Wiki-PR was a

consulting firm A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad ra ...

that marketed the ability to edit

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

by "directly edit ngyour page using our network of established Wikipedia editors and admins". It received media attention in 2013 after a sockpuppet investigation resulted in more than 250 Wikipedia user accounts being blocked or banned. The

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

changed its terms of use in the wake of the investigation, requiring anyone paid to edit Wikipedia to openly disclose their affiliations. Despite the ban,

Status Labs Status Labs (First Page Management LLC) is a digital reputation management company based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2012 by Darius Fisher, Jordan French, and Jesse Boskoff. The firm has been hired by various clients to hide unfavorable ...

, a firm started in 2012 by Wiki-PR founders Fisher and French, continued to edit clients' Wikipedia articles according to former employees. Wiki-PR has been inactive since 2013.

Company

Wiki-PR was created in 2010 by Darius Fisher, its

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

as of 2014, and Jordan French, its

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

as of 2014. Confirmed clients include

Priceline Priceline may refer to: * Priceline.com, a commercial website which helps users obtain discount rates for travel-related items such as airline tickets and hotel stays * The Priceline Group, a provider of online travel & related services, and a pare ...

and Emad Rahim, and suspected clients include

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

, among many others. The firm claimed to have

Wikipedia administrator On Wikipedia, trusted and experienced editors may be appointed as administrators (also referred to as admins, sysops or janitors) by the editing community, following a successful request for adminship. There are admins on the English Wikipedi ...

access enabling it to manage the Wikipedia presence of more than archived November 14, 2013 Wiki-PR has been reported to use "aggressive

email marketing Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to s ...

" to acquire new customers.

Investigation and company reaction

An investigation of sockpuppet accounts on Wikipedia that began in 2012 implicated hundreds of accounts. Wiki-PR's involvement was confirmed after four customers of Wiki-PR spoke anonymously to ''

The Daily Dot ''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It was founded by Nicholas White in 2011, and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometown newsp ...

'' journalist Simon Owens, and two others,

Priceline.com Priceline.com is an online travel agency for finding discount rates for travel-related purchases such as airline tickets and hotel stays. The company facilitates the provision of travel services from its suppliers to its clients. Priceline.com ...

and Emad Rahim, spoke to ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...

'' journalist Martin Robbins. In addition to violating rules against sockpuppeting, Wiki-PR violated Wikipedia rules by citing articles that were planted on business

content farm A content farm or content mill is an organization focused on generating a large amount of web content, often specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by search engines, a practice known as search engine optimization (SE ...

s and various other websites that accept contributions from any Internet user as sources for Wikipedia entries, creating a false impression of

credibility Credibility comprises the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Credibility is deemed essential in many fields to establish expertise. It plays a crucial role in journalism, teaching, science, medicin ...

. The same websites were used repeatedly, and their presence in various Wikipedia articles aided investigators in identifying articles the company had worked on. The investigation led to the Wikipedia community blocking hundreds of paid Wikipedia editing accounts believed to be connected to Wiki-PR that had edited contrary to Wikipedia's rules. In 2014 ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' described Wiki-PR's methods: In ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'', French was quoted as saying that Wiki-PR is a research and writing firm, counseling clients on "how to adhere to Wikipedia's rules". French said that its paid work is part of the "fabric" of Wikipedia, complementing the work of unpaid volunteers. French acknowledged that Wiki-PR had sometimes made "bad calls" on the notability of articles. He also said that "We do pay hundreds of other editors for their work—they're real people and not sockpuppets." Instead, as was reported by the ''

International Business Times The ''International Business Times'' is an American online newspaper that publishes five national editions in four languages. The publication, sometimes called ''IBTimes'' or ''IBT'', offers news, opinion and editorial commentary on business and ...

'', Wiki-PR had been involved in "meatpuppetry"—a practice in which editors illegitimately encourage other individuals to edit in support of their position—in addition to planting articles online to try to garner better potential notability for its clients.

Wikipedia and Wikimedia's reaction

, Wiki-PR, including all of its employees, contractors, and owners, were banned from editing Wikipedia.

Sue Gardner Sue Gardner (born May 11, 1967) is a Canadian journalist, not-for-profit executive and business executive. She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December 2007 until May 2014, and before that was the director of the C ...

, executive director of the

, stated that the Foundation was "exploring our options". On November 19, 2013, Wikimedia's law firm,

Cooley LLP Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life ...

, emailed a

cease-and-desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the other ...

letter to Wiki-PR. French told ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' that Wiki-PR "is working with the Wikimedia Foundation and its counsel to sort this out", and hoped to have further information in a week's time. The Wikimedia Foundation acknowledged communicating with Wiki-PR, but the Foundation rejected any implication that they were negotiating with Wiki-PR, saying that if Wiki-PR wanted to continue editing, Wiki-PR must turn to Wikipedia's community. In June 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation updated its terms of use, forbidding undisclosed paid editing and requiring any paid editors to disclose their affiliation. The blog post announcing the change stated that "Undisclosed paid advocacy editing is a black hat practice that can threaten the trust of Wikimedia's volunteers and readers. We have serious concerns about the way that such editing affects the neutrality and

reliability of Wikipedia The reliability of Wikipedia and its volunteer-driven and community-regulated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteer editors (known as Wikipedi ...

." Later in 2014, a number of large PR firms pledged to follow Wikipedia's new and existing guidelines.

References

External links

* *" Extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed", ''The Signpost'', October 9, 2013.
''Is the PR industry Buying Influence Over Wikipedia?''
October 19, 2013

Vice.com ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. It was founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, and its founders later launched the youth media company V ...

''Is Wikipedia for Sale?''
October 19, 2013

Motherboard
Cease and desist letter from Cooley
representing Wikimedia {{COI on Wikipedia 2010 establishments in Texas Companies based in Austin, Texas Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia Public relations companies of the United States Research and analysis firms of the United States Wikipedia controversies American companies established in 2010 Marketing companies established in 2010