Wikipedia is one of the most trusted sources of information in the world—and one of the easiest to manipulate. What appears to be neutral, crowdsourced knowledge often is shaped by a small number of highly active, anonymous editors who control narratives on controversial topics. This editorial influence does not stay on Wikipedia. It spreads through search engines, media coverage and artificial-intelligence systems, forming a pipeline of disinformation that quietly shapes what billions of people believe.
A small group of very active and biased Wikipedia editors has spent years shaping how billions of people understand global events, Israel and Jewish identity. Known as the “Gang of 40,” they dominate important pages, control which news sources are accepted and remove views that challenge their ideological framing.
They often act more like activists than neutral contributors. Some editors openly display ideological positions on their profiles. Prominent editor Abo Yemen has stated that he wants Israel to be kicked out of the United Nations and replaced by a Palestinian state.
The “Gang of 40” has collectively made millions of edits across articles related to Judaism, Israel and the Middle East, according to investigative reporting by Ashley Rindsberg. These highly coordinated editors dominate many important and contested pages, including high-traffic pages with millions of annual views, a stark contrast to Wikipedia’s portrayal as a welcoming, democratic community.
Some of the G40 have been involved in discussions on the article about the domestic terror attack on Dec. 14 at a Chanukah event on Bondi Beach in Australia. Father-and-son gunmen murdered 15 people, from seniors to children. Editors have pushed back against calling it a terror attack and directly linking it to radical Islam, even though the perpetrators had an Islamic State flag in their car.
Disciplinary action has been very limited. Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee—its highest-ranking authority—banned G40 kingpin Iskandar323 in January. This editor led the charge to successfully downgrade the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish American civil-rights organization, as a source. Even before Oct. 7, 2023, the user edited pages on Iran, Hamas, Islamic terrorism, antisemitism and Jewish history, including rewriting Jewish history as Palestinian history.
Examples of the editor’s notable deletions:
- A list of persecutions of Coptic Christians by Egyptian Muslims
- Iranian human-rights abuses
- Documentation of Hamas’s genocidal intentions
- Language about antisemitism in the British Labour Party
Rewriting Jewish identity
The Wikipedia page on Zionism is not just an article, but a gateway definition for millions of readers trying to understand Jewish self-determination. How it is framed shapes how readers understand the legitimacy, history and purpose of the Jewish state.
The G40 has spent years enforcing their preferred false narrative on this page, especially after the Oct. 7 atrocities against Israel. The introduction emphasizes “settler colonialism” and language that implies “ethnic cleansing,” setting the tone for the entire article.
This framing is reinforced through selective sourcing and emphasis. Sources that support critical interpretations, including anti-Israel activists, academics and authors, are repeatedly cited, while others are minimized or excluded. Over time, this creates a fixed narrative in which Zionism is presented less as a diverse historical movement and more as a singular political project defined primarily by its critics.
The Wikipedia page stands in stark contrast to the Grokipedia page on Zionism that relies on different sources and produces significantly different framing.
Related pages on Judaism and Israel, often created and controlled by the same biased anonymous editors, reinforce these claims, giving contested and ideological claims the appearance of established fact. Editors minimized or deleted sources that support the historical connection between Jews and the Land of Israel. Iskandar323 removed a genetic study supporting Jewish ancestry, calling the analysis “extremely hotly disputed.”
Different language, different reality: Arabic Wikipedia
The problem does not stop with English Wikipedia. The platform operates in 361 languages, and the content is not consistent across them. Some pages mirror the English version, while others present radically different realities.
Arabic Wikipedia presents overtly one-sided narratives that reflect a uniform ideological perspective. It describes Adolf Hitler, head of Germany’s Third Reich and the Nazi Party, and mastermind of the war on the Jews in Europe as the crux of World War II, as a political leader who made questionable decisions: “Hitler remains a globally controversial figure, with the media often highlighting his negative aspects, most notably his antisemitism. However, Hitler also had some positive qualities.”
Additionally, the English-language Hitler page contains a section on the Holocaust, while the Arabic page does not.
Arabic pages related to Hamas and the Oct. 7 Hamas massacres use similar language that downplays terrorism, glorifies Hamas, and shifts the focus toward political framing and terrorist-driven propaganda, differing sharply from how those events are described even in the problematic English-language articles. The ADL report, “Editing for Hate: How Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish Bias Undermines Wikipedia’s Neutrality,” documents this and other forms of bias.
The system shapes the narrative: Iran, Qatar and false ‘consensus’
Hostile regimes and activist networks do not need to control Wikipedia outright; they only need to influence what sources are accepted and how information is framed.
Government and activist organizations have engaged in coordinated efforts to manipulate content. Qatar previously hired a PR firm to improve its image and recently invested in the company behind Grokipedia. Tech for Palestine and similar activist groups have trained individuals to coordinate edits.
This influence is not theoretical. Wikipedia editors have used about 100,000 Iranian propaganda references, including from its state-controlled media and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, across multiple language versions of Wikipedia. Replacing terms like “terrorist” with “resistance fighter” and “regime” with “government” changes how the conflict is understood.
These decisions have real consequences. Editors have used approved sources and university academics to conclude that Israel has committed a “genocide” in Gaza, while resisting efforts to apply the same label to Hamas for its Oct. 7 massacres. Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist group dedicated to murdering Jews worldwide. Wikipedia editors use the same tactics for including or excluding images, reinforcing the same narratives.
Sources that do not align with preferred anti-Western, anti-American and anti-Israel narratives often are labeled unreliable or excluded, while others are elevated and repeatedly cited. Al Jazeera, which was founded and funded by the Qatari government, is treated as “generally reliable.” The same applies to human-rights organization Amnesty International, which changed the accepted definitions of “genocide” and “apartheid” to brand Israel. Most sources associated with the political left are rated “reliable” while their counterparts are “deprecated” (meaning unreliable), shaping how events are framed before articles are even written.
At the editorial level, the G40 maintains control through consistent, repeatable tactics: article deletion, omission of key information and cherry-picked sources. Edits that challenge their framing are quickly reversed, and their preferred version of events becomes deeply embedded. Even when some editors received temporary topic bans, most of their edits remained in place.
Investigative reporter Ashley Rindsberg described how, after the banning of Iskandar323, the issue extends beyond any single editor:
“The mechanisms that enabled years of systematic narrative manipulation remain intact and are largely invisible to the platform’s hundreds of millions of users. Wikipedia’s power lies in its perceived neutrality. When that neutrality is compromised, the consequences extend far beyond any single article.”
From Wikipedia to AI: How narratives spread
Wikipedia receives 300 billion annual page views (about 10,000 per second), and its distorted narratives are increasingly embedded in news coverage, search engines and AI systems. On its recent 25th anniversary, Wikipedia announced content partnerships with major AI companies, including Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, despite its editors acknowledging that “Wikipedia is not a reliable source.”
At the same time, AI models are trained on vast amounts of publicly available text, with Wikipedia among their most heavily trusted sources. Systems like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, in addition to Google searches, often reflect this content in their responses. This gives Wikipedia outsized influence over how information is summarized and presented. This is especially alarming for younger users who increasingly rely on AI tools and quick search results without checking the underlying sources.
This influence extends across languages. AI systems are trained on multilingual content, especially for use in their native languages. Content shaped on Wikipedia in any language can rapidly spread through translation, news media and digital platforms.
Points to consider:
1. Wikipedia is failing our children.
Imagine a middle school student researching the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for a social studies assignment, trusting Wikipedia – the first result in their Google search and the same source powering ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude’s answers to their questions. Behind the seemingly neutral information are coordinated editing campaigns feeding biased, distorted, antisemitic or incomplete facts. When Wikipedia gets these sensitive topics wrong, it does not just affect one homework assignment – it shapes how an entire generation understands world conflicts. Biased Wikipedia editors are spreading misinformation, disinformation and anti-Jewish narratives to millions of people who have no reason to suspect the website is anything but fair and balanced.
2. AI is amplifying Wikipedia’s distortions.
Artificial intelligence systems rely heavily on publicly available data, including Wikipedia and content shaped by it. When narratives are distorted at the source, AI does not correct them; it strengthens them. These systems summarize and present information as neutral and authoritative, often without context or competing views. As more users turn to AI for quick answers, biased or incomplete information is amplified and delivered instantly to billions.
3. Wikipedia is not a neutral information source.
Wikipedia is a social platform disguised as an authoritative educational resource. There is little difference between the content quality of complex topics on Wikipedia and what appears on social media. The encyclopedia allows anonymous users to promote biased content behind the aura of respectability, even when that content is as untrustworthy as what is being produced and amplified by partisan social media influencers. Wikipedia’s news-related output should be treated with the same skepticism as social media: Question it, verify it, and do not assume neutrality.
4. Anonymous editors shape what billions believe.
A small group of highly active, anonymous editors exerts super-sized influence over some of Wikipedia’s most sensitive and widely viewed pages. These contributors determine which facts are included, which sources are accepted and how topics are framed. Most readers never see the debates, revisions or edits behind the scenes, where editorial discussions often resemble political battles rather than open debate. What appears to be neutral information is often the product of sustained control by individuals operating without accountability or transparency. Edits on Wikipedia do not stay there; they become the version of reality seen by billions.
5. Controlling the sources = Controlling the story.
Wikipedia’s definition of “truth” depends on which sources are considered “reliable.” Editors determine which news media, academics and nonprofit organizations are accepted, cited and repeated, setting the foundation for important topics before they are even written. Sources that align with preferred viewpoints are elevated, while others are dismissed. These decisions create the appearance of consensus, even when significant disagreement exists, allowing a narrow set of perspectives to dominate high-impact articles.
6. Wikipedia’s “consensus” system rewards persistence, not truth.
Wikipedia’s “consensus” system is often mistaken for neutrality. It rewards dedication, not truth or even a majority vote. Editorial decisions are controlled by the editors who show up most often, dedicate hours to making edits and collaborate to manipulate outcomes. Experienced contributors dominate discussions and outlast opposition. Their preferred framing becomes embedded—not because it is correct, but because it is the version that remains.
7. Hostile countries and terror groups manipulate Wikipedia.
Hostile governments such as Iran and Qatar exploit Wikipedia to shape how global events are understood. Iranian regime-linked media, including media tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps terrorist group, are repeatedly cited across multiple languages. These sources are treated as legitimate by biased editors, allowing state-backed narratives to enter widely read articles and influence how events are framed.
