articles in the same vein earlier this year was halted after it was uncovered, the report noted.

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