Wikipedia Editors Implement ‘Purge’ of Sources Critical of Russia Hacking Allegations
Citing a November Associated Press report, Wikipedia editors claimed allegations Russia was responsible for hacking into the e-mails of the DNC and Clinton campaign chief John Podesta were undeniable. These editors suggested “purging” any criticism of the allegations from the article on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
One editor who criticized this proposed purge was subsequently given a three-month ban from making edits related to the topic for his comments.
At the beginning of November, editor Geogene started a discussion regarding the Wikipedia article “Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections” and an Associated Press report purported as “new evidence” verifying claims of Russian involvement. The AP report in fact just went deeper into details already mentioned in reports by SecureWorks from June of 2016 about the groups and individuals reputedly targeted by the same hackers who hacked into the DNC.
SecureWorks used these details to conclude with “moderate confidence” that the hackers were from Russia and operating on behalf of its intelligence services. “Moderate confidence” as defined in the reports means “the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.”
Geogene argued this evidence meant the “idea that anyone other than Russia hacked the DNC is no longer tenable” and argued “anything suggesting otherwise should be purged from the article as undue.” Several editors agreed with Geogene’s proposed “purge” of sources and they removed links to Ars Technica and The Daily Beast noting criticism from cybersecurity experts regarding statements by U.S. intelligence on the hacks.
This suggestion would not appear consistent with Wikipedia’s neutrality policy, which states articles should represent “fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.” Due to resistance to these removals from other editors, discussions were initiated about both sources where keeping the sources was overwhelmingly opposed in each case. Nearly all those opposing have a history of anti-Trump editing on the site.
One editor to object to this desired “purge” was Thucydides411, whose comments were then criticized by advocates of the purge. Editor Volunteer Marek cited a past sanction over the dispute to discredit Thucydides and he responded by noting Marek’s own history from the 2009 EEML case, when Marek was known as Radeksz. The EEML case concerned a mailing list about Eastern Europe where Wikipedia editors colluded to try and control discussions on articles in the topic area, including articles on Russian influence operations online.
Following some back-and-forth, Marek removed all discussion about his history claiming it was an intimidation tactic. However, in removing one comment about his past, Marek left in his initial comment about Thucydides that incited it. An edit war began over the removal, with Thucydides complaining several times that the initial comment attacking him was being left alone. Two editors advocating the “purge” of criticism reported Thucydides in two different places, citing his responses to Marek as personal attacks and his criticism of the “purge” discussion as “assumptions of bad faith” on his part. Although stark division got one report closed with no action, the discussion continued at the other report.
Admins discussing the report acknowledged Thucydides was merely responding in kind to Marek’s comments, but a majority still supported sanctions against Thucydides with one citing his comments about Marek’s past conduct. Marek had himself been sanctioned in the interim, barred a month from edits related to Donald Trump over a dispute about the dossier alleging “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. When Marek advocated action against Thucydides an admin suggested this was a breach of the ban, but other admins rejected the notion, despite one comment concerning discussion from the Russian interference article explicitly about the President.
The report was closed with Thucydides barred from articles about U.S.-Russia relations and specifically the Russian interference article. No action was taken on Marek’s breach of his ban and he subsequently violated it on several other topics. Two weeks later, one discussion on barring the use of a source critical of the Russia hacking allegations was closed as having “consensus” in favor of keeping the source out of the article. Since then editors have also rejected including criticism of the Russia hacking allegations from internet security pioneer John McAfee by labeling him a “fringe” figure.
Editors involved in pushing this self-declared “purge” of criticism have been regularly active on political articles advancing a partisan agenda. Notably the editor MrX, who initiated the discussions on barring the individual sources from the Russian interference article, also worked together with Marek to remove a third of the material from an article on CNN controversies. The removals were in response to scandal over the network threatening to dox a pro-Trump redditor who made a meme mocking CNN. Other editors involved in supporting the “purge” from the Russia article, Objective3000 and ValarianB, also supported Marek and MrX in their efforts at the CNN controversies article.
Such behavior has also been recently evidenced at the page for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. There Marek removed long-standing material on the controversy over McCabe’s failure to recuse from the Clinton e-mail investigation due to substantial campaign contributions his wife received from the former campaign chair of Clinton’s 2008 presidential run. Marek claimed the material was defamatory “rumor-mongering” and his position was endorsed by MrX who claimed the material was “plainly intended to discredit” McCabe. Said material was, in fact, largely the work of a rabidly anti-Trump four-year member of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee: GorillaWarfare.
SPECIFICO, another editor backing this “purge” of sources, has worked with Marek at the article on Stefan Molyneux where they acted in concert to brand Molyneux as “alt-right” and kept out links to a video from Molyneux challenging such labels. Marek’s involvement at Molyneux’s article began shortly after the libertarian philosopher tweeted a link to Breitbart’s reporting on Wikipedia edits about the Google Viewpoint Diversity memo, where Marek was also looking to suppress criticism of left-wing positions. The Antifa article on Wikipedia is another that has been affected by Marek’s editing as he sought with others to downplay the movement’s violent tendencies.
Dealing with this behavior can prove difficult through Wikipedia’s official processes. One user who has been in disagreements with these editors compiled a list of reports filed against editors on political topics covering several months up to May 2017 along with the results of those reports. Reports filed against editors for anti-Trump or pro-Clinton edits rarely resulted in sanctions against those editors and in some cases the filers of those reports were sanctioned instead.
By contrast a majority of reports filed against editors for pro-Trump or anti-Clinton edits resulted in sanctions. This pattern has persisted in cases such as articles on the recent Alabama U.S. Senate race. Exceptions to this often prove short-lived as Marek did receive a mild 24-hours ban from edits about American politics over his conduct at the McCabe page, but after berating the admin who imposed the ban and being backed up by primarily other partisan editors, the administrator buckled to pressure and rescinded his sanction. One reason for such lop-sided outcomes could be that many admins, including members of the site’s powerful Arbitration Committee, hold similar positions on contentious political topics such as Antifa.
A consequence of Wikipedia’s “consensus” model is that so long as enough ideologically-aligned editors agree with each other they can “purge” any criticism they don’t like and spin whatever is left. Those who stand in their way can then be labeled “disruptive” for going against consensus and be banned from the topic like Thucydides, further cementing the ability of these editors to dominate the site’s political content.
(Disclosure: The author has been involved in disputes with several of the parties mentioned in the article)
