Wikipedia is in fierce editing battle over Israel-Hamas war article



Wikipedia is the world's largest online encyclopedia, and a huge number of entries are edited daily by volunteer editors from all over the world. However, there are cases where editors write descriptions that are biased towards a particular political ideology or that are contrary to the facts , leading to editing battles . Bloomberg, an overseas media outlet, reported that 'a dispute has broken out between editors over a Wikipedia page about the war between Israel and Hamas .'

Wikipedia Struggles to Moderate Volunteer Editors on Gaza, Israel, Hamas - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-07/wikipedia-editors-struggle-to-moderate-conflict-in-gaza

In January 2025, the Wikipedia Tribunal , which adjudicates on Wikipedia disputes , reported that sock puppet editing was a problem in Wikipedia articles on Israel and Palestine. According to the Tribunal, about 7% of edits in the main space on topics related to Israel and Palestine are made by known multiple accounts, making them a forum for political controversy.

For example, in 2024, two Wikipedia articles were published simultaneously about the fighting at the Nuisrat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip in the Palestinian Territory. The articles were published for six months. In June 2024, the Israeli Defense Forces engaged in a gun battle with Hamas and conducted airstrikes to rescue four hostages . The Gaza Ministry of Health, run by Hamas, said that 274 Palestinians, including children, were killed in the operation.

This kind of editing battle is nothing new, and some people have criticized Wikipedia for being politically biased. Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter) and CEO of Tesla, cited a post on X that said, 'It has become clear that more than $50 million (about 7.4 billion yen) of Wikipedia's $177 million budget (about 26 billion yen) is being spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion,' and called for people to 'stop donating to Wokepedia until the balance of editing rights is restored.'



Bloomberg said the editing battles at Wikipedia, a non-profit organization, reflect 'the discord in today's society, where lively debate and compromise have been replaced by incendiary rhetoric and self-righteousness. This makes it harder for Wikipedia to achieve its goal of providing neutral content in a fair and accurate manner, a challenge that other news organizations face.

Because Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites on the Internet and is also used as a training and data source for modern generative AI, the impact of its impartiality being compromised could be significant. For example, the English Wikipedia page on the Israel-Hamas war has been viewed more than 9.8 million times, with an average of more than 21,000 views per day.

In response to the issue, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said in an email to Bloomberg that conflicts over the Middle East are common on Wikipedia, and a Wikipedia spokesperson said Wikipedia's editing process and content moderation systems work fine when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war.

However, in recent years, doubts about the reliability of Wikipedia have been growing, especially among groups and media with strong ties to Jews. At the World Jewish Congress held in March 2024, a report was released stating that 'English Wikipedia entries contain anti-Israel bias.' In addition, the Jewish News Syndicate , which covers Israel and Jews around the world, published an opinion piece in November 2024 titled 'Wikipedia's Anti-Israel Propaganda Mockers Objectivity and Destroys Credibility,' accusing Wikipedia of being taken over by groups working to slander and delegitimize Israel.

Furthermore, in January 2025, the Jewish news agency Forward reported that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in the United States, plans to identify and target anti-Semitic Wikipedia editors. This means revealing the identities of Wikipedia editors who are supposed to be anonymous, and Wales also expressed concern about this matter. However, Larry Sanger , another co-founder of Wikipedia, has previously criticized Wikipedia for being too left-wing, and supports the Heritage Foundation's plan.

It turns out that the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation is promoting a plan to identify and target anti-Semitic Wikipedia editors - GIGAZINE



In January 2025, 11 Wikipedia editors were banned by an arbitration committee from editing pages related to Israel and Palestine for reasons including 'non-neutral edits,' 'disrespectful behavior,' and 'attempting to create a team to approve arbitrary edits outside of Wikipedia.' One of these editors was reportedly banned indefinitely from Wikipedia by a sock puppet. Three of these editors were pro-Israel and seven were pro-Palestinian.

It was also discovered that three Wikipedia editors involved in pro-Israel campaigns were expelled from Wikipedia in early 2024 following an investigation by the tribunal. These editors began their activities immediately after Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, sending emails to other editors to instruct them to revise pages about the war. Also, on October 16, one of the three called for the deletion of an article that called the war in the Gaza Strip an Israeli 'genocide.'

Editors and administrators of Wikipedia sites that focus on Middle Eastern issues told Bloomberg that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is causing unprecedented internal turmoil. Although these editors have been keeping their political stances to a minimum on Wikipedia, many of the new editors appearing on articles about Israeli-Palestinian issues are not interested in upholding Wikipedia's basic principles of accuracy and neutrality.

Similar problems have also been reported with Wikipedia pages related to Iran, where a complaint was filed in January 2024 against five editors for deleting negative descriptions of Iran. The five editors were found to have been backing each other up by deleting photos and descriptions of anti-government protests, and when one editor was under surveillance, another editor would take over.

In an August 2024 post, one tribunal member wrote that the tribunal had 'run out of steam in dealing with the quagmire of problematic editor behavior' regarding issues surrounding Israel-Palestine coverage. 'The Israel-Palestine issue is a Gordian knot . We lack the power to untie this knot.'

Related Posts:

in Web Service, Posted by log1h_ik