Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:51, 18 October 2022

Political editing on Misplaced Pages comprises the addition, promotion, or maintenance of content on Misplaced Pages that is meant to advance a political ideology, viewpoint, or state position. It can be seen as a type of conflict-of-interest editing. The Misplaced Pages community utilizes various tools and policies to detect and remove such content, but whether they would be effective against a state actor has been called into question.

Known incidents

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

In 2008, the pro-Israel activist group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) launched a campaign to alter Misplaced Pages articles to support the Israeli side of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The campaign suggested that pro-Israeli editors should pretend to be interested in other topics until elected as administrators. Once administrators they were to misuse their administrative powers to suppress pro-Palestinian editors and support pro-Israel editors. Some participants in the project were banned by Misplaced Pages administrators.

In 2010, two pro-settler Israeli groups, Yesha Council and Israel Sheli, launched courses to instruct pro-Israel editors on how to use Misplaced Pages to promote Israel's point of view. A prize was to be given to the editor who inserted the most pro-Israel changes.

Pro- and anti-China editing

In October 2019, the BBC reported that there were indications that tendentious edits on 22 politically sensitive articles (such as those related to the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests or Taiwan) were not all "necessarily organic, nor random". The BBC quoted an academic article published in the Journal of Social Sciences called Opportunities And Challenges Of China's Foreign Communication in the Misplaced Pages as saying "due to the influence by foreign media, Misplaced Pages entries have a large number of prejudiced words against the Chinese government" and continues "We must develop a targeted external communication strategy, which includes not only rebuilding a set of external communication discourse systems, but also cultivating influential editors on the wiki platform." before concluding "China urgently needs to encourage and train Chinese netizens to become Misplaced Pages platform opinion leaders and administrators… can adhere to socialist values and form some core editorial teams." Not all edits made by Chinese state actors are vandalism; many are related to asserting one disputed claim over others or pruning language to make a political point. The BBC reported that attacks have been made not just against Misplaced Pages's content but also against individual editors.

On 13 September 2021 the Wikimedia Foundation banned seven editors belonging to the Chinese Misplaced Pages group "Wikimedians of Mainland China", and removed the administrative privileges of another twelve, due to a "security risk relates to information about infiltration of Wikimedia systems, including positions with access to personally identifiable information and elected bodies of influence". Researchers have called the incident "the clearest indication of a more concerted and strategic attempt to change Misplaced Pages by a state".

Promotion or debasement of politicians and political candidates

United States Congressional staffers

In 2006, it was discovered that more than 1,000 changes had been made to Misplaced Pages articles originating from United States government IP addresses. Changes had been made to articles about Representative Marty Meehan, Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Norm Coleman, Representative Gil Gutknecht, then-Senator Joe Biden, Senator Conrad Burns, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Tom Harkin, Representative David Davis, Tennessee state representative Matthew Hill and then-Representative Mike Pence. The edits removed accurate but critical information and embellished positive descriptions. In response to the controversy, certain affected IP addresses were temporarily blocked.

Later, in 2011, conflicted edits were also made to US Congressional representative David Rivera's article.

2008 US presidential campaign

During the 2008 US presidential election, changes made by both Barack Obama's and John McCain's campaigns made news. A user who later claimed to work for the McCain campaign made changes to Sarah Palin's article just before the announcement that she would run for vice-president.

Newt Gingrich

Around the beginning of 2012, Joe DeSantis, the campaign communications director for American presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, argued for and made changes to Gingrich's Misplaced Pages article. Some changes which DeSantis requested were minor, but his initial efforts tried to remove negative details which he thought unduly biased the articles, including details about Gingrich's extramarital affairs, information about his financial expenditure, ethics charges against him, and his political positions on controversial issues.

The incident was notable for DeSantis' switch from editing articles about the politician and his wife directly, to following Misplaced Pages's conflict of interest guideline by using the linked discussion pages for each article to suggest edits rather than make them himself. He said, "I stopped making direct edits in May 2011 because I was alerted to the COI rules...Earlier I thought that simply disclosing my affiliation was enough but it wasn't. So I started posting requests on the Talk page. This has been far more successful and the other editors on Misplaced Pages have largely received this very positively." He told the political journalism organization Politico that his approach of working with the Misplaced Pages community by discussing edits on talk pages to be more successful than making the changes himself. Misplaced Pages editor Tvoz was quoted as critical of the practice; she wrote: "... I have to say this micro-managing by a Gingrich campaign director is a matter of concern to me even though you now are identifying yourself. Pointing out factual errors is one thing, but your input should not go beyond that, even ."

United Kingdom Parliament

In March 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism uncovered that UK MPs or their staff had made almost 10,000 edits to the encyclopedia, and that almost one in six MPs had their Misplaced Pages articles edited from within Parliament. Many of the changes dealt with removing unflattering details from during the 2009 expenses scandal, as well as other controversial issues. Former MP Joan Ryan admitted to changing her entry "whenever there's misleading or untruthful information been placed on it." Clare Short said her staff were "angry and protective" over mistakes and criticisms in her Misplaced Pages article and acknowledged they might have made changes to it. Labour MP Fabian Hamilton also reported having one of his assistants edit a page to make it more accurate, in his view. MP Philip Davies denied making changes about removing controversial comments related to Muslims from 2006 and 2007.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna was alleged to have created and edited his own Misplaced Pages page. Umunna told the Daily Telegraph that he did not alter his own Misplaced Pages page, but the paper quoted what they called "sources close to Umunna" as having told the newspaper that "it was possible that one of his campaign team in 2007, when he was trying to be selected to be Labour's candidate for Streatham in the 2010 general election, set up the page."

Irish former Senator Jim Walsh

In September 2015, former senator Jim Walsh admitted editing his own Misplaced Pages entry, claiming it had been edited by "a person from the gay lobby groups". He said that he had removed "certain erroneous comments" but did not say which edits he made. T.J. McIntyre, a law lecturer at University College Dublin, drew attention to edits made from an IP address belonging to the Oireachtas. Edits made from that address included removal of controversial comments made by the former senator about gay people or the Marriage Equality referendum.

See also

• Criticism of Misplaced Pages
• Ideological bias on Misplaced Pages
• Reliability of Misplaced Pages
• Vandalism on Misplaced Pages
• Misplaced Pages bots
• Media manipulation
• State-sponsored Internet propaganda

References

1. Borak, Masha (2022-10-17). "The Hunt for Misplaced Pages's Disinformation Moles". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028.
2. "The Mideast Editing Wars". The American Prospect. 1 May 2008. Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
3. Shabi, Rachel; Kiss, Jemima (18 August 2010). "Misplaced Pages editing courses launched by Zionist groups". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
4. "The right's latest weapon: 'Zionist editing' on Misplaced Pages". Haaretz. 8 August 2010. Archived from the original on 4 September 2011. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
5. Miller, Carl (4 October 2019). "China and Taiwan clash over Misplaced Pages edits". BBC News. Archived from the original on 3 December 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
6. Cheng, Selina (2021-09-14). "Exclusive: Misplaced Pages bans 7 mainland Chinese power users over 'infiltration and exploitation' in unprecedented clampdown". Retrieved 2022-10-18.
7. Maggie, Dennis (2021-09-13). "Regarding a series of serious office actions / 有关于一系列的办事处行动". Wikimedia-l (Mailing list).
8. Miller, Carl; Smith, Melanie; Marsh, Oliver; Balint, Kata; Inskip, Chris; Visser, Francesca (2022-10-17). Information Warfare and Misplaced Pages (Report). Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and CASM Technology. Retrieved 2022-10-18.
9. Noguchi, Yuki (12 February 2006). "Misplaced Pages Objects to Editing for Political Incorrectness". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 8 November 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
   • Lehmann, Evan (27 January 2006). "Rewriting history under the dome". Lowell Sun. Archived from the original on 2 February 2006.
10. Blakely, Rhys (9 February 2006). "Washington's politicians edit Misplaced Pages". The Times. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011.
11. ^ "Gutknecht joins Misplaced Pages tweakers". Star Tribune. 18 August 2006. Archived from the original on 21 August 2006.
12. "Burns' office may have tampered with Misplaced Pages entry". The Bozeman Daily Chronicle. 8 February 2006. Archived from the original on 20 July 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
13. ^ Noguchi, Yuki (9 February 2006). "Misplaced Pages's Help From the Hill". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 21 April 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2017.
14. ^ Humphrey, Tom (11 August 2007). "Entries on Misplaced Pages edited by Davis aide". Knoxville News Sentinel. Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
15. Collins, Michael (15 August 2007). "Lawmaker's office awaits panel's verdict on aide's act". Knoxville News Sentinel. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
16. Carter, Zach (18 August 2011). "Did Mike Pence's Office Edit His Misplaced Pages Page To Make It More Flattering?". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2012.
17. "Misplaced Pages Now Blocking US Congress From Making Edits". DailyTech. 30 January 2006. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
    • "Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/United States Congress". En.wikipedia.org. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
18. Cogan, Marin (7 April 2011). "Rep. David Rivera's war with Misplaced Pages". Politico. Archived from the original on 11 February 2012. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
19. "Staffs for US presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama caught making questionable edits to Misplaced Pages". Mister-Info.com. 24 January 2012. Archived from the original on 24 January 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
20. Cohen, Noam (1 September 2008). "Editing - and re-editing - Sarah Palin's Misplaced Pages Entry". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 25 June 2017. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
21. "Gingrich spokesman defends Misplaced Pages edits". CNN. 6 February 2012. Archived from the original on 10 February 2012. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
22. ^ "Newt Gingrich communications director Joe DeSantis works Misplaced Pages". Politico. 15 December 2011. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
23. ^ "Joe DeSantis, Newt Gingrich's communications director, made over 60 changes to the GOP candidate's Misplaced Pages page". GlobalPost. 6 February 2012. Archived from the original on 15 February 2012. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
24. Furness, Hannah (9 March 2012). "MPs Misplaced Pages pages 'changed from inside Parliament'". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
25. ^ "Misplaced Pages: 'Bob Crow, The Lord of the Rings and Notable DJs': TBIJ". Thebureauinvestigates.com. 9 March 2012. Archived from the original on 10 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
26. Hope, Christopher (7 April 2013). "Labour star Chuka Umunna admits his aides probably set up and edited his own Misplaced Pages page". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
27. ^ O'Reilly, Brian (27 September 2015). "Senator Jim Walsh admits editing his own Misplaced Pages page after it 'was changed by person from gay lobby groups'". Sunday Independent. Archived from the original on 28 September 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2015.

• Conflict-of-interest editing on Misplaced Pages
• Misplaced Pages reliability
• Propaganda