Wikipedia's 'Arbitrators' Prove There Are No Adults in the Room—Only Kangaroos

Wikipedia's kangaroo court points up the need for Section 230 reform

As I've mentioned in several posts, Wikipedia's highest tribunal, its "Arbitration Committee," has been grappling with the "Palestine-Israel" topic area since August. Over the past two weeks, they finally cranked out a tentative decision.

The proceedings are still underway, and there is still potential for mischief. But it's been mostly decided, and the great Aaron Bandler has done a thorough job of summarizing its "actions" in Jewish Journal. 

As Aaron explains, the anti-Israel editors Iskandar323, Levivich, Nableezy, Selfstudier, Makeandtoss, and Nishidani were topic-banned, which can and will be appealed after one year. Zero0000, an administrator, was "warned." Two pro-Israel editors,  AndreJustAndre and BilledMammal, were also topic banned.

My takeaways:

• While there was much whining by the affected anti-Israel editors, this was a net win for the Wikipedia Flood. They far outnumber editors willing to oppose them. Six topic bans barely dent their ranks, while two of the most active editors seeking to restore balance to articles were topic banned, and one faces a possible site ban as described below. 

• Arbcom ignored some of the very worst anti-Israel editors, such as the rape-denier Huldra and the silky Sean.hoyland, valued by the "Flood" for cranking out meaningless "data" to "prove" that Wikipedia is awash with pro-Israel "sockpuppets."

• Only one pro-Hamas editor was banned, Ïvana. That took place before the proceedings began and was caused by her role in an offsite pro-Hamas effort to slant editing on Wikipedia. Exposure by this blog and Ashley Rindsberg in Pirate Wires made that impossible to ignore. 

• At this writing it appears that the most active pro-Israel editor in the case, "AndreJustAndre," may be banned from the site based on trumped-up misconduct allegations by anti-Israel editors. None of the topic-banned pro-Hamas editors face that punishment.

• 

  Meet 'CaptainEek'

  The arb who drafted the preliminary decision, "CaptainEek," didn't even pretend to read the evidence and "workshop" analysis. Her laziness was so blatant that she was derided on Wikipediocracy, a criticism site that pays close attention to arbcom. One regular sneered, "With CaptainEek at the helm, the Titanic would never have hit an iceberg. It wouldn't have made it out of port." 

• CaptainEek claimed in her decision draft that AndreJustAndre made "specific edits after an off-wiki blogger requested those edits be made." That, she later clarified, referred to this blog. That contention was so utterly bonkers—even a casual reader knows that I don't "request" edits—that it was rejected by the other arbs. 

• While they did not adopt Captain Eek's wildest claims, most arbs were almost as irresponsible and lazy as she was. The panel's arbitrary decision-making was harshly criticized by other editors in the "talk" page of the proposed decision. On Wikipediocracy, a user pointed to "multiple editors calling out arbcom for conclusions based on incorrect ‘facts,’" and added "They didn’t read the evidence. They just want to be done."

In short, arbcom showed outright favoritism toward pro-Hamas editors by their selective and skewed enforcement of the rules, and proved itself to be a classic "kangaroo court." 

That's not hyperbole. Arbcom fits the dictionary definition of "a court characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized, or irregular status or procedures."

The very fact that I have to refer to a member of Wikipedia's highest tribunal by their juvenile handle shows how utterly broken Wikipedia is. Most arbs, CaptainEek among them, conceal their identities in star-chamber fashion despite the immense power they wield on the site.

 

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. 

Their actions prove that they are unserious. The goofy pictures they post of themselves, like the ones CaptainEek posts on her personal Wikipedia page (above) just gild the lily.

And since arbcom is an outright kangaroo court that disregards evidence and behaves without accountability, it is actually an obstacle to improving the site. How can editors oppose the pro-Hamas operatives if they believe arbcom will come swooping down and kick them out without a valid reason?  

Wikipedia's editor-oversight panel is allowed to fester like this for a reason. 

The highly compensated executives of the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the servers, take no responsibility for Wikipedia content because of Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. 

The Congressional Research Service says that Section 230

generally precludes providers and users from being held liable—that is, legally responsible—for information provided by another person, but does not prevent them from being held legally responsible for information that they have developed or for activities unrelated to third-party content. Courts have interpreted Section 230 to foreclose a wide variety of lawsuits and to preempt laws that would make providers and users liable for third-party content. For example, the law has been applied to protect online service providers like social media companies from lawsuits based on their decisions to transmit or take down user-generated content.

There's a need for that law and it shouldn't be repealed. It protects innocuous websites from unwarranted legal attack. But it can function as a recipe for lack of accountability, and that is not acceptable. 

Section 230 should not apply to Wikipedia.

How Wikipedia Erases Arab Terrorism

The Wikipedia article on Black September does not describe it as a terrorist group

According to Wikipedia, Black September, the notorious terrorist group that kidnapped, tortured and slaughtered Israeli athletes at the 1972 is not a terrorist group.

Hamas, the bus-bombers and butchers of 10/7, is not a terrorist group as far as Wikipedia is concerned.

But Irgun, the Jewish pre-state paramilitary group? Now, that's a terrorist group.

The following is a guest blog exploring how Wikipedia's pro-Hamas editors have ensured that articles on terrorist groups never actually say that they are terrorist groups—except when they are Jews.

*                               *                               *

Since the early days of Wikipedia, millions of words have been written to debate whether a person or organization is correctly described as a terrorist. 

The only source of authority is the Wikipedia Manual of Style whose Word to Watch policy advises against using the word "terrorism" or "terrorist" in an article "unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution." 

This means that people, organizations, and actions are not supposed to be described as terrorists or terrorism in "wiki-voice," but rather only with the source of the designation in the text (e.g. "The New York Times described the operation as 'terrorism'"). 

Although this policy is an absurd exercise in moral relativism, it is also frequently ignored when it comes to Israel and its enemies.   

Here is the starkest example: the opening sentences to the Wikipedia Articles on "Zionist Political Violence" and "Palestinian Political Violence:"   

Zionist Political Violence:
Zionist political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Zionists in support of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and the Israeli government, from the early 20th century to the present day, as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Palestinian Political Violence: Palestinian political violence refers to actions carried out by Palestinians with the intent to achieve political objectives that can involve the use of force, some of which are considered acts of terrorism, and often carried out in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups, include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of Palestine (including seeking to replace Israel),[7][8] or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.  

An attempt in April, 2023 to change the name of the article to "Palestinian Terrorism" was defeated in short order.   

This discrepancy is also apparent when comparing articles about Palestinian terrorist organizations to Israeli groups: The Ledes for the Wikipedia articles on Hamas, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and even Black September use the same misleading formula to inform the reader that these are terrorist organizations and always at the very end of the Lede: "[Group] has been designated a terrorist organization by [Countries]." Nothing more.  

The article about Black September is particularly ironic: the Lede won’t call Black September a terrorist organization, but does immediately note that its attacks "led to the creation or specialization of permanent counter-terrorism forces in many European countries."   

Now let’s take a look at the Wikipedia article on the Irgun. Here are the first three paragraphs from the Lede:   

The Irgun (Hebrew: ארגון; full title: Hebrew: הארגון הצבאי הלאומי בארץ ישראל HaIrgun HaTzvaʾi Ha-Leumi b-Eretz Israel, lit. "The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel"), or Etzel (Hebrew: אצ״ל) (sometimes abbreviated IZL), was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah (Hebrew: Hebrew: הגנה, Defence).[1] The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.[2][3][4][5  

The Irgun policy was based on what was then called Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky.[6] Two of the operations for which the Irgun is best known are the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946 and the Deir Yassin massacre that killed at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, carried out together with Lehi on 9 April 1948. 

The organization committed acts of terrorism against Palestinian Arabs, as well as against the British authorities, who were regarded as illegal occupiers.[7] In particular the Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments; in media such as The New York Times newspaper;[8][9] as well as by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,[10][11] the 1946 Zionist Congress[12] and the Jewish Agency.[13] Albert Einstein, in a letter to The New York Times in 1948, compared Irgun and its successor Herut party to "Nazi and Fascist parties" and described it as a "terrorist, right wing, chauvinist organization".[14] 

(Boldface added) The difference in emphasis could not be clearer. Fully half of the Lede about the Irgun is dedicated to connecting it to terrorism, compared to a mere sentence for any of Israel's enemies.   

Even a mild tempering of Israel's demonization cannot be tolerated. For about five years, the Lede to the Irgun artucle included the statement that "the Irgun went to considerable lengths to avoid harming civilians, such as issuing pre-attack warnings; according to Hoffman, Irgun leadership urged "targeting the physical manifestations of British rule while avoiding the deliberate infliction of bloodshed."

These were statements from scholarly works published by Bruce Hoffman and Max Abrahms, two respected academics who specialize in terrorism and provided a bit of balance to the Lede about the Irgun. They were removed by well-known anti-Israel editor IOHANNVSVERVS because they did not conform with his prejudices and the already biased article about the Irgun:   

"Bruce Hoffman, whose understanding of the Irgun is fringe and false, contradicted by the rest of the information in this article as well as the page List of Irgun attacks" Hoffman's expertise seems to be about terrorism in general and not specifically the Irgun or Israeli/Palestinian history."  IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC) 

Let’s turn to some Wikipedia articles about specific terrorist attacks:   

The list of terrorist attacks committed against Israelis is (sadly) so long that I could not look at each article, but many of them have had the word "terrorist" removed from the Lede or the rest of the article and the incident is referred to as a "suicide attack" or “suicide bombing" and the terrorists are dubbed "militants” or “assailants"    

Now let’s look at the article for the King David Hotel Bombing. Here’s how it starts:  

The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing[1] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack[2][3] on 22 July 1946, by the militant right-wing[4] Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency.[5]   

When it comes to Jewish groups, there is no problem describing their acts as terrorist attacks in "wiki-voice."

One last example of the hypocrisy in play:   

In August, 2024, there was a discussion that successfully changed “Palestinian Suicide Terrorism” to “Palestinian Suicide Attacks.” In arguing for the change, notorious anti-Israel editor Iskandar323 said that “Terrorism" isn't actually a description of an event or act at all, but just a POV characterisation.”  Iskandar323 (talk) 15:03, 22 August 2024 (UTC). 

In his next comment, he expounds that  "the label is normally inappropriate for all but the broadest concept pieces where "terrorism" is the only conceivable name for the topic. Unless the first sentence goes "X is the carrying out of acts of terror by Y", the topic isn't terrorism, but something more specific. Here the subject is extremely specific to A) Palestinian nationalism and B) suicide bombings, as the first line explains, and so should be titled as such. The broader concept here is meanwhile Palestinian political violence. Per MOS:TERRORISM, labels such as terrorism should generally only by applied in the body, and with attribution, not liberally and loosely. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC) 

Sounds principled doesn’t it?  

Well here is Iskandar323 arguing in favor of categorizing the 2024 Lebanon Pager Explosions as “terrorism” because he is sure it is and because various others say so.  

We should mention it in the form of the WP and state that numerous international law experts have characterised it as an act of terrorism. That is uncontroversial. Many have, including also, separately, Geoffrey Nice on Middle East Eye. It was textbook state terrorism. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC) 

And here is his justification for descrbiing the King David Hotel Bombing as a terrorist attack in wiki-voice:  

[I]n this particular instances, the terroristic nature of the act is particularly well attested in reliable sources, our go-to, including tertiary ones such as the Encyclopedia of terrorism. This page also has a section that explains at length why the act was considered terroristic, alongside Irgun itself, which was condemned by all the authorities involved.  Iskandar323 (talk) 13:57, 15 September 2022 (UTC) 

Ironically, the next comment is from Nableezy who says "Lots of attacks are called terrorist attacks on WP, so you are mistaken (just for example, Afula mall bombing, but lots more)." nableezy - 14:20, 15 September 2022 (UTC).  

The words "terrorist attack" were removed from that article in March 2024. 

Has Iran Been Manipulating Wikipedia?

 A Times of London article in January (behind paywall; replicated here in The Australian) suggests that an Iranian cyber army may have been manipulating Wikipedia on behalf of Iran.

Wikipedia entries have been changed to downgrade Iranian human rights atrocities and other abuses, The Times has learnt.

The alterations raise concerns that the site is being used to ­manipulate information about the hardline Islamic regime. Details have been changed to discredit dissident groups, and government publications have been presented as impartial sources on the free online encyclopaedia.

In one case key details about mass executions by the regime were removed. The involvement of senior officials in the 1988 death commissions, in which thousands of political prisoners were killed, was also deleted. In a separate ruling, supporters of Vahid Beheshti, an Iranian human rights activist who went on hunger strike in the UK, were thwarted when they tried to set up a Wikipedia page. 

Mattie Heaven, Mr Beheshti’s wife, said four attempts were made to set up a page because there was so much online misinformation about her husband, who continues to put pressure on the British government to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation. Ms Heaven said the text was repeatedly ­removed so the page could not function. “We believed it was the Iranian cyber army,” she said.

Today, Wikipedia's so-called "Arbitration Committee" was asked by a throwaway account to open a case that would expose the editors involved to possible penalties. 

Look at the editors mentioned.  

• Ali Ahwazi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Mhhossein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Ghazaalch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Iskandar323 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MarioGom (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

With the apparent exception of MarioGom, every single one is an active edit-warrior activist, pushing the Hamas agenda in articles on Israel and the Gaza conflict.

If Iran is behind these accounts, then Iran is behind much of the pro-Hamas editing on Wikipedia.

Arbcom only got the request today and hasn't decided if it will take the case. 

The prognosis does not look good. This request was by a newly created account, and not by an experienced user who might have more clout. Another throwaway account previously raised the issue at a noticeboard on Feb. 6. It was quickly squelched without explanation by User:Bbb23, an administrator. Wikipedia makes up its rules as it goes along, so "Arbcom" can duck or take up the issue using any pretext it chooses.

A veteran Wikipedia user opines as follows:

Arbitration has always been a last resort for the resolution of disputes that cannot be settled in any other way. The filing of Requests for Arbitration by what appear to be new accounts established for the purpose of filing requests for arbitration does not appear to illustrate that all previous methods of dispute resolution, or any methods of dispute resolution, have been exhausted. (The global edit history shows that the filer is a new account, not an account from another language Wikipedia.) The list of previous steps in dispute resolution says that the filing party (the new account) contacted the WMF, which is a different last resort for the resolution of disputes. There is no evidence of discussion at any English Wikipedia forum. The evidence of a problem is that an article has been published by a reliable source, The Times (of London), apparently stating that there is being systematic removal of reports of human rights violations by the Iranian government. I have not read the details of the report because it is paywalled. There has not been an attempt to discuss the report. If there had been a serious attempt to discuss the report, an inquiry similar to the May 2023 case on distortion of coverage of the Jews in Poland in World War Two might be in order. There has not been such an attempt, and such a case is not in order. This filing is frivolous.

ArbCom should decline this case request, and remind the filer that premature filings are considered vexatious, but should be ready to consider an inquiry into distortion of Wikipedia coverage if there has been real inconclusive discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

First he says the filing is not frivolous ("The evidence of a problem is that an article has been published by a reliable source") and then he says "This filing is frivolous." 

This is the kind of double-talk that editors face when they try to counter the army of pro-Hamas editors. The effort to counter Iranian influence stands a good chance of dying due to sheer indifference.

Postscript: The case was quickly swept under the rug on bureaucratic grounds. An "arbitrator" explained:  "It exceeded the limit of 500 words and did not describe actual prior dispute resolution attempts. Also, concerns have been voiced about your account being a throwaway account used only for filing the request." 

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Remember that comments are open and can be anonymous. Tips, critiques, and suggestions are welcome, and I am receptive to guest blogs as well. They can be anonymous or otherwise. Just email me at WikipediaCritic at proton dot me