Eight Wikipedia editors accused of disruptive behavior have been barred from making changes to articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following a a ruling issued Thursday by the crowd-sourced encyclopedia’s highest oversight body.
Of the editors banned from the topic area by the Arbitration Committee, often referred to as Wikipedia’s “supreme court,” six are from the pro-Palestinian camp and two from the pro-Israel camp.
The Arbitration Committee also introduced new rules aimed at hardening the platform against intentional distortions and restoring civility to contentious debates over Israel-related content on one of the world’s most visited websites.
“While we haven’t engaged in such drastic measures before, I think the time is now,” wrote CaptainEek, a member of the committee, who, like most Wikipedia editors, works under an anonymous alias, in a public conversation about the changes.
Officially prompted by formal complaints against several individual editors, the case emerged amid allegations of widespread anti-Israel bias that have escalated into attacks on Wikipedia’s credibility as a source of information. Those attacks have dovetailed with a right-wing campaign accusing the platform of a liberal skew.
The decisions were reached by the panel — an elected body of 15 experienced editors — after months of public deliberations involving hundreds of users and extensive commentary. Individual administrators — editors who have earned an elevated status in the Wikipedia community — routinely discipline users who violate the site’s rules. But it’s unusual for the Arbitration Committee to issue, or even consider, bans against multiple editors, reflecting the challenge of dealing with an entrenched and ideologically driven dispute involving many users.
Battles over Israel are nothing new for an online encyclopedia that theoretically allows anyone to alter its articles. Four previous arbitration cases, going back to 2008, have dealt with the issue often arising in tandem with flare-ups of violence in the Middle East. The editing disputes started intensifying again after war between Israel and Hamas broke out in late 2023. In the discussion section of particular articles, editors have fought over, for example, whether it’s appropriate to call Israeli military operations in Gaza a “genocide” or to apply labels such “settler colonialism” and “apartheid regime” to the country.
Both sides point the finger
Each side accuses the other of breaking the rules to promote its point of view on the Middle Eastern conflict.
Much of the accusations play out in the “edit” sections of each Wikipedia page. But pro-Israel advocates have elevated their complaints in recent months into journalistic exposes and watchdog activism meant to expose what they say is a cynical exploitation of Wikipedia’s democratic decision-making processes by an organized group of pro-Palestinian editors bent on slandering Israel.
The Jewish Journal, for example, dedicated a cover story to the issue last May, offering a deep dive into the tactics of an alleged anti-Israel campaign. A few months later, a new online media outlet called Pirate Wires published an investigation revealing that a group of about 40 “pro-Hamas” editors had allegedly “hijacked the Israel-Palestine narrative” on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia has also been increasingly condemned by conservatives, who say the platform’s claims of neutrality are belied by a hidden liberal agenda. The most prominent of these right-wing critics is Musk, a close ally to President Donald Trump and the richest man in the world. Earlier this week, he called to defund the donation-driven website in response to a chart on social media suggesting Wikipedia is politically unbalanced because it mentions the far right more than the far left.
The bans are not meant to reflect any judgment on questions of content. Rather, they are punishment for a pattern of actions Wikipedia views as uncivil or disruptive. Examples of misconduct in this case include editors repeatedly overriding each other’s revisions or unilaterally closing a debate in an attempt to cement particular changes, making personal insults, and misrepresenting sources.
The Arbitration Committee is also trying to reduce the fighting and make it harder for bad actors to manipulate articles. Per a new restriction, only editors with a track of at least 500 contributions to Wikipedia over a minimum of 30 days will be able to make changes to pages in the Israel-Palestine topic area.
With a new disciplinary power introduced as part of the case, individual administrators will be able to place a “balanced editing restriction” on users who display a disproportionate focus on articles within the Israel-Palestine topic area even when they have violated no misconduct rules. A user under this restriction will be barred from further editing until they have “balanced” their focus so that at least two-thirds of their edits in a 30-day period are on unrelated articles.
At least some Wikipedians acknowledge that the battle over Israel-Palestine content contributes to a larger crisis of legitimacy facing the platform.
“Wikipedia has been around a long time now, in many ways it’s improved out of sight and so has its reputation. That is, excepting the one area of politically contentious topics, where our reputation is still in the toilet,” one editor using an internet alias wrote in a comment about the case. “It’s a scandal that after 20 years this is still the case. It’s the area that is most harmful to our reputation, and fixing it should be the number one priority.”
Some critics of the platform, however, see rays of hope in the recent disciplinary hearing. The Anti-Defamation League, for example, expressed a sense of vindication as the case entered its final phase and the results were becoming apparent.
Last June, Wikipedia faced backlash after it said the ADL is untrustworthy on the topics of Israel and Zionism. The classification of the ADL as an unreliable source cast it into a group with websites focused on conspiracy theories, partisan politics and marketing content.
Now, the ADL is saying that several of the banned editors were active in the discussions that led to the ADL’s downgrading as a source.
“We’re pleased that the Wikipedia arbitration board has taken disciplinary action against some editors who, in our view, have spread malicious, false and biased information about Zionism and Israel across the platform,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “It’s worth noting that several of the chief instigators of the campaign against ADL are among those now facing topic bans or outright bans for their behavior.”
Greenblatt said the bans should mark the beginning of an effort to undo the work of biased editors and protect Wikipedia’s mission of political neutrality.
Some critics, however, remain skeptical that the bans signal any significant change for Wikipedia.
The author of the Wikipedia Flood, a blog that “documents anti-Israel and antisemitic activity on Wikipedia,” for example, excoriated both the process and the outcome of the recent case.
“What these anonymous Wiki-jurists proved in this case is that Wikipedia’s highest tribunal is both unwilling and unable to curb highly organized propagandists who infiltrate the site to push pro-Hamas and antisemitic propaganda,” the blogger wrote.
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
