ADL, Mar. 18, 2025
“It’s clear that Wikipedia needs to do far more to address the very active antisemitic and anti-Israel bias and coordination.”
Through an extensive investigation, ADL (Anti-Defamation League) Center for Technology and Society (CTS) researchers found widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia, including clear evidence of a coordinated campaign to manipulate Wikipedia’s content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in likely violation of Wikipedia’s policies.
The report further found that pro-Hamas perspectives inform Arabic-language Wikipedia content on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “Recent Wikipedia efforts toward neutrality are nothing but a Band-Aid on a problem that’s getting worse, with persistent antisemitic and anti-Israel bias still far too present. We urge Wikipedia and policymakers to act quickly before rampant disinformation on one of the most visited sources of information leads to tragic consequences.”
Coordinated anti-Jewish, anti-Israel bias and manipulation
ADL has found clear evidence that a group of at least 30 editors acted in concert to circumvent Wikipedia’s policies to introduce antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias, and misleading information:
- These 30 editors were much more active than other comparable groups of editors, on average, by a factor of at least two, based on total edits made over the past 10 years.
- The 30 editors were much more likely than other editors to communicate with each other on Wikipedia: they were as much as 18 times more active in group communications than comparable groups of editors.
- The editors appeared to coordinate to change pages related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, downplaying Palestinian antisemitism, violence, and calls to destroy Israel while promoting criticism of Israel.
- These edits have ramped up since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and include the systematic removal of citations to reputable sources and tandem voting to keep content critical of Israel but remove coverage of Palestinian violence and terrorism. ….SOURCE