How Pro-Hamas Operatives Collaborate to Rig Wikipedia (Updated)

"For anyone who wants to learn how to help the Palestinian cause using Wikipedia"

Updated 9/2/24 with further details on activities of pro-Hamas coordinator "Ïvana"; correcting error re subpage  

To achieve their goal of turning Wikipedia into a pro-Hamas propaganda site, Wikipedia's anti-Israel editors have to rig Wikipedia's processes. To rig Wikipedia's processes, they need numbers. They need organization. They need coordination. Achieving these goals must be effectuated offsite. Today I explore one of the many ways they do this.

On Wikipedia itself, they pose as dedicated, rule-enforcing, vandal-fighting, sockpuppet-exposing Wikipedia loyalists who want only to "improve the project." The mask comes off outside Wikipedia, where they perform the hard work of organizing, recruiting, and training newcomers via online seminars, like the regular Wednesday seminar advertised on Discord at the top of this page. 

This blog will mainly focus on the Discord effort, which is a kind of "war room" for the Wikipedia Flood. I will say at the outset that this is not a secret page. Subterfuge was not required to gain access to the Discord discussion group. Just ask. You'll get in. It was mentioned in this Jewish Insider article, resulting in zero consequences. It is not even mentioned in the ongoing "Arbitration Committee" case that I've written about. 

Going outside of Wikipedia in this manner is known as "stealth canvassing" that is strictly prohibited by the rules. But as this blog has documented, the rules don't apply to the Wikipedia Flood. 

Pro-Hamas editors coordinate their efforts in various ways, mainly by emails among the participants. Thus the Discord effort is just one of various mechanisms in operation today. There is no doubt whatsoever that there are other off-wiki canvassing sites; the JI article also mentions exchanges on Telegram. The Discord channel was established in February 2024 and is part of “Tech for Palestine,” whose website can be found here. They describe themselves as "a loose coalition of 5,000+ founders, engineers, product marketers, community builders, investors, and other tech folks working towards Palestinian freedom."  

That's how they describe themselves, but there is nothing subtle about the Discord group. It is fiercely pro-Hamas, anti-Zionist and antisemitic. In the meeting notice at the top of this blog entry, note that the watermelon Hamas symbol is used denote "likes." The inverted red triangle, used by Hamas supporters to target Jews, and recently banned by Germany, is also used by this "peace and justice" group.

The Tech for Palestine Discord channel has about 8,000 members at present. Its Wikipedia Collaboration group describes itself as an instrument of the Gaza war for the elimination of Israel. Or as they put it, "fighting on the Wikipedia front the information battle for truth, peace, and justice."

"Welcome to Wikipedia Collaboration!"

Here's a close-up of the welcome message:

"Fighting on the Wikipedia front"

As noted in the welcome message, "Office Hours" are held weekly to coordinate their propaganda efforts, indoctrinate newcomers and train them for battle. A notice for a July event is at the top of this blog entry. The User:Samisawtak page referred to in the welcome announcement can be found here. Even though it was deleted at the end of July at the Samisawtak's request, it appears on Wikipedia here, showing as it appeared earlier that month. I cannot explain why this remained even though the page itself was deleted.

This blatant effort on Wikipedia to coordinate with an offsite canvassing effort has gone unnoticed even though the Discord offsite war room is actually mentioned multiple times on the "to do" list:

Here it calls the troops to remove "alleged" from a reference to "Palestinian genocide": 

In the Discord collaboration group itself, individual articles are targeted for a once-over by the pro-Hamas mob. In April, the coordinator, "Samer," announced that they have 78 articles to twist into Hamas propaganda.

The "resident expert" aiding newbies in their article-slanting is a dedicated pro-Hamas editor named "Ïvana," who is also mentioned in the Samisawtak on-wiki page. 

("Ïvana" changed her user name to "Movndshrovd" after this blog appeared, and then changed it back to "Ïvana" for some reason known only to them.) The person behind "Ïvana" almost certainly created it as a "sleeper sockpuppet" account, as the "Ïvana" account was created in December 2018 and then used only twice until May 2020, probably after other accounts were discovered and deleted. Their edit history shows that their original user name was "Ivanacccp." Why "cccp," Cyrillic for "USSR," was part of her original user name is anyone's guess. Could be nothing or it could explain their hatred of Israel.

In addition to the "to do list" above "Samisawtak" has a user subpage on Wikipedia devoted to the Discord "Wiki-collaboration effort." My apologies for previously reporting that Ïvana was maintaining this page. It was actually "Samisawtak," assuming they are different people. 

Here is how their Wikipedia subpage now appears. Props to the commenter to this blog who brought this to my attention. If "Samisawtak" has the page deleted, an archived version can be found here.

"Samisawtak" uses a Wikipedia page to flog the Discord offsite coordination effort

Just below, "Samisawtak" uses their Wikipedia platform to instruct the pro-Hamas edit-warriors to "go on https://discord.com/channels/1186702814341234740/1202698460684353537 and tell us which article/topic you'd like to start working on."

  "Ïvana"/"Movndshrovd" instructs her edit warriors to report their efforts to Discord

Further down on the page, "Samisawtak" provides helpful information on the offsite coordination effort.

"Samisawtak" then gives new recruits a helpful tip on how to inflate their edit count, so that they can meet the 30-day, 500-edit requirement for editing in the "Israel/Palestine" topic area. This is known on Wikipedia as "gaming the system," also against the rules but allowed for pro-Hamas editors.

"Samisawtak" goes on to provide subject areas to be covered in the Discord training sessions for pro-Hamas edit warriors.

Don't for a second believe that the Wiki-powers don't know about all this. They know that coordination with Discord is taking place on Wikipedia, using Wikipedia resources and their servers. As I mentioned earlier, the Discord operation was mentioned in this Jewish Insider article.  If Wikipedia's administrators and arbitrators don't know that offsite coordination of pro-Hamas content, it's because they don't want to know.

With help from Ïvana, Samer and the others, the Wikipedia Flood is directed on Discord into specific Wikipedia articles that need to be coaxed into propaganda pieces.  

Here editors are encouraged to brand the widespread Hamas rapes on Oct. 7 as a "hoax," citing an X post by the virulently antisemitic account "Zei_Squirrel," who regularly quoted in this group.

Here "Ïvana" points her people in the direction of an Administrators Noticeboard discussion in which "zionists [are] trying to force another editor to remove pro-palestinian/pro-resistance quotes from their profile." 

She was referring to this discussion, now archived, in which an editor complained about a pro-Hamas user quoting from the Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar on his user page, in blatant violation of Wikipedia rules, which don't allow user pages to be used for political "soapboxing." 

The AN discussion was flooded by pro-Hamas operatives, summoned to the page by "Ïvana," and ended with a pro-Hamas editor terminating the discussion without penalizing the pro-Hamas editor, not even giving him a warning. Involved editors are not supposed to terminate discussions, but of course the rules don't apply to pro-Hamas editors.  

Here Samer speaks of assembling a "blitz team" for an article on the Nuseirat hostage rescue operation, which the pro-Hamas mob had sought to portray as a "massacre." He cites a previous "blitz team" used for another article, on Lily Greenberg Call, and promises to bring it up at the June "office hours" conclave. (According to the Call article's edit history, the Call Wikipedia article, created by the so-called "expert" Ïvana, had to be initially expunged because it was cribbed from The Guardian.) It's not clear exactly what the "blitz team" did, other than plagiarize.

And so it goes, on and on and on. Samer, who evidently edits Wikipedia under an undisclosed user name, is starting up something he calls "Books for Palestine." He wants articles on books that promote the Hamas cause.

Elsewhere there is talk of linking up with efforts on non-English speaking Wikipedia projects and the Internet Movie Database, which takes contributions from the public. But the English-language Wikipedia is their main effort.

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