By: Rafael Wexler
Edited By: Eric Omorogieva
As of November 2024, Wikipedia is the fourth most visited website in the world. Back in high school (or even in undergraduate), some of us might have been told by a professor or two that Wikipedia could be used as a starting point when conducting academic research. I recall a professor telling me that you could find a trove of reliable sources listed under “References,” “Bibliography,” or “External Links.” Regardless, no matter how convenient Wikipedia might be, it is (or should be) common knowledge that one can never rely solely on Wikipedia for research. Not to mention, anyone can contribute inaccurate information to a Wikipedia entry and have it fall victim to circular reporting, such as the case of a 17-year-old in 2008 going into the Wikipedia entry on the coati and jokingly adding that it was also known as a Brazilian aardvark.
While the “Brazilian aardvark” case is a minor example of an established occurrence that has been normalized in the digital age, it becomes far more dangerous when it turns into a coordinated effort to push a personal bias or agenda for the sole purpose of influencing and distorting public opinion on global issues of critical relevance such as the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Arab-Israeli Conflict.
These coordinated efforts are not new. In April 2008, the pro-Palestinian website The Electronic Intifada (EI) accused the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) of attempting to rewrite Palestinian history and pass off propaganda as fact. However, CAMERA was unfairly singled out, as it was revealed just a month later that EI manipulated Wikipedia to push its agenda by attempting to have CAMERA listed as an unreliable source. In addition, it appeared at the time that the Wikipedia community had no issue with pro-Palestinian groups such as the “Wiki Project Palestine” and the Yahoo group “Wikipedians for Palestine” violating policies forbidding political advocacy. History has a tendency to repeat itself, as in June 2024, when Wikipedia deemed the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) an unreliable source on the topics of antisemitism and Israel.
In March 2024, a blog was launched followed by an X account (formerly known as Twitter) in August 2024 which began documenting Wikipedia’s anti-Israel bias. The creators of the blog coined the term “The Wikipedia Flood” to describe the vast collective of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas editors on Wikipedia. They characterized them as the online parallel to the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the name Hamas gave to the October 7 attack on Israel. One of their most popular posts is an article documenting the significant alterations made by anti-Zionist editors to the Wikipedia entry on Zionism since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, including the addition of sources from anti-Israel figures.
In October 2024, digital media outlet Pirate Wires published an article detailing how Wikipedia’s pro-Hamas editors have waged a coordinated campaign to “hijack” the narrative surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Arab-Israeli Conflict. It also mentions a separate campaign launched by a group called “Tech for Palestine” (TFP), organized through a private 8,000-member Discord server. They tried to use Wikipedia to influence British Members of Parliament’s positions on Israel and the Israel-Hamas War. Thankfully, their activities were exposed, resulting in a dissolution and mass deletion to cover their tracks. The most alarming example cited in this article was how, six weeks after October 7, an editor removed references to Hamas’ 1988 Charter (which explicitly called for the killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel) from the Wikipedia entry on Hamas. This is a classic and horrifying example of whitewashing wrapped in revision inside a cover-up.
Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, Wikipedia has become one of the most extensive battlefields in the information wars being waged by pro-Hamas and anti-Israel radicals. The extremists called to “globalize the intifada,” and they have succeeded in encouraging violence against Israel, Jews, and institutions in the digital realm by erasing facts and elevating hate one Wikipedia edit at a time. This should alarm us all as the next generation of global leaders. As professionals of tomorrow, we are responsible for ending Wikipedia’s weaponization and fighting for the truth.