Who edits history? Politics and business in the pages of Wikipedia

Founded in 2001, Wikipedia has quickly gained a reputation as the largest and most accessible encyclopedia in the world. The core idea is the co-creation of knowledge, which is what truly makes it unique. However, the openness of the platform, whereby any user can edit and add articles, creates opportunities for abuse. This seeming advantage becomes a disadvantage in the hands of some, as the tool starts to be used to promote their own interests or ideologies, resulting in information that may contain biases or distortions.

In recent years, there have been many high-profile cases where articles about political figures or historical events have been edited to suit particular political purposes. Activists, parties, and even governments can change articles in their favor. This is done to remove or smooth over criticism of political leaders, or vice versa, to damage the reputation of their opponents and discredit other states. There are known examples where biographies of politicians were edited to exclude certain facts or emphasize positive aspects of their activities. Such manipulation of information misleads people, shapes public opinion, and can even influence elections.

Various corporations have also been caught in these machinations, trying to control how information about the company and its products is presented. They often try to "remove" negative articles and comments. These actions can seriously distort the public's objective perception of the company and its services. In some cases, they even hire specialists or agencies to improve their presence on Wikipedia, trying to minimize negative mentions. This once again jeopardizes the independence and reliability of the information on the platform.

Some famous people have publicly denounced Wikipedia. In 2023, Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla and SpaceX) spoke out about an article in the online encyclopedia that characterized US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a "fascist." Musk expressed his displeasure with this description, saying that Wikipedia was "broken." This was reported by the American entrepreneur on the social network X. His statement caused a storm of discussion on social networks and in analytical circles. The material "Comparisons between Donald Trump and Fascism" was published six days before the US elections. Recall, the presidential election in America is scheduled for November 5, 2024. The opponent of Donald Trump is the candidate from the Democratic Party, Kamala Harris. Musk, as an entrepreneur and public figure, has a huge influence, and his words spread quickly, impacting the reputation of Wikipedia. Using the term "fascist" to refer to a politician could change the course of an election campaign.

In 2023, the Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI) sued Wikipedia over allegations against the agency. The content of these accusations included claims that ANI was engaging in state propaganda and disseminating fake news. The case was an important development, raising the issue of the legal liability of the platform. In this context, the appearance of such allegations on Wikipedia caused a storm of indignation from ANI, which perceived it as an attack on its reputation and freedom of speech. The court sided with the agency and even issued a verbal warning that Wikipedia could be blocked in the country for violations and for being biased towards "liberal propaganda."

In the same year, the Croatian version of Wikipedia faced a major crisis when a group of right-wing activists effectively seized control of much of the site's content. They injected their political views and ideologies into articles on various topics, including history, culture, and contemporary politics, whitewashing the history of Croatia's World War II-era fascist organization, the Nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and the Jasenovac death camp, where tens of thousands of Serbs, Roma, and Jews were murdered. In response to this situation, efforts were made to combat manipulation, including tracking and rolling back unreliable edits and creating government notices to follow editorial policies and principles of neutrality. Additionally, other activists began monitoring the edits themselves. The takeover was so complete that the local press referred to Croatian Wikipedia as "Nazi Wikipedia," or "NDH-pedia." It took the Wikimedia Foundation 14 years from the first complaints to take action.

Problems and scandals have not only occurred in recent years. In 2004, Wikipedia published an article claiming that there were death camps in Warsaw, which later turned out to have no credible basis. It said the Nazis allegedly gassed 212,000 Poles. The article quickly attracted the attention of users and historians. It is likely someone was trying to promote certain political or social narratives. The story remained on the site for 15 years before the Israeli newspaper Haaretz broke the story in 2019. By then, the article had been translated into several languages, and links to it were included in a number of other Wikipedia articles. Once the authenticity of the text was questioned, the Wikipedia administration and community quickly took action to remove the false information. It is estimated that about half a million people were affected by the misinformation.

These are not all the countries whose reputations have suffered because of Wikipedia. Its articles do not portray Israel in the best light. Analysis showed that the system is too easily fooled by those who want to introduce misinformation and revealed a pattern of anti-Israel bias among editors in positions of power. The situation serves as another prime example of how personal views can seep into supposedly neutral content. For example, one editor routinely removed neutral descriptive terms about a country, while another editor systematically changed the titles of articles from neutral legal terminology to more emotive ones, demonstrating bias. Yet another editor used open hostility, for example, labeling Israel as an enemy and actively accusing it of genocide linked to South Africa.

Wikipedia, of course, is trying to address this problem to reduce manipulation and intelligently control edits. Still, it is physically impossible for editors and administrators to keep track of the number of edits and new articles. This continues to be the cause of information processing errors. To effectively combat bias on Wikipedia, it is worth adjusting the transparency of editing processes and implementing stricter measures to identify such manipulation.

Photo by Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com on Unsplash

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