Pro-Hamas Editors Use 'Wikipedia Lawfare' to Ban Pro-Israel Editors

 

Pro-Hamas editors claim a defunct account is an 'Emmanuel Goldstein' pro-Israel mastermind

Since August I've described how Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its so-called "Arbitration Committee," has been slowly and reluctantly addressing editor misconduct in the "Palestine-Israel" topic area. That effort is finally winding down, and a key part of the pro-Hamas editors' strategy is clear.  

They claim that the main problem in this topic area is not their own behavior, not their "ownership" of articles, not their perversion of Wikipedia's "neutrality" mandate, but widespread, improper pro-Israel editing.

That's right. Your lying eyes deceive. The real problem in articles accusing Israel of genocide and massacres etc etc is excessive pro-Israel editing due to diabolical use of "sockpupeting," in which villainous pro-Israel people create phony accounts to pad talk page discussions to go in their direction.

The fact that discussions in these articles' talk pages never, ever go in the pro-Israel direction, and the articles themselves are notoriously anti-Israel, is never mentioned when pro-Hamas editors push this line. They portray themselves as heroic "defenders of the Wiki" who are a front line of defense against those horrible people, preventing further damage to Wikipedia, further pro-Israel bias.

This nutty claim is made frequently on the arbcom case "evidence" page, in which prolific pro-Hamas editor "Makeandtoss" posted a chart—arbcom loves charts!—to "prove" that the "actual root causes of problem are sockpuppets who are canvassing, stonewalling, coordinating and disrupting." 

This claim is absurd on its face, for the simple reasons that all the sockpuppets claimed in that chart were caught, and before they were caught absolutely nothing they did had any lasting or even transitory impact on anything. All were new accounts, all outnumbered, all shouted down.

Most genuine sockpuppeting are easy to catch, because Wikipedia used a device called "checkuser" to determine if someone is using computers with the same or similar IP address to create multiple Wikipedia accounts.  

And here's where it gets interesting. If checkuser comes up naught, Wikipedia's pro-Hamas editors have long been able to get accounts banned by claiming that the accounts are editing similar to accounts that were banned a long time ago. This is known as "behavioral evidence." Wikipedia administrators, who are often hostile to Israel themselves, fall for this ruse frequently.

Long-defunct banned pro-Israel accounts, especially one dormant since 2019 known as "Icewhiz," are commonly used for that purpose. 

Icewhiz is frequently accused of contaminating Wikipedia by his voracious Israel advocacy and prolific sockpuppet-making, making that long-banned editor a kind of "Emanuel Goldstein" figure, to be hated by all right-thinking Wikipedians.

The beauty of accusing someone of being an "Icewhiz sock" is that you don't need much evidence. In fact, you can get people banned if the evidence doesn't amount to anything.

Of the 12 accounts cited by Makeandtoss in his chart, nine of which were supposed "Icewhiz socks," all but were two were caught by "behavioral" evidence despite nonexistent or dubious technical evidence. 

For example: Two pro-Israel accounts in the Makeandtoss chart, "UnspokenPassion" and "O.maximov," were blocked as Icewhiz socks in September after a complaint by the anti-Israel editor "Levivich."

He contended that "O.maximov and UnspokenPassion show the same basic POV, similarity of comments, and "drive-by" habit," as "evidenced" by the following horrors:

Israel

• O.maximov ("if the Israeli War of Independence isn't mentioned, then it makes no sense to mention the Nakba")
• UnspokenPassion ("If we include Nakba, we’d have to bring in more narratives, like the Independence War, as mentioned above.")
• This is the only edit UnspokenPassion has made to the talk page, no edits to the article; O.maximov has edited both

Genocide of indigenous peoples

• O.maximov ("We're looking at two groups, both with historical ties to the land, both claiming indigenity.")
• UnspokenPassion ("The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is generally understood as a struggle between two ethnic groups, both laying claim to being indigenous.")
• These are the only edits either account made to that article's talk page. O.maximov made one edit to the article; UnspokenPassion has made no edits to the article.

Palestinian suicide terrorism - an article created by UnspokenPassion

• UnspokenPassion ("... the term 'terrorism' is entirely appropriate (for instance, see examples like Islamic terrorism, Jewish extremist terrorism, etc.).")
• O.maximov ("It is unclear to me why there are calls to remove the term from this article while its usage in the above mentioned articles like Jewish extremist terrorism, Islamic terrorism, and, I will add, Israel and state-sponsored terrorism is accepted.")
• This is the only edit O.maximov has made to this article or its talk page

Based on that nothingburger, the two editors were assumed to be that villain Icewhiz, up to his old tricks. Administrator (and arbitrator) H.J. Mitchell agreed, saying:

I'm reluctant to draw definitive conclusions here but the behaviour is consistent with previous IW socks and CU data shows that both of these accounts are unusually sophisticated in obfuscating their IPs. Both are using proxies and are very careful not to overlap. I'm gonna call this  Likely and block both.

Note that the technical evidence actually does not prove that these editors are the same person, but he ascribes that to them being "unusually sophisticated in obfuscating their IPs." The problem is that "the behaviour is consistent with previous IW [Icewhiz] socks." Which he does not elaborate but apparently refers to the nothingburger quoted above. 

Veteran anti-Israel editor "Sean.hoyland" piled on with a presentation of his own, which he placed in a Google Docs file to nail another pro-Israel editor, ABHammad. (Be careful clicking on that Google Docs file, as it shows your account if you are logged in to Google). ABHammad was subsequently kicked off Wikipedia on the basis of that "evidence."

What's happening here is the Wikipedia counterpart of "lawfare," and they are making the most of it. Pro-Hamas editors are contending in the arbcom case that these sockpuppets, even though they were caught, even though their influence is nil, are just the tip of the iceberg of a massive pro-Israel editing push, and that the topic area is already infected with bogus pro-Israeli accounts.   

In one recent posting, Makeandtoss claims that he has "extremely important new evidence relevant to what I had described as 'systemic and institutional manipulation.'" 

A day later, obviously shaken by the enormity of the crimes he has uncovered, he posted:

I have now emailed the committee my evidence, which unfortunately does indeed indicate extensive state actor involvement, particularly at the highest levels. This evidence can be posted in other WP venues to raise awareness among both editors and admins, but I believe it is particularly relevant for this one, so that preventative action can be taken.

Oh no! Thank heavens for heroes like this, protecting Wikipedia from this scourge. 

Will all that massive pro-Israel sockpuppeting and "manipulation" be curbed?  Will arbcom valiantly fight this horror, this stain on its reputation? Stay tuned.