Posted on 11/24/2019 4:38:35 AM PST by robowombat
Wikipedia’s Anti-Israel Editors Unmasked Group launches effort to combat anti-Israel bias on internet's largest encyclopedia
Adam Kredo - NOVEMBER 20, 2019 2:35 PM A pro-Israel organization has exposed the identities of top Wikipedia editors who use the online encyclopedia to promote anti-Israel bias and causes, a first-of-its-kind effort that is unmasking a global online network of Israel critics.
The Israel Group, a nonprofit organization that combats anti-Israel bias, is set to launch next year a database that will expose the true identities of many leading Wikipedia editors who harbor anti-Israel bias and have implanted this viewpoint across the website through more than 325,000 edits during the past 10 years. It has already listed the identities of several of these editors.
The new effort, dubbed Wiki-Israel, seeks to provide accountability for the numerous and often anonymous editors who control all of the content that exists on Wikipedia. Leaders of the Israel Group accuse these individuals of acting as "a cabal of virulently anti-Israel anonymous editors" who are "responsible for decimating virtually the entire pro-Israel editing community." Leaders of the Israel Group view Wikipedia, with its global reach and wide readership, as a central battleground in the fight to combat the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
"Trying to teach anyone the truth and facts about Israel is a futile effort as long as Wikipedia, the number one online educational resource globally, substantiates the lies and propaganda promulgated by the BDS movement," Jack Saltzberg, founder and president of the Israel Group told the Washington Free Beacon. "Stopping Wikipedia's anti-Israel bias should be the most important battle against BDS. There is no close second."
Wikipedia editors routinely promote falsehoods about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and portray Israel in a negative light, according to the Israel Group.
"For more than a decade, Wikipedia—the number one online educational resource globally—has allowed anonymous anti-Israel editors to falsely and negatively alter Israel's factual history in Wikipedia articles pertaining to the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts," Israel Group said in a statement promoting the new endeavor, which will officially launch in January 2020.
"Volunteer ‘administrators' (with lifetime positions), responsible for overseeing the editing process of Wikipedia, have not only allowed anti-Israel editors freedom to take over Wikipedia, they have participated by blocking and banning predominantly Jewish and pro-Israel editors," the group said. "For anyone concerned about the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel, Wikipedia is now the number one global source that actively substantiates the lies and false propaganda being disseminated about Israel."
The organization has been working for years to find the editors responsible for anti-Israel content and unearth details about their identities.
"The Israel Group has been working for many years, under the radar, on a confidential initiative, Wiki-Israel, that combats Wikipedia's antisemitic bias against Israel," the group said. "The initiative includes a dedicated website that, among many other things, shows how anti-Israel editors smear Israel—both subtly and overtly—across hundreds of articles, and how the pro-Israel community can stop it."
Already, the Israel Group has listed the details of the top five editors it deems leaders of the anti-Israel effort.
The number one anti-Israel leader, according to the Israel Group, is an Australian computer scientist named Brendan McKay.
"Brendan McKay, who goes by the Wikipedia username ‘Zero0000,' is the Godfather, the unofficial leader of the entire cabal of anti-Israel Wikipedia editors," the Israel Group wrote in a post about McKay. "Although he is not the most prolific or skilled editor among them, one thing separates him from the others: he's a Wikipedia administrator. This means that he has vast powers that regular editors don't have, such as the ability to block and ban regular editors and to delete edits and articles from the historical record. Moreover, administrators are greatly respected, so when they accuse general editors of editing with a pro-Israel point of view—as McKay repeatedly does—other administrators side with him, often blocking or banning pro-Israel editors."
The Israel Group goes on to list as its second leading anti-Israel editor another Australian named Peter Nicholas Dale.
Dale "is undoubtedly the most prolific and proficient of the bunch," according to the Israel Group. "He is an erudite, skilled blowhard who employs his expert Wikipedia editing proficiency to derail and obfuscate discussions."
He has performed more than 60,000 Wikipedia edits and has "never once benefited Israel," the group claims.
When the initiative launches in 2020, the Israel Group will begin posting a more complete list of the editors it claims are responsible for Wikipedia's anti-Israel bias.
More important than the article topic is how soon we forget what a huge propaganda information influence Wikipedia truly is. Everyone refers to it for facts, and those facts are “adjusted” as liked to fit a chosen narrative. Much of it is just as personally opinionated and skewed as the MSM and manipulated like Google.
True, the further back in history and the further away from the US the more reliable. It’s operational coverage of the Sino-Jap War is outstanding, as one example.
I ran across and run across this editing on most climate related issues - yes, in favor of the catastrophists. Yesterday, I was trying to get a simple list of the 2016 Presidential results by State and noted that almost every article on Trump included a lengthy comment on Russian collusion! Somebody has been busy and very naughty. Wikipedia is colluding in its own demise.
Once he realizes that admirals leave skid marks in their skivvies, and that Obama's O-5 and above thugs are still screwing things up, Mr. Trump will do the necessary.
I noticed that also, no harm in telling the truth if it is at arms length and and won’t directly affect us. Aside from how they edit and adjust history depending on the current trending narrative, especially with political characters and situations. Just like our current indoctrination education system they change history as needed on the fly and most take it as fact without question. The cover ups for the left and bias against the right on Wikipedia have been just incredible over the years. I used to have a database of screenshots documenting these changes they have made over the years but unfortunately I lost it. But they are just as bad about “scrubbing” stuff and steering opinion as Google is.
Wikipedia is heavily edited in favor of the left with articles related to the problems in Europe between the World Wars; communists were good, and the traditional nationalist movements opposing them were bad. Their atrocities are downplayed, while those of their opponents are front & center.
” ran across and run across this editing on most climate related issues - yes, in favor of the catastrophists. Yesterday, I was trying to get a simple list of the 2016 Presidential results by State and noted that almost every article on Trump included a lengthy comment on Russian collusion! Somebody has been busy and very naughty. Wikipedia is colluding in its own demise.”
Yep... Been watching it for years.
If you can provide a reference citation refuting the statement, you, that is you, can revise and correct the article
Many of the “editors” of Wikipedia have .gov addresses. That means that editing Wikipedia is a part of their job.
Hmmm—I wonder which agencies they work for....
Yep. Look in Wikipedia at various social subjects, and you’ll see it’s blatant leftist orientation.
And they’re proud leftists, proven by the not-so-subtle phrasing in many of their pages. Pick a subject where left and right disagree and see for yourself. And, there’s more:
Wikipedia
Snopes
MediaMatters
FactCheck
RationalWiki (quite the oxymoron)
The problem with “reference citations” is that Wikipedia has turned them into a circle jerk—with “approved” publications defined as those that support their biases, and “fringe” publications defined as those that do not.
When you add intelligence community infiltration of both the cited mass media outlets and Wikipedia, the circle becomes a closed loop of bias and propaganda on controversial topics.
Operation Mockingbird is alive and well—it just has new names and new players.
“Many of the “editors” of Wikipedia have .gov addresses”
Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting!
“...Wikipedia has turned them into a circle jerk...”
As have news outlets, so often quoting and ‘interviewing’ other news people and pundits.
They still have an “approval” board that chooses what can and cannot be submitted. And they allow a LOT of edits that have absolutely no basis in fact or source. Or they will not allow facts that might conflict with their chosen narrative. Know how many conservatives that have been “convicted” before they have actually been convicted there are on Wikipedia? The false propaganda is just incredible and allowed to stay up as “creditable” fact by their biased review board.
Yep... Now it is so obvious they don’t even make an effort to prevent it anymore.
Yep, we are up against 95% of the internet. It is a real and true conspiracy.
They won’t admit Dan Rather lied and FR posters caught him red-handed—a great example of Wikipedia bias in opposition to clear facts.
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