Anti-Palestinian infiltration of Wikipedia
A group calling itself CAMERA-,Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, has been outed as mounting a large scale campaign to rewrite Palestinian history on popular reference site Wikipedia.
Until its exposure the group was very secretive, not allowing wikipedia administrators know of its existence. The group wished for some of its members to ascend to prominent editorial positions in wikipedia to ensure that the groups efforts would not be subject to backlash.
The group communicated through email, giving each other suggestions on how to pass of propaganda as fact. One tip from user Gilead Ini reads
So, for example, imagine that you get rid of or modify a problematic sentence in an article alleging that ‘Palestinian [sic] become suicide bombers to respond to Israel’s oppressive policies.’ You should, in parallel leave a comment on that article’s discussion page (either after or before making the change). Avoid defending the edit by arguing that ‘Israel’s policies aren’t ‘oppression,’ they are defensive. And anyway Palestinians obviously become suicide bombers for other reasons for example hate education!’ Instead, describe how this sentence violates Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines. One of the core principles is that assertions should adhere to a Neutral Point of View, usually abbreviated NPOV. (The opposite of NPOV is POV, or Point of View, which is basically another way of saying subjective statement, or opinion.) So it would be best to note on the discussion page that ‘This sentence violates Wikipedia’s NPOV policy, since the description of Israel’s policies as ‘oppressive’ is an opinion. In addition, it is often noted by Middle East experts that one of the reasons Palestinians decide to become suicide bombers is hate education and glorification of martyrdom in Palestinian society
The story was broken by the website ‘Electronic Intifada’ after it secured many of the groups emails. The user accounts of several group members have been suspended from Wikipedia as a result.
This is another reason why Wikipedia can not be trusted as a source on anything other than celebrities, sports results and trivia.
The full article can be read here
This story reminds me of an article hosted on Daniel Brandt’s Wikipedia watch website which goes into detail over a Wikipedia editor named Linda Mack, Wiki alias ’slimvirgin’. Mack has close links to British intelligence MI5. See that article here
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