Tampering With Wikipedia to Support a Pro-Russian Narrative?
Someone, quite possibly Russia, has been subtly editing Wikipedia articles in an effort to influence the narrative related to Russia’s war in the Ukrainian. The changes are often slight, yet sophisticated, and they are made in a way that can change the nature of the online encycolpedia’s articles.
That’s the claim made by a new report authored by two United Kingdom research organizations – the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Centre of the Analysis of Social Media (CASM). The goal of their research effort was to find ways to detect and measure disinformation on Wikipedia, while seeking ways to mitigate the meddling – without censoring legitimate editing and article discourse.
Since it was launched in 2001, Wikipedia has created sets of tools and content approval procedures that support content moderation and protect against inappropriate editing and additions. Thus, slipping past the site’s moderation process can be challenging.
The report, titled Information Warfare and Wikipedia focuses on the work of 86 editors who were banned for not following Wikipedia’s code of ethics. In particular, those participants edited pages related to Ukraine and the current war in Ukraine. Further examination revealed their edits, sometimes small and sometimes more involved, often attempted to adjust the story behind the Ukrainian conflict, often in a way that supported a pro-Russian narrative.
Some edits worked to accomplish the following.
- To diminish pro-Western or pro-Ukrainian points of view while boosting pro-Kremlin narratives.
- Adjusting historical background entries and topics to support pro-Russia details.
- Creating uncertainty over specific events in a way that could make it hard for readers to trust their own understanding of events.
Tampering with a popular online encyclopedia is just one way the perceived facts related to conflicts and political events can be influenced. But such efforts very much can be one cog in a larger set of endeavors that can mask the facts related to an event.
