Posted on 05/12/2006 2:31:00 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
Wikipedia, Censorship, Israel and Terrorism
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem---- May 12.....Wikipedia has censored the Israel Government Press Office accredited Israel News Agency. The move to delete an article on the Israel News Agency, which had a vote to "keep" by the Wikipedia community, was made after the INA's critical critique of Wikipedia in Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander.
In censoring the Israel News Agency, Israel's first government accredited on-line news service established back in 1995, Wikipedia joins the ranks of such notable censoring countries and organizations as Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, China, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the PFLP, Hizbullah and the Palestinian Authority. The move to censor the INA, which has a reach of over 60 million readers (Alexa.com) was made unilaterally by Danny Wool, the number two executive at Wikipedia.
The Israel News Agency, a non-profit organization, directly communicates advisories from the Israel Government Press Office, the Israel Foreign Ministry, the Israel Ministry of Defense and the Israel Defense Forces.
The INA has been credited with many exclusives including Al-Qaeda : The 39 Principles of Holy War, reports directly from the scenes of the Passover Massacre in Netanya, Israel, the Tel Aviv terror attack on the Dolphanarium, the 9/11 terror attack in New York and the recently sponsored Israel SEO contest to address the Holocaust cartoon contest which was coordinated by the Iran government. The INA has served as a news source to Google News since 2002.
Yet, Danny Wool states that the Israel News Agency is a "vanity page."
It should also be noted that the first INA story on Wikipedia appeared as a featured story at Wikipedia!
To keep events in focus, it all started by a divorced father who merely wants to spend a few more hours with his children. That dad was this author and Wikipedia user Israelbeach who had edited the Wikipedia City of Ra'anana page and had inserted a paragraph with three news sources citing that fathers' rights and gender bias discrimination is an issue which confronts this small suburban town north of Tel Aviv, Israel.
That led to an edit war inside Wikipedia with a Wikipedia administrator named Woggly aka Gili Bar-Hillel. Bar-Hillel hurled a barrage of personal attacks and legal threats at me including to insinuate that I was "dangerous to her children." Personal attacks are not allowed on supposed "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."
In fact, normal procedure at Wikipedia would be to block or ban the user throwing the toxic insults. Instead, this author and many Wikipedia users who had supported Israelbeach's position were both blocked and banned by Wikipedia. Some of these people were accused of being "sockpuppets" or in plain terminology the same user using different Wikipedia user names and IP addresses. These so-called "sock-puppets" called Danny Wool at Wikipedia and clearly stated that they were not user Israelbeach. Wool's response: "if you make any mention of Joel Leyden or Israelbeach you will be banned." Is that censorship?
Censoring is not something new at Wikipedia.
According to Wikitruth, Alan Dershowitz was censored by Wikipedia Jimbo Wales on December 8, 2005. "In true Wikipedia style, this article was reduced down to a single sentence reading "Alan Morton Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School." on the early morning of December 8, 2005. His rational for doing so was: "I have received a very strong complaint about this article, and so I have protected this very short version for tonight. Unlike the normal case where protected articles should not be edited, I want to try an experiment -- admins can edit this article. We need to verify very carefully, with documentable sources, every single fact in the article.--Jimbo Wales 00:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)"
Wikitruth continues: "The standout effect of the censorship of Dershowitz's article is that as of March 22, 2006 it sources a dispute with Noam Chomsky in its references that has been censored from the article! The edit history prior to December 8, 2005 at 00:07 UTC has been manipulated or otherwise destroyed from the Alan Dershowitz article by Jimbo and his underlings, very possibly a GFDL violation. Dershowitz is a highly controversial lawyer, famous for getting into scrapes with other high-profile types. That's fairly common knowledge: few of us would not have seen his face in the paper at one time or another."
"But Wikipedia thinks he's just another lawyer. Dershowitz didn't like his Wikipedia article. If you don't like what the wiki says about you, there are two roads to fixing it. First you can try editing the article. You'll generally be heavily abused by Wikithugs, who will chant weird invocations like WP:AUTO at you and expect you to understand that that means they believe they have a license to treat you like shit if you have the temerity to work on your own biography. Then, if you are a high-powered lawyer, or know one, you can try the second route. Give Jimmy a call and use the magic words. ...the magic words are "legal action". But take care. Don't mention them on the wiki, or a Wikithug will banish you for "making a legal threat". Make your legal threats to Jimbo directly."
As I have stated in my last story about Wikipedia, as far as being considered "notable" I don't think I am. Yeah, maybe I have achieved a few good things here and there, but as the Village Voice recently commented: "Not notable? Wikipedia hosts approximately three jillion full-page articles about local high schools, complete with alma mater lyrics, and it can't make room for a critical look at its own practices? Perversely enough, though, "notability" has indeed become a byword for Wikipedia's freelance fact police, who delete at will whatever they think might worsen the site's smoldering reputation as a trivia dump."
Woody Allen once said (or was it Groucho Marx?): "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."
One should note that many of the editors at Wikipedia are professional, dedicated, creative and highly talented, but they do not make up a majority. They deserve credit for their many hours and contributions, but can you imagine a car repair garage stating "the free garage where anyone can play with your cylinders?"
Are Wikipedia's investors and venture capital sources such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Dan Gillmor, The Omidyar Network, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Joichi Ito, and Mitch Kapor aware of the rampant libel, slander and censorship taking place in Wikipedia's so-called "citizens media?"
To censor any free and democratic source of news is a violation of our basic rights to free speech in a free society. As Wikipedia is a leading source of information coming out of the US, censorship of non-inciteful accredited news media is a direct breach of public trust which only serves the egos and pride of Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales and his assistant Danny Wool. Censorship at Wikipedia is a highly serious and dangerous action.
Furthermore, Wikipedia, which is now being blocked for use by many universities and colleges for its lack of accountability, through its lack of accountable user and administrator posts could actually be aiding terrorists to communicate with one another on the Internet through their anonymous edits.
For having written the above story on Wikipedia, Danny Wool could now block me from editing Wikipedia. Sorry, I forgot , he has already done that. Well Danny could then ban me from Wikipedia. Opps, he's done that too. Okay, how about just deleting an biography about me which was voted by the Wikipedia community to keep. Hey Danny has already done that as well.
So what is left? Danny can hire a public relations company for 15,000 dollars which specializes in crisis communications or reputation management. What they would then advise would be to apologize to Wikipedia users and readers of the Israel News Agency by admitting they had made a mistake. But the egos of Jimbo Wales and Danny Wool would not permit that.
As stated in Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander "Wikipedia defines the essence of mediocrity. For this reason it has risen to a high ranking on the Net's search engines."
The mediocrity continues. And rather than citing hundreds of other incidents where Wikipedia has directly hurt both businesses and people through allowing libel, slander and censorship on it's Website, my time is much better spent making my children smile.
This has been part two of a five part news analysis series on Wikipedia.
Related Web Site: WikipediaReview
Editor's note: If you have been injured either commercially or personally by libel or slander at Wikipedia, the INA wants to hear your story. The above article is part one of a five part series. Please click here to write to the INA.
Um... is Wikipedia a tax payer funded site? Isn't it private like FR?
Mullah money at work..
Many people will try to argue it is a very good source, but I agree with you that it will never be good because of its open-to-edit nature. Anyone can edit it and so how do we know something must be authoritatively true - it does not necessarily follow that just because a majority of people believe X is true means X is really true.
In addition, there is no consistency between one article in one language to another unless if that one is a translated version of that article from anotehr language. In the article on World War II, for example, you will see the English version talk a lot about Nazis and Hitler, while the Chinese version will emphasise Japan, and the Japanese version blasts the US for Lend-Lease and setting up the Flying Tigers to aid China before Pearl Harbour and effectively breaching the US neutrality stance of that time.
The article on the Japanese national anthem in Chinese blasts it as extremely militaristic while you won't see anything like such comments in the English version as the English-speaking nations don't regard it as such.
This is a rather babbling incoherent "article".
Yes - if you work for Wikipedia!
Wikipedia is mostly good for hard sciences, technology, and pop culture.
I agree, and it is also good for something that you don't normally read in English-speaking countries, such as what "Victoria Park Uncles" in Hong Kong politics means. You notice it has Hong Kong and Taiwanese culture articles that cannot be written by anyone other than natives, given the hindsights etc.
There are some who think it is our job to correct this. No, people have lives... Liars indict themselves, and it is not our job to actively refute misinformation as fast as it can be produced.
A source that defames itself should be ignored, not moved to a "debate" section or voted upon by an army of politcally driven teenagers.
It's against the rules to write an article about yourself.
It is also against the rules to use Wikipedia to promote one's own website.
Their site policy is very clear about that.
Let us remember, whether or not they succeed, they are trying to build an encyclopedia that is equal in quality to the Encyclopedia Britannica. That means no piddly self-aggrandinzing stuff. They keep out articles on topics with a small interest base, like people's Counterstrike clans, pages about unremarkable individuals, and little-visited websites (ahem).
So...do you work for the "Israel News Service?" :P
As of now, it is not "garbage", more like toxic waste!
When anonymous postings become forbidden and accountability is established, with less personal attacks, libel, slander and censorship, only then will we perhaps see a responsible "citizen's media."
Until then Wikipedia's investors and venture capital sources such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Dan Gillmor, The Omidyar Network, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Joichi Ito, and Mitch Kapor and we, the global public, are being used and abused.
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