War of the virtual Wiki-worlds

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/05/03/war_of_the_virtual_wiki_
worlds?mode=PF
 


War of the virtual Wiki-worlds


By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist  |  May 3, 2008

What if they decided to pursue the Arab-Israeli conflict by other means?
Inevitably, it would take place on the Internet. And inevitably Wikipedia
would be involved.

In what was probably not a very smart idea, Gilead Ini, a senior research
analyst for CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in
America, put out an e-mail call for 10 volunteers "to help us keep
Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel
editors." (Basically, anyone with a Web browser can edit articles on
Wikipedia, which wreaks havoc with the site's treatment of controversial
topics such as evolution, Bill Clinton, or the Middle East.) More than 50
sympathizers answered the call, and Ini put his campaign into motion.

In follow-up e-mails to his recruits, Ini emphasized the secrecy of the
campaign: "There is no need to advertise the fact that we have these group
discussions," he wrote. "Anti-Israel editors will seize on anything to try
to discredit people who attempt to challenge their problematic assertions,
and will be all too happy to pretend, and announce, that a 'Zionist' cabal .
. . is trying to hijack Wikipedia."

That is certainly what the campaign looked like to the Electronic Intifada,
a parallel-universe, pro-Palestinian news organization operating out of
Chicago. Someone leaked four weeks' worth of communications from within
Ini's organization, and the quotes weren't pretty. Describing the
Wiki-campaign, a member of Ini's corps writes: "We will go to war after we
have built an army, equiped [sic] it, trained." There is also some
back-and-forth about the need to become Wikipedia administrators, to better
influence the encyclopedia's articles.

EI accused CAMERA of "orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to
infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to rewrite Palestinian
history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia
administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or
unchallenged."

That got Wikipedia's attention. A panel of three administrators sanctioned
or indefinitely blocked and banned five members of Ini's group. "Wikipedia
is based on open, transparent editing in an atmosphere of mutual respect
between editors," these administrators opined. "This goal is fundamentally
incompatible with the creation of a private group to surreptitiously
coordinate editing on Wikipedia by ideologically like-minded individuals." A
formal arbitration process is ongoing.

Ini is unapologetic about his role in the deception campaign, which, he
insists, was never a deception campaign at all. "We would be idiots if we
thought we intended to hide our intentions," he said in an interview. In
some areas of controversy, Ini said, "Wikipedia is a madhouse. We were
making a good-faith effort to ensure accuracy" in Middle East postings.

Why bother with Wikipedia, I asked? "It may be the most influential source
of information in the world today," Ini said. "And we and many others think
it is broken." I asked Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah if his
outfit played similar games. "We would never encourage people to do that,"
he said. "There has been no parallel effort on our side whatsoever."

 

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