Since the launch of

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 ...

in 2001, it has faced several controversies. Wikipedia's open-editing model, which allows any user to edit its encyclopedic pages, has led to concerns such as the quality of writing, the amount of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

, and the accuracy of information on the project. The media have covered controversial events and scandals related to Wikipedia and its funding organization, 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 ...

(WMF). Common subjects of coverage include articles containing false information, public figures, corporations editing articles for which they have a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...

, paid Wikipedia editing and hostile interactions between Wikipedia editors and public figures. The

Seigenthaler biography incident On May 26, 2005, an unregistered editor created a hoax Wikipedia article about journalist John Seigenthaler. The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the assassinations of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and U.S. attorne ...

led to increased media criticism of the reliability of Wikipedia. The incident dates back to May 2005, with the anonymous posting of a hoax Wikipedia article containing false and negative allegations about

John Seigenthaler John Lawrence Seigenthaler ( ; July 27, 1927July 11, 2014) was an American journalist, writer, and political figure. He was known as a prominent defender of First Amendment rights. Seigenthaler joined the Nashville newspaper ''The Tennessea ...

, a well-known American journalist. In March 2007, Wikipedia was again the subject of media attention with the

Essjay controversy The Essjay controversy was an incident in which Ryan Jordan, a Wikipedia editor who went by the username "Essjay", falsely presented himself as a university professor of religion from 2005 to 2007, during which time he was elected to top position ...

, which involved a prominent

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition. English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...

editor and administrator, who claimed he was a "tenured professor of religion at a private university" with a "Ph.D. in

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and a degree in

canon law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

" when in fact he was a 24-year-old who held no advanced degrees. The 2012 scandals involving paid consultancy for the government of

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

by Roger Bamkin, a

Wikimedia UK Wikimedia UK (WMUK), also known as Wikimedia United Kingdom, is a Charitable organization, registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia ...

board member, and potential conflicts of interest have highlighted Wikipedia's vulnerabilities. The presence of inaccurate and false information, as well as the perceived hostile editing climate, have been linked to a decline in editor participation. Another controversy arose in 2013 after an investigation by Wikipedians found that the Wiki-PR company had edited Wikipedia for paying clients, using "an army" of sockpuppet accounts that purportedly included 45 Wikipedia editors and administrators. In 2015, the

Orangemoody On August 31, 2015, the English Wikipedia community discovered 381 sockpuppet accounts operating an undisclosed paid editing ring. Participants in the ring extorted money from mid-sized businesses who had articles about themselves rejected by th ...

investigation showed that businesses and minor celebrities had been blackmailed over their Wikipedia articles by a coordinated group of fraudsters, again using hundreds of sockpuppets. Controversies within and concerning Wikipedia and the WMF have been the subject of several

scholarly paper Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publi ...

s.''The Future of the Internet: Ubiquity, mobility, security'', by Harrison Rainie (et al.), Cambria Press, 2009, page 259.''Digital Cognitive Technologies: Epistemology and Knowledge Society'', edited by Claire Brossard (et al.), John Wiley & Sons, 2013, page 325. This list is a collection of the more notable instances.

Overview

The nature of Wikipedia controversies has been analyzed by scholars. Sociologist

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities. B ...

says that "Wikipedia controversies have revealed the evolution of social mechanisms in the Wikipedia community"; a study of the politicization of socio-technical spaces remarked that Wikipedia "controversies... become fully-fledged when they are advertised outside the page being debated"; and one college discusses Wikipedia as a curricular tool, in that "recent controversies involving Wikipedia re used/nowiki> as a basis for discussion of ethics and bias."

Editing restrictions

Despite being promoted as an encyclopedia "anyone can edit", the ability to edit controversial pages is sometimes restricted because of "edit wars" or vandalism. To address criticism about restricting access while minimizing malicious editing of those pages, Wikipedia has also tried measures such as "pending changes protection" which allows open editing of contentious articles, with the caveat that an experienced editor must approve new users' edits before they become visible to the public.

Controversies

2000s

2002

*February 2002 – In late February 2002, the

Spanish Wikipedia The Spanish Wikipedia () is the Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. It has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on 8 March 2006, and 1,000,000 articles on 16 May 2013. It is the -largest Wikip ...

community decided to break away ("

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

") from Wikipedia to protest rumored plans by co-founders

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profi ...

and

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, ...

to sell advertising on Wikipedia sites.; also see Jimmy Wales
February 2002 post to wikipedia-l
, and Larry Sanger
''Wikipedia, a memoir''
, Slashdot The fork, set up by volunteer Edgar Enyedy, was hosted at the

University of Seville The University of Seville (''Universidad de Sevilla'') is a university in Seville, Andalusia, Spain. Founded under the name of ''Colegio Santa María de Jesús'' in 1505, in 2022 it has a student body of 57,214,U-Ranking Universidades español ...

under the name

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español (English: Universal Free Encyclopedia in Spanish) was a Spanish-language wiki-based online encyclopedia that started as a Fork (software development), fork of the Spanish Wikipedia, released under the Creative Commons licenses, Creative Commons ...

.Lih2009 p. 138 Most of the Spanish volunteers followed Enyedy, producing over 10,000 articles within a year. As a result, the Spanish Wikipedia was virtually inactive until mid-2003. Since this incident, the question of advertising has been a sensitive subject on Wikipedia. In an interview with ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'' in January 2011, Wales categorically denied having supported the plans for advertising, prompting a public dispute with Sanger. "The suggestion that I demanded ads and that Jimmy Wales was opposed to them is, I am afraid, yet another self-serving lie from Wales", wrote Sanger. As late as 2006 Wales refused to deny that there would ever be advertising on Wikipedia. In January of that year he told a reporter from ClickZ that "the question is going to arise as to whether we could better pursue our charitable mission with the additional money ds would bring We have never said there would absolutely never be ads on Wikipedia." EnwikipediagrowthGom

*October 2002 – Derek Ramsey increased the number of Wikipedia articles by about 40% with the creation of a

bot Bot or BOT may refer to: Sciences Computing and technology * Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language * Internet bot, a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet **Spambot, an internet bot ...

called Rambot that generated 33,832 Wikipedia stub articles from October 19 to 25 for every missing

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

, town, city, and village in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, based on free information from the

United States Census The United States census (plural censuses or census) is a census that is legally mandated by the Constitution of the United States. It takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790 United States ce ...

of 2000. In ''

The Wikipedia Revolution ''The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia'' is a 2009 popular history book by new media researcher and writer Andrew Lih. It covers the period from Wikipedia's founding in early 2001 up to ear ...

'',

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

2005

*September 2005 :* The Seigenthaler incident was a series of events that began in May 2005 with the

anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

posting of a hoax article in Wikipedia about

, a well-known American journalist. The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the

assassinations Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives. Assassinations are orde ...

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

and

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New Yo ...

. Additionally, the article erroneously stated that Seigenthaler had lived in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

for 13 years beginning in 1971. Seigenthaler, who had been a friend and aide to Robert Kennedy, characterized the Wikipedia entry about him as "Internet character assassination". The perpetrator of the hoax, Brian Chase, who was trying to fool a coworker as a prank, was identified by Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt and reporters for ''

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 ...

''. The hoax was removed from Wikipedia in early October 2005 (although the false information stayed on Answers.com and Reference.com for another three weeks), after which Seigenthaler wrote about his experience in ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

''. :*Professional book indexer Daniel Brandt started the now defunct Wikipedia criticism website "wikipedia-watch.org" in response to his unpleasant experience while trying to get his biography deleted. 2005 December 1 Jimbo Wales edits Jimmy Wales article to remove Larry Sanger from history of Wikipedia section

2005 December 1 Jimbo Wales edits Jimmy Wales article to remove Larry Sanger from history of Wikipedia section

*November/December 2005 – The

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

assigned to the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

was blocked from editing Wikipedia because of a large number of edits comprising a "deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia." According to

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...

, these changes included edits to

Marty Meehan Martin Thomas Meehan (born December 30, 1956) is an American academic administrator, politician, and attorney. Since July 2015, Meehan has served as the President of the University of Massachusetts after serving as Chancellor of the Universi ...

's Wikipedia article to give it a more positive tone. The edits to Meehan's article prompted a former director of the

United States Office of Government Ethics The United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is an independent agency within the Executive branch of the United States government, executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government which is responsible for directing executive branch policies ...

to say that " at kind of usage, plus the fact that they're changing one person's material, is certainly wrong and ought to be at a minimum the focus of some disciplinary action". *December 2005 – Wikipedia co-founder

was found to be editing his own Wikipedia article. According to public logs, he had made 18 edits to his biography, seven of which were alterations of information about whether

was a co-founder of Wikipedia. It was also revealed that Wales had edited the Wikipedia article of his former company,

Bomis Bomis, Inc. (, from ''Bitter Old Men in Suits''; rhyming with "promise") was a dot-com company best known for supporting the creations of free-content online-encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia. It was co-founded in 1996 by Jimmy W ...

. "Bomis Babes", a section of the Bomis website, had been characterized in the article as "

soft-core pornography Softcore pornography or softcore porn is commercial Photography, still photography, Sex in film, film, imagery, or even audio that has a Pornography, pornographic or Erotica, erotic component but is less sexually graphic or intrusive than hardcor ...

", but Wales revised this to "adult content section" and deleted mentions of pornography. He said he was fixing an error, and did not agree with calling Bomis Babes soft

porn Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings ...

. Wales conceded that he had made the changes, but maintained that they were technical corrections.

2006

*February 1, 2006 – The

Henryk Batuta hoax Henryk Batuta was a hoax article on the Polish Wikipedia from November 2004 to February 2006, the main element of which was a biographical article about a nonexistent socialist revolutionary, Henryk Batuta. History The perpetrators of the hoax ...

was uncovered by editors on the

Polish Wikipedia The Polish Wikipedia () is the Polish language, Polish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. Founded on 26 September 2001, it now has articles, making it the -largest Wikipedia edition overall. It is also the second-largest ...

. Batuta, an entirely made-up person, was claimed to be a Polish Communist revolutionary who was an associate of

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

. The article was published for 15 months and referenced in seventeen other articles before the hoax was uncovered. The hoax article was written by a group of Polish Wikipedia editors calling themselves the "Batuta Army". One of the group's members, who called himself "Marek", told ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' that they had created the hoax article in order to draw attention to the ongoing use of the names of Soviet officials for streets and other public areas in Poland. Marek stated that "Many of these people were traitors and murderers who do not deserve such an honor". *March 2006 – Daniel Brandt found 142 instances of plagiarism on Wikipedia, arguing that the problem plagued the site. *Early to mid-2006 – A series of U.S. Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia were revealed in the press. These mostly involved various political aides trying to whitewash Wikipedia biographies of several politicians by removing undesirable information (including pejorative statements quoted, or broken campaign promises), adding favorable information or "glowing" tributes, or by replacing articles in part or whole by staff-authored biographies. The staff of at least five politicians were implicated:

Norm Coleman Norman Bertram Coleman Jr. (born August 17, 1949) is an American politician, attorney, and lobbyist. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a United States Senate, United States Senator for Minnesota. From 1994 to 2002, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Mi ...

Conrad Burns Conrad Ray Burns (January 25, 1935 – April 28, 2016) was an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States Senator from Montana from 1989 to 2007. He was only the second Republican popularly elected to represent Montana in the ...

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

and

Gil Gutknecht Gilbert William Gutknecht Jr. (, born March 20, 1951) is an American former politician. Gutknecht was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives first elected in 1994 to represent Minnesota's 1st congressional district. ...

. In a separate but similar incident the campaign manager for Cathy Cox, Morton Brilliant, resigned after being found to have added negative information to the Wikipedia entries of political opponents. *July 2006 – MyWikiBiz was founded by Gregory Kohs and his sister to provide paid editing services on Wikipedia. Although Kohs, after some research, concluded that there were no Wikipedia policies forbidding this activity, his Wikipedia account was blocked shortly after the August publication of a press release announcing the establishment of the business. The salient Wikipedia policies were soon edited to regulate the kinds of activities in which MyWikiBiz was engaging. Jimmy Wales defended this decision and the permanent exclusion of Kohs from Wikipedia, even as he acknowledged that surreptitious paid editing continually occurred, saying that " 's one thing to acknowledge there's always going to be a little of this, but another to say, 'Bring it on.'"

2007

*January 2007 **In January 2007, English-language Wikipedians in

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

were briefly blocked from editing by an administrator, following a spate of vandalism, since they did not realize that the entire country's internet traffic is routed through a single

. Both

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American global online newspaper focusing on topics regarding high tech, high-tech and Startup company, startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. I ...

and

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally billed itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories on science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evaluated by site ...

reported that Wikipedia had banned all of Qatar from the site, a claim that was promptly denied by co-founder

. **It was revealed that

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

had paid programmer

Rick Jelliffe Richard (Rick) Alan Jelliffe (born 1960) is an Australian programmer and standards activist (ISO, W3C, IETF), particularly associated with web standards, markup languages, internationalization and schema languages. He is the founder and Chief ...

to edit Wikipedia articles about Microsoft products. In particular, Microsoft paid Jelliffe to edit, among others, the article on

Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version ...

. A spokesman for Microsoft explained that the company thought the articles in question had been heavily biased by editors at Microsoft rival

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

and that having a seemingly independent editor add the material would make it more acceptable to other Wikipedia editors. *February 2007 **On February 13, 2007, American professional golfer

Fuzzy Zoeller Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller Jr. (; born November 11, 1951) is an American professional golfer who has won ten PGA Tour events including two major championships. He is one of three golfers to have won the Masters Tournament in his first appea ...

sued the

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

foreign-credential evaluation firm of Josef Silny & Associates. The lawsuit alleged that

defamatory Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

statements had been edited into the Wikipedia article about Zoeller in December 2006 by someone using a computer at that firm."Golfer Zoeller sues law firm for Wikipedia posting" (February 22, 2007), MiamiHerald.com ** Barbara Bauer sued the

, which runs the Wikipedia website, claiming that information on Wikipedia critical of her abilities as a literary agent harmed her business. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

defended Wikipedia and the case was dismissed in July 2008. **On February 17, 2007,

Taner Akçam Altuğ Taner Akçam (born 1953) is a Turkish-German historian and sociologist. During the 1990s, he was the first Turkish scholar to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and has written several books on the genocide, such as '' A Shameful Act'' ...

, one of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily t ...

, was detained in Canada at the airport in Montreal for nearly four hours after arriving on a flight from the United States. Taner Akçam said that Canadian authorities had justified this detainment using a libelous

article on Akçam from around December 24, 2006 as evidence. The article had allegedly been persistently vandalized by anonymous contributors intent on labeling Akçam as a terrorist. In response to Akçam's account of his border encounter, Jimmy Wales said the website contributors "deeply regret every error". Essjay

*March 2007 – The

was sparked when ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' magazine issued a rare editorial correction saying that a prominent

editor and administrator known as "Essjay", whom they had interviewed and described in a July 2006 article as a "tenured professor of religion at a private university" who held a "Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law", was in fact a 24-year-old who held no advanced degrees. Essjay had invented a completely false identity for his pseudonymous participation in Wikipedia. In January 2007, however, Essjay became a

Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e., video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). The Privately held company, privately held for-profit Delaware ...

employee and divulged his real name, Ryan Jordan; this was noticed by Daniel Brandt of Wikipedia Watch, who communicated Essjay's identity to ''The New Yorker''. Jordan held trusted volunteer positions within Wikipedia known as "administrator", "bureaucrat", "checkuser", " arbitrator", and "mediator". Responding to the controversy, Jimmy Wales stated that he viewed Essjay's made-up persona like a pseudonym and did not really have a problem with it: "Essjay has always been, and still is, a fantastic editor and trusted member of the community... He has been thoughtful and contrite about the entire matter, and I consider it settled." The incident caused wide-ranging debates in the Wikipedia community, and saw Wikipedia co-founder

challenge Wales: "Jimmy, to call yourself a tenured professor, when you aren't one, is not a 'pseudonym'. It's identity fraud. And the full question is not why you appointed Essjay to ArbCom, but: why did you ignore the obvious moral implications of the fact that he had fraudulently pretended to be a professor – ignoring those implications even to the point of giving him a job and appointing him to ArbCom – until now?" As a result of the controversy, Wales eventually invited Jordan to relinquish his responsibilities on Wikipedia, which he did; Jordan also quit his job at Wikia. *June 2007 – In June 2007, a statement regarding Nancy Benoit's death was added to the wrestler

Chris Benoit Christopher Michael Benoit ( ; May 21, 1967 – June 24, 2007) was a Canadian Professional wrestling, professional wrestler. He worked for various pro-wrestling promotions during his 22-year career, but is notorious for Chris Benoit double-murd ...

article fourteen hours before police discovered the bodies of Benoit and his family. This seemingly prescient addition was initially reported on

Wikinews Wikinews is a free-content news wiki and a Wikimedia project, project of the Wikimedia Foundation that works through collaborative journalism through user-created content. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipe ...

and later on

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City, U.S. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ow ...

. The article originally read: "Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the

ECW World Championship The ECW World Heavyweight Championship was a professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted profe ...

match at

Vengeance Vengeance may refer to: *Vengeance (concept) or revenge, a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance Film * ''Vengeance'' (1930 film), action adventure film directed by Archie Mayo * ''Vengeance'' (1937 film) or ''W ...

, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy." The phrase "stemming from the death of his wife Nancy" was added at 12:01 a.m. EDT on June 25, whereas the Fayette County police reportedly discovered the bodies of the Benoit family at 2:30 p.m. EDT (14 hours, 29 minutes later). The

of the editor was traced to

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, outside of New York City. It is the sixth-most populous city in New England. Stamford is also the largest city in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Weste ...

, which is also the location of WWE headquarters. After news of the early death notice reached mainstream media, the anonymous poster accessed Wikinews to explain his edit as a "huge coincidence and nothing more." *August 2007 – It became known that Virgil Griffith, a

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

computation and neural-systems graduate student, had created WikiScanner, a searchable database that linked changes made by anonymous Wikipedia editors to companies and organizations from which the changes were made. The database cross-referenced logs of Wikipedia edits with publicly available records pertaining to the internet

es edits were made from. Griffith was motivated by the edits from the United States Congress, and wanted to see if others were similarly promoting themselves. He was particularly interested in finding scandals, especially at large and controversial corporations. He said he wanted to, "create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike (and) to see what 'interesting organizations' (which I am neutral towards) are up to." He also wanted to give Wikipedia readers a tool to check edits for accuracy and allow the automation and indexing of edits. Most of the edits Wikiscanner found were minor or harmless, but the site was mined to detect the most controversial and embarrassing instances of conflict of interest edits. These instances received media coverage worldwide. Included among the accused were the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Geography * Vatican City, an independent city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy * Vatican Hill, in Rome, namesake of Vatican City * Ager Vaticanus, an alluvial plain in Rome * Vatican, an unincorporated community in the ...

, the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

, the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

, the

U.S. Democratic Party The Democratic Party is a center-left political party in the United States. One of the major parties of the U.S., it was founded in 1828, making it the world's oldest active political party. Its main rival since the 1850s has been the Re ...

's Congressional Campaign Committee, the

U.S. Republican Party The Republican Party, also known as the Grand Old Party (GOP), is a right-wing political party in the United States. One of the two major parties, it emerged as the main rival of the then-dominant Democratic Party in the 1850s, and the tw ...

, Britain's Labour Party, Britain's Conservative Party, the

Canadian government The Government of Canada (), formally His Majesty's Government (), is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. The term ''Government of Canada'' refers specifically to the executive, which includes ministers of the Crown ( ...

Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; ; )''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Industry (). is a department of the G ...

, the Department of Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Defence in Australia, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

, the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

, the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency may refer to the following government organizations: * Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland), Australia * Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana) * Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland) * Environmenta ...

, Montana Senator

, Ohio Governor

Bob Taft Robert Alphonso Taft III (born January 8, 1942) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 67th governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007. A member of the Taft family, Taft political dynasty and Republican Party (United States), Republic ...

, Prince Johan Friso and his wife Princess Mabel of the Netherlands, the

Israeli government The Israeli system of government is based on parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government and leader of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government (also known as the cabinet). Legislat ...

ExxonMobil Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational List of oil exploration and production companies, oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the Successors of Standard Oil, largest direct s ...

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

Diebold Diebold Nixdorf, Incorporated is an American multinational financial and retail technology company that specializes in the sale, manufacture, installation, and service of self-service transaction systems (such as ATMs and currency processing ...

Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

Anheuser-Busch Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC ( ) is an American brewing company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Since 2008, it has been wholly owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV (AB InBev), now the world's largest brewing company, which owns multiple ...

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...

Pepsi Pepsi is a Carbonated water, carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo which serves as its flagship product. In 2023, Pepsi was the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long ...

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American video game and digital entertainment company that is a major subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony, Sony Group Corporation. It primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game co ...

, EA,

SCO Group The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the or ...

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

, Anglican and Catholic churches, the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religiou ...

, the

World Harvest Church World Harvest Church is a nondenominational evangelical megachurch pastored by Rod Parsley, based in Columbus, Ohio. History First started in 1977 in Rod Parsley's parents' backyard, the church consisted of 17 people. Two years later Parsley bo ...

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

, the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', the

National Rifle Association of America The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

Bob Jones University Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private university in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. It is known for its Conservatism in the United States, conservative and Evangelicalism in the United States, evangelical cultural and religious posit ...

, and

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. Although the edits correlated with known IP addresses, there was no proof that the changes actually came from a member of the organization or employee of the company, only that someone had access to their network. Wikipedia spokespersons received WikiScanner positively, noting that it helped prevent conflicts of interest from influencing articles as well as increasing transparency and mitigating attempts to remove or distort relevant facts. In 2008 Griffith released an updated version of WikiScanner called WikiWatcher, which also exploited a common mistake made by users with registered accounts who accidentally forget to log in, revealing their IP address and subsequently their affiliations. As of March 2012, WikiScanner's website was online, but not functioning; WikiScanner is no longer online. *September 2007 **

Auren Hoffman Auren Raphael Hoffman (born 1974) is an American entrepreneur, angel investor, author and CEO of SafeGraph, a firm that gathers location data from mobile devices and sells information about places and the movements of people. Personal life Hoffma ...

was noted by ''

VentureBeat ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. ''VentureBeat'' is a tech news source that publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. The ''VentureBeat'' company was fou ...

'' in 2007 as having edited his own Wikipedia profile under a pseudonym. Hoffman responded that he was editing his profile to remove inappropriate comments. **One thousand IPs were blocked in Utah in order to prevent further edits from a highly active user who had been banned from editing Wikipedia. *October 2007 – In their obituaries of then recently deceased TV theme composer

Ronnie Hazlehurst Ronald Hazlehurst (13 March 1928 – 1 October 2007) was an English composer and conductor who, having joined the BBC in 1961, became its Light Entertainment Musical Director. Hazlehurst composed the theme tunes for many well-known British ...

, many British media organizations reported that he had co-written the

S Club 7 S Club, formerly known as S Club 7, are a British pop group formed in 1998 by Simon Fuller after he was fired as manager of the Spice Girls. Original members were Tina Barrett, Paul Cattermole, Jon Lee, Bradley McIntosh, Jo O'Meara, Ha ...

song " Reach". In fact, he had not, and it was discovered that this information had been sourced from a hoax edit to Hazlehurst's Wikipedia article. *December 2007 – In December 2007, it became known that the Wikimedia Foundation had failed to do a basic background check and hired Carolyn Doran as its chief operating officer. Doran had criminal records in three states for theft, drunken driving and fleeing the scene of a car crash. According to ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'', Doran left her position after yet another arrest for DUI; the Wikimedia Foundation lawyer,

Mike Godwin Michael Wayne Godwin (born October 26, 1956) is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and he created the Internet adage Godwin's law and the notion of an Internet meme. From ...

, was quoted as saying, "We've never had any documentation of any criminal record on Carolyn Doran's part at all. As far as I'm concerned, I have no direct knowledge of er criminal recordyet... We have, in our records, no evidence of any such thing." The

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

also reported that Doran had wounded her boyfriend "with a gunshot to the chest".

2008

*February 2008 – A group of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

s started an online petition demanding that Wikipedia remove images of the

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...

from Wikipedia articles about him since most followers of Islam believe that such images violate the precepts of the religion. Protesters also organized an email campaign to pressure the English Wikipedia into removing the offending images. By February 7, approximately 100,000 people had signed the petition and the article had been protected from editing by non-registered users. Jay Walsh, Wikimedia Foundation spokesman, told ''

Information Week ''InformationWeek'' is a digital magazine which conducts corresponding face-to-face events, virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United State ...

'' that " Noncensorship is an important tenet of the user community and the editing community" and Mathias Schindler, of

Wikimedia Deutschland Wikimedia Deutschland (also known as WMDE, Wikimedia Germany, and the Society for the Promotion of Free Knowledge) is a German non-profit association based in Berlin. It was founded in 2004 and recognized that year as the first national chapter ...

, said in response to efforts to have the images removed from the German language Wikipedia that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a venue for an inter-Muslim debate." *March 2008 **Wikipedia co-founder

used Wikipedia to end a relationship he was having with conservative political columnist, television commentator and university lecturer

Rachel Marsden Rachel Marsden (born December 2, 1974) is a Canadian conservative political columnist and television commentator based in Paris. She is the former host of a talk show on Sputnik News and is a columnist for the ''Toronto Sun''. Her column is s ...

, by adding a single sentence to his own Wikipedia user page stating "I am no longer involved with Rachel Marsden." This was interpreted as a wider Wikipedia controversy because of the suggestion (from released private chat logs purportedly between Marsden and Wales) that Wales had previously edited Marsden's biographical article on Wikipedia, at the request of Marsden (before they were romantically involved). **Jimmy Wales was accused by former Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool of misusing the foundation's funds for recreational purposes. Wool also stated that Wales had his Wikimedia credit card taken away in part because of his spending habits, a claim Wales denied. Then-chairperson of the foundation Florence Devouard and former foundation interim Executive Director Brad Patrick denied any wrongdoing by Wales or the foundation, saying that Wales accounted for every expense and that, for items for which he lacked receipts, he paid out of his own pocket; in private, Devouard upbraided Wales for "constantly trying to rewrite the past". **It was claimed by Jeffrey Vernon Merkey that Wales had edited Merkey's Wikipedia entry to make it more favorable in return for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation, an allegation Wales dismissed as "nonsense". *May 2008 – A long-running dispute between members of the

and Wikipedia editors reached Wikipedia's arbitration committee. The church members were accused of attempting to sway articles in the church's interests, while other editors were accused of the opposite. The arbitration committee unanimously voted to block all edits from the IP addresses associated with the church; several Scientology critics were also banned. *June 2008 **In 2007,

Jim Prentice Peter Eric James Prentice (July 20, 1956 – October 13, 2016) was a Canadian politician who served as the 16th premier of Alberta from 2014 to 2015. In the 2004 federal election he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as a candida ...

, then-member of the

Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada () is the Canadian federalism, federal legislature of Canada. The Monarchy of Canada, Crown, along with two chambers: the Senate of Canada, Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons, form the Bicameral ...

for

Calgary Centre-North Calgary Centre-North (formerly known as Calgary North Centre) was a federal electoral district (Canada), electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2015. It was a mixed urban and s ...

and Minister of Industry, introduced copyright protection legislation, which was compared by many to the

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

. The legislation was controversial and Prentice withdrew it in December 2007. By June 2008 there was a great deal of speculation in the Canadian press that Prentice would eventually succeed

Stephen Harper Stephen Joseph Harper (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015. He is to date the only prime minister to have come from the modern-day Conservative Party of Canada, ser ...

Prime Minister of Canada The prime minister of Canada () is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the Confidence and supply, confidence of a majority of the elected House of Commons of Canada, House of Commons ...

Michael Geist Michael Allen Geist is a Canadian academic, and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He is the editor of four books on copyright law and privacy law, and he edits two newsletters on Canadian infor ...

, professor of internet law at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

, discovered that a series of anonymous edits to Prentice's Wikipedia article had been made in late May and early June from an IP address owned by

, Prentice's ministry. The modifications removed critical mentions of Prentice's involvement with the copyright legislation and added generic positive claims about the minister. Geist announced on his blog his findings about the modifications, which one Canadian commentator called "hagiographic palaver extolling Prentice". **Australian press stated that American law firm

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP (known as Cadwalader) is a law firm based in New York City. It is the city's oldest law firm and one of the oldest continuously operating legal practices in the United States. Attorney John Wells founded the pra ...

had threatened the Wikimedia Foundation on behalf of then-

Telstra Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets related products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 stock index, and is Australia's largest telecomm ...

-CEO

Solomon Trujillo Solomon Dennis "Sol" Trujillo (born November 17, 1951) is an American businessman, global media-communications and technology executive. He was the CEO of Telstra, US West, and Orange S.A., and has held executive positions in United States Feder ...

. The letter allegedly contained: "If Wikipedia and Wikimedia do not remove the improper language by that time (7pm on March 7), and take the steps necessary to block its being reinserted, Mr (Trujillo) intends to commence litigation..." and reportedly demanded that the editor responsible for the defamatory material be blocked. Jimmy Wales denied that any such threat had been received, stating that "It is sad to see a media so irresponsible as to make it seem that Wikipedia would cave to a few lawyers letters objecting to legitimate criticism. It is even sadder to see Mr Trujillo attacked by that same irresponsible media for something he did not do." *August 2008 – Republican senator and then presidential candidate

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...

was accused of plagiarizing from Wikipedia some elements of a speech he gave about the

Republic of Georgia A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a state in which political power rests with the public (people), typically through their representatives—in contrast to a monarchy. Although a ...

. The

Congressional Quarterly ''Congressional Quarterly'', or ''CQ'', is an American publication that is part of the privately owned publishing company CQ Roll Call, which covers the United States Congress. ''CQ'' was formerly acquired by the U.K.-based Economist Group and ...

found that McCain's speech contained two passages which were substantially identical to passages in the Wikipedia article on the country and that a third passage "bore striking resemblances." McCain's speech was written by speechwriters rather than by the candidate himself. After the Congressional Quarterly's report was released, McCain's aides released a statement that contained: "there are only so many ways to state basic historical facts and dates and that any similarities to Wikipedia were only coincidental". David Rohde 14 400x600

*November 2008 – ''

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 ...

'' reporter

David Rohde David Stephenson Rohde (born August 7, 1967) is an American author and investigative journalist. He is the former online news director for ''The New Yorker'' and now the senior executive editor on national security for NBC News. While a repor ...

was kidnapped by the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

while reporting in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. The ''Times'' feared that reporting of the matter would endanger Rohde's life, so they did not mention it in their pages. Statements about Rohde's kidnapping were edited into Wikipedia during the voluntary news blackout, however. Representatives of the ''Times'' called Jimmy Wales and asked him to suppress the information. He agreed to take care of it, but in order to avoid the scrutiny which attends his edits to Wikipedia, Wales asked an unnamed administrator on the site to delete the information instead. Wales told ''Times'' media reporter

Richard Pérez-Peña Richard Pérez-Peña (born May 26, 1963 in Santiago, Cuba) is a Cuban-American journalist who has been with ''The New York Times'' since 1992. He has covered topics relating to Albany, New Jersey, healthcare, the media, and higher education. He ...

, "We were really helped by the fact that it hadn't appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source. I would have had a really hard time with it if it had." ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...

'' reported that Wales' actions were the subject of much criticism from bloggers and journalists, who argued that information suppression undermined the credibility of Wikipedia. *December 2008 **In early December, the

Internet Watch Foundation The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a registered charity based in Cambridge, England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhe ...

(IWF) added the Wikipedia page about the album ''

Virgin Killer ''Virgin Killer'' is the fourth studio album by the German rock band Scorpions, released in 1976 by RCA Records. It was the band's first album to attract attention outside Europe. The title is described as being a reference to time as the k ...

'' to its blacklist of online material potentially illegal in the United Kingdom because it contains an image of a naked prepubescent girl. The IWF's blacklist is voluntarily enforced by 95% of British internet service providers. The issue eventually left most British residents unable to edit any page on Wikipedia. The

(WMF) protested the blacklisting of the page even though, as the IWF stated at the time, "the image in question is potentially in breach of the

Protection of Children Act 1978 The Protection of Children Act 1978 (c. 37) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that criminalized indecent photographs of children. The act applies in England and Wales. Similar provision for Scotland is contained in the Civic Go ...

", and, in an "unprecedented" move, the IWF agreed to remove the page from its blacklist. **Professor T. Mills Kelly conducted a class project on "Lying About the Past", which resulted in the Edward Owens hoax. A biography was created about "Edward Owens" who was claimed to be an oyster fisherman that became a pirate during the period of the

Long Depression The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in Panic of 1873, 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1899, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been e ...

, targeting ships in the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

. It was revealed when media outlets began reporting the story as fact.

2009

*January 2009 – The Wikipedia articles for United States senators

Robert Byrd Robert Carlyle Byrd (born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.; November 20, 1917 – June 28, 2010) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. A Democratic Pa ...

and

Edward Kennedy Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts who served as a member of the United States Senate from 1962 to his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party and ...

were briefly changed to state, incorrectly, that they had died. *February 2009 – Scott Kildall and

Nathaniel Stern Nathaniel Stern (born 1977) is an American/South African interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media, including photography, interactive art, public art interventions, installation, video art, net.art and printmaking. He is curre ...

created ''Wikipedia Art'', a

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

piece as a live article on Wikipedia. It was deleted 15 hours later as a violation of Wikipedia rules. The

subsequently claimed that the domain name ''wikipediaart.org'' infringed on its trademark. The ensuing controversy was reported in the national press. ''Wikipedia Art'' has since been included in the Internet Pavilion of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

for 2009. It also appeared in a revised form at the

Transmediale Transmediale, stylised as transmediale, is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over three to five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometime ...

festival in Berlin in 2011. *March 2009 – Hours after the death of French composer

Maurice Jarre Maurice-Alexis Jarre (; 13 September 1924 – 28 March 2009) allmusic Biography/ref> was a French composer and conductor. Jarre is best known for his film scores, particularly for his collaborations with film director David Lean composing all of ...

, someone added a phony quote to Jarre's Wikipedia article: "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear." The quote then appeared in obituaries of Jarre published in newspapers around the world. *May 2009 – Wikipedian

David Boothroyd ''The History of British Political Parties'', also referred to as ''Politico's Guide to the History of British Political Parties'', is a reference book about political parties in the United Kingdom. Written by David Boothroyd, it was published ...

, a UK Labour Party member, created controversy in 2009, when

Wikipedia Review Wikipedia Review was an independent Internet forum and blog for the discussion of Wikimedia Foundation projects, in particular the content and conflicts of Wikipedia. Wikipedia Review sought to act as a watchdog website, scrutinizing Wikipedi ...

contributor "Tarantino" discovered that Boothroyd committed sockpuppeting, editing under the accounts "Dbiv", "Fys" and "Sam Blacketer", none of which acknowledged his real identity. After earning Administrator status with one account, then losing it for inappropriate use of the administrative tools, Boothroyd regained Administrator status with the "Sam Blacketer" sockpuppet account in April 2007. Later in 2007, Boothroyd's Sam Blacketer account became part of the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee. Under the Sam Blacketer account, Boothroyd edited many articles related to United Kingdom politics, including that of rival Conservative Party leader

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

. Boothroyd then resigned as an administrator and as an arbitrator. Rorschach blot 10

*June 2009 ** Chris Anderson, editor of ''

'', was accused by the ''

Virginia Quarterly Review The ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This ''"National Journal of Literature and Discussio ...

'' of plagiarizing material for his book '' Free: The Future of a Radical Price'' from Wikipedia. Anderson claimed that he had originally attributed the material properly but that due to disagreements with his publisher over formatting it had ended up in the published work without quotation marks. He took responsibility for the error, saying "That's my screw-up." Anderson announced that the attribution errors would be corrected in the online version of the book and in future publications. Anderson's book is not a defense of the notion of free information as exemplified by Wikipedia, but of the notion of zero-price digital works. However, due to confusion over the concept of ''free as in freedom'' versus ''free as in zero monetary cost'' (although both concepts apply to Wikipedia), the fact that he plagiarized material for it was seen by at least one commentator as "riddled with savage irony." **

James Heilman James M. Heilman (born ) is a Canadian emergency physician, Wikipedian, and advocate for the improvement of Wikipedia's health-related content. He encourages other clinicians to contribute to the online encyclopedia. With the Wikipedia user ...

, a Canadian doctor, uploaded to Wikipedia copies of all 10 inkblot images used in the

Rorschach test The Rorschach test is a projective test, projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychology, psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists u ...

, on the grounds that

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

to the images had expired. Heilman was widely criticized by psychologists who used the test as a diagnostic tool, because they were worried that patients with prior knowledge of the inkblots would be able to influence their diagnoses. In response to Heilman's posting of the images, a number of psychologists registered Wikipedia accounts to argue against their retention. Later that year two psychologists filed a complaint against Heilman with the

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

medical licensing board, arguing that his uploading of the images constituted unprofessional behavior. *July 2009 – The National Portrait Gallery in London issued a cease and desist letter for alleged breach of copyright against a Wikipedia editor who downloaded more than 3,000 high-resolution images from the gallery's website to upload them to

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a wiki-based Digital library, media repository of Open content, free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used ...

. *November 2009 – Convicted German murderers Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber sued the

(WMF) in German courts, demanding that their names be removed from the English Wikipedia's article on their victim,

Walter Sedlmayr Walter Sedlmayr (6 January 1926 – 14 July 1990) was a popular German stage, television, and film actor from Bavaria. His murder in 1990 was widely publicized. Career After his 1945 wartime '' Abitur,'' Sedlmayr served as a '' Flakhelfer'' ...

. German laws force compliance with such requests for suppression. Alexander H. Stopp, the two men's lawyer, succeeded in forcing the German Wikipedia to remove their names.

responded on behalf of the WMF, stating that the organization "doesn't edit content at all, unless we get a court order from a court of competent jurisdiction. our German editors have chosen to remove the names of the murderers from their article on Walter Sedlmayr, we support them in that choice. The English-language editors have chosen to include the names of the killers, and we support them in that choice." *December 2009 – Actor

Ron Livingston Ronald Joseph Livingston (born June 5, 1967) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Peter Gibbons in ''Office Space'' (1999) and Captain Lewis Nixon III in the miniseries ''Band of Brothers (miniseries), Band of Brothers'' (2001). Liv ...

, star of the 1999 film ''

Office Space ''Office Space'' is a 1999 American satirical black comedy film written and directed by Mike Judge. It satirizes the office work life of a typical 1990s software company, focusing on a handful of individuals weary of their jobs. It stars Ron ...

'', filed a lawsuit in

Los Angeles County Superior Court The Superior Court of Los Angeles County is the California Superior Courts of California, Superior Court located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County. It is the largest single unified trial court in the United States. The Sup ...

against a

John Doe John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British, Canadian, and American legal systems, when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law ...

who had repeatedly edited Livingston's Wikipedia article to include statements that Livingston was gay and in a relationship with a (possibly fictitious) man named Lee Dennison. The lawsuit also claimed that the John Doe defendant had set up phony Facebook profiles for Livingston and his putative partner. The suit named neither Wikipedia nor Facebook, but was evidently intended to give Livingston the power to subpoena identifying information from the two organizations about the anonymous defendant. The lawsuit was followed by a manifestation of the

Streisand effect The Streisand effect is an unintended consequences, unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or Censorship, censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. The term was coined in 2005 by ...

as Livingston was targeted with accusations of homophobia. Jay Walsh, then head of communication for the Wikimedia Foundation, said that "This is a serious issue. We take it quite seriously. We understand real people are reflected in these articles.... Articles about living people are tough articles to manage. Someone who is a fan or an enemy might try to attack or vandalize those articles. This isn't a new scenario for us to witness."

2010s

2010

Donauturm Vienna top from S on 2013-06-14

*April 2010 and before – One of the largest disputes over a simple sentence in the German Wikipedia regarded the

Donauturm The Donauturm () is a tower located in the Donaupark, Vienna, Austria. Opened in April 1964, it is the tallest structure in Austria, standing at 252 meters (827 feet), and ranks as the 61st tallest tower in the world. History The Donauturm ...

in Vienna. While the observation tower shares some architectural aspects with the

Fernsehturm Stuttgart Fernsehturm Stuttgart () is a telecommunications tower in Stuttgart, Germany. It was the first telecommunications tower in the world constructed from reinforced concrete, and it is the prototype for many such towers worldwide. Although controver ...

, it was never planned for TV broadcasting purposes. The German Wikipedia went through an approximately 600,000-character discussion about the suitable title and category. Some (often Austrian) authors denied the description of Donauturm as a "TV tower", which was defended by others. The ''

Spiegel Spiegel is German, Yiddish, and Dutch for "mirror". More specifically, it may refer to: Publications * ''Der Spiegel'', a weekly German magazine * ''Der Spiegel'' (website), the online sibling of ''Der Spiegel'' Political * Spiegel scandal, a 1 ...

'' coverage of the issue cited a participant with "On good days, Wikipedia is better than any TV soap". *April 2010 – Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger informed the FBI that a large amount of

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

was available on

. Sanger told

: "I wasn't shocked that it was online, but I was shocked that it was on a Wikimedia Foundation site that purports to be a reference site." Co-founder Jimmy Wales responded by claiming that a strong statement from the

would be forthcoming. In the weeks following Sanger's letter, Wales responded by unilaterally deleting a number of images which he personally deemed to be pornographic. Wales's unilateral actions led to an outcry from the Wikipedian community, which in turn prompted Wales to voluntarily relinquish some of his user privileges. *July 2010 – Following the

football World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior men's national teams of the members of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global ...

, the

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

president

Sepp Blatter Joseph Sepp Blatter (born Josef Blatter; 10 March 1936) is a Swiss former association football, football administrator who served as the list of Presidents of FIFA, eighth president of FIFA from 1998 to 2015. He has been banned from participatin ...

was awarded the

Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo The Order of the Companions of O. R. Tambo is a South African honour. It was instituted on 6 December 2002, and is granted by the President of South Africa to foreign citizens who have promoted South African interests and aspirations through c ...

for his contribution over the World Cup. The South African Government's webpage announcing the award referred to him as Joseph Sepp Bellend Blatter, the nickname having been taken from his vandalized Wikipedia article. "Bellend" is a

British slang While some slang words and phrases are used throughout Britain (e.g. ''knackered'', meaning "exhausted"), others are restricted to smaller regions, even to small geographical areas. The nations of the United Kingdom, which are England, Scotland, W ...

term for the tip of the penis. *August 2010 – After the

requested that Wikipedia remove the FBI seal from Wikipedia (on grounds that the high-resolution graphic could facilitate creation of fake FBI badges) Wikimedia Foundation lawyer

sent a letter to the Bureau, denying their request and contending that the FBI had misinterpreted the law. *September 2010 – Right-wing radio presenter

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative political commentator who was the host of ''The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nati ...

broadcast a discussion of an upcoming hearing in the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida The United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida (in case citations, N.D. Fla.) is a federal court in the Eleventh Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appe ...

courtroom of judge

Roger Vinson Clyde Roger Vinson (February 19, 1940 – April 1, 2023) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. Until May 3, 2013, he was also a member of the United States Foreign Intelligenc ...

of the case '' Florida et al v. United States Department of Health and Human Services'', one of the cases brought by U.S. states challenging the

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health ...

(Obamacare). Limbaugh told his audience that Vinson had previously killed three brown bears and mounted their heads over the door of his courtroom in order, according to Limbaugh, to "instill the fear of God into the accused." This, stated Limbaugh, "would not be good news" for supporters of Obamacare. However, the story was not only false, but had been edited into Vinson's Wikipedia article a scant few days before the broadcast. The bear-hunting information inserted into the Wikipedia article was sourced to a nonexistent story in the ''

Pensacola News Journal The '' Pensacola News Journal'' is a daily morning newspaper serving Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida. It is Northwest Florida's most widely read daily. The ''News Journal'' is owned by Gannett, a national media holding company t ...

''. A spokesman for Limbaugh told the ''New York Times'' that a researcher for Limbaugh's show had found the information on the ''News Journal'' website, but that newspaper's managing editor told the ''Times'' that no such information had ever been published there.

2011

*June 2011 **Potential candidate for U.S. Vice President

Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin (; Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator, and author who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nomi ...

described

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

hero

Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, military officer and industrialist who played a major role during the opening months of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, ...

as "he who warned the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells." This description, characterized by '' U.S. News & World Report'' (USN&WR) as "flummoxed ramblings", kicked off a battle over the contents of the English Wikipedia's article about Revere. Palin's remarks and various interpretations were added by Palin supporters to the Revere Wikipedia page and just as quickly removed by detractors, although at least one commentator opined that "in some cases people appeared to be attributing the claims to Ms. Palin in order to mock her." In the 10 days following Palin's remark, Revere's Wikipedia page received over a half million page views and led to extensive and inconclusive discussion on the article's talk page and in the national media about whether the episode had improved or harmed the article.

Robert Schlesinger Robert Schlesinger is an American author, editor and liberal commentator emphasizing politics and political communications. Biography A native of New York City, he is a graduate of Middlebury College, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his w ...

, writing in USN&WR, summarized the episode by saying that " used to be said of conservatism that it stood athwart history and yelled 'stop.' Increasingly it seems to stand beside reality while hitting the 'edit' button." **''

PR Week ''PRWeek'' is a trade magazine and news website for the public relations and wider communications industry. It is published by Haymarket Media Group. History ''PRWeek'' was originally launched as a private venture in 1984 and was acquired ...

'' reported on a 'fixer', an unnamed London-based figure in the PR industry who offered his services to 'cleanse' Wikipedia articles for clients. Wikipedia entries this person was accused of changing included Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, Von Essen Group chairman Andrew Davis, British property developer David Rowland, billionaire Saudi tycoon Maan Al-Sanea, and

Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby Edward Richard William Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby, (born 10 October 1962) is a British hereditary peer and landowner. He was a member of the House of Lords from 1994 to 1999. Early life Edward Stanley (known to friends as "Teddy")

. According to ''PR Week'', 42 edits were made from the same IP address, most of them removing negative or controversial information, or adding positive information. *September 2011 – British writer and journalist

Johann Hari Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a British writer and journalist. Until 2011, Hari wrote for ''The Independent'', among other outlets, before resigning after admitting to plagiarism and fabrications dating from 2001 to 2011. Since t ...

admitted using Wikipedia to attack his opponents by editing the online encyclopedia's articles about them under a pseudonym. Using a sockpuppet, Hari engaged in a six-year

trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a internet forum, forum, a chat room, an Multiplayer video game, online video game) or who performs similar be ...

spree where he would repeatedly paint himself in a flattering light while also inserting fabrications in the entries for people he considered enemies, such as

Francis Wheen Francis James Baird Wheen (born 22 January 1957) is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster. Early life and education Wheen was born into an army family Wroe, Nicholas"A life in writing" ''The Guardian'', 29 August 2009. and educated at tw ...

Nick Cohen Nicholas Cohen (born 1961) is a British journalist, author, and political commentator. He was previously a columnist for '' The Observer'' and is currently one for ''The Spectator''. Following accusations of sexual harassment, he left ''The O ...

Niall Ferguson Sir Niall Campbell Ferguson, ( ; born 18 April 1964)Biography
Niall Ferguson

, and

Cristina Odone Cristina Patricia Odone (born 11 November 1960) is an Italian-British journalist, editor, and writer. She is the founder and chair of the Parenting Circle Charity. Odone is formerly the Editor of '' The Catholic Herald'', Deputy Editor of the ...

, who he falsely said had been fired from her job at ''

The Catholic Herald The ''Catholic Herald'' is a London-based Roman Catholic monthly magazine, founded in 1888 and a sister organisation to the non-profit Catholic Herald Institute, based in New York. After 126 years as a weekly newspaper, it became a magazine ...

''. Odone also suspects Hari of having made anonymous edits calling her an antisemite. *November 2011 – After the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

n government passed the Protection of State Information Bill, a law which criminalized certain forms of speech in the country, the Wikipedia article about the ruling

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

(ANC) party was altered in protest. The protesters deleted phrases on the page which were critical of the ANC, presumably suggesting that they would be illegal under the new law. This was denied by ANC spokesman Keith Khoza, who stated that the edits were "conduct... not consistent with a civilised society."

2012

*January 2012 **British MP Tom Watson discovered that

Portland Communications Portland Communications is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and director of communications at BSkyB. Portland provides communications and public affairs advice to ...

had been removing the nickname of one of its clients' products ("Wife Beater", referring to

Anheuser-Busch InBev Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, known as AB InBev, is an American-Belgian Multinational corporation, multinational Drink industry, drink and brewing company, brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium. It is the largest brewer in the world, and in 20 ...

Stella Artois Stella Artois ( , ) is a pilsner beer, first brewed in 1926 by Brouwerij Artois in Leuven, Belgium. In its original form, the beer is 5.2 per cent Alcohol by volume, ABV, the country's standard for pilsners. The beer is sold in many EU countrie ...

beer) from Wikipedia.

Chartered Institute of Public Relations The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) is a professional body in the United Kingdom for public relations practitioners. Founded as the Institute for Public Relations in 1948, CIPR was awarded Chartered status by the Privy Council of ...

(CIPR) CEO Jane Wilson noted, "Stella Artois is on the 'wife-beater' page because it is a nick-name in common currency for that brand of strong continental lager. The brand managers who want to change this have a wider reputational issue to address, editing the term from a Wikipedia page will not get rid of this association." Other edits from Portland's offices included changes to articles about another Portland client,

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

BTA Bank BTA Bank () (''BTA Bank Joint-Stock Company'' in full) is a Kazakhstan bank with headquarters in Almaty. it was the third largest lender by assets. In 2009, BTA Bank was subject of one of the world's biggest financial frauds totaling US$5 bill ...

, and its former head

Mukhtar Ablyazov Mukhtar Qabyluly Ablyazov (, ''Mūhtar Qabylūly Äbliazov''; born 16 May 1963) is a Kazakh businessman and political activist who served as chairman of Bank Turan Alem (BTA Bank), and is a co-founder and a leader of the unregistered political ...

. Portland did not deny making the changes, arguing they had been done transparently and in accordance with Wikipedia's policies. Portland Communications welcomed CIPR's subsequent announcement of a collaboration with Wikipedia and invited Jimmy Wales to speak to their company, as he did at

Bell Pottinger BPP Communications Ltd., which did business as Bell Pottinger Private, was a British multinational public relations, reputation management and marketing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. On 12 September 2017 it went into admini ...

. Tom Watson was optimistic about the collaboration: "PR professionals need clear guidelines in this new world of online-information-sharing. That's why I am delighted that interested parties are coming together to establish a clear code of conduct." **Edits made by both

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

's and

's campaigns during the 2008 U.S. presidential race made the news. *February 2012 – American labor historian Timothy Messer-Kruse, an expert on the

Haymarket affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square (C ...

, published an article in the ''

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...

'' describing his three-year struggle to edit the Wikipedia article on the subject. Messer-Kruse had discovered new primary sources which, in his professional opinion, cast doubt on the conventional view of the incident. In 2009, when he first tried to edit the article to include the new information, he was told by other editors that primary sources were not acceptable and that he would have to find published secondary sources. As he later said on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, "So I actually bided my time. I knew that my own published book would be coming out in 2011." When his book was published and he returned to insert his newly discovered material into the article, he was told that it was a minority view and could not be given "undue weight", even though he had proved in his book that the majority view was incorrect regarding major details of the case. Steven Walling of the

told a NPR reporter that all of Wikipedia's rules had been followed, stating that "We do not rely on what exact, individual people say, just based on their own credibility." National security scholars

Benjamin Wittes Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is an American legal journalist. He is editor in chief of '' Lawfare'' and senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution, where he is the research director in public law, and co-director ...

and Stephanie Leutert have used Messer-Kruse's experiences to illuminate the "broad question" of "whether Wikipedia's policies are encouraging an undue conservatism about sourcing." *March 2012 – The

Bureau of Investigative Journalism The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, typically abbreviated to TBIJ or "the Bureau", is a nonprofit news organisation based in London that was founded in 2010 to pursue "public interest" investigations. The Bureau works with publishers and bro ...

uncovered that UK MPs or their staff had made almost 10,000 edits to the encyclopedia, and that the Wikipedia articles of almost one in six MPs had been edited from within Parliament. Many of the changes dealt with removing unflattering details from Wikipedia during the 2009 expenses scandal, as well as other controversial issues. British politician Joan Ryan admitted to changing her entry "whenever there's misleading or untruthful information hat hasbeen placed on it."

Clare Short Clare Short (born 15 February 1946) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to 2003. Short began her career as a civil servant. A member of the Labour Party until 2006, she was Member o ...

said her staff were "angry and protective" over mistakes and criticisms in her Wikipedia article and acknowledged they might have made changes to it. Labour MP

Fabian Hamilton Fabian Uziell-Hamilton (born 12 April 1955) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds North East since 1997. He served as Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament from November 2016 to Septembe ...

also reported having one of his assistants edit a page to make it more accurate in his view. MP

Philip Davies Sir Philip Andrew Davies (born 5 January 1972) is a British Conservative politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Shipley in West Yorkshire following the 2005 general election until 2024. He voted against the Conservativ ...

denied making changes about removing controversial comments related to Muslims from 2006 and 2007. William and Kate wedding

*July 2012 ** Attempts to delete an entry about the wedding dress of

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge Catherine, Princess of Wales (born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton; 9 January 1982), is a member of the British royal family. She is married to William, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the British throne. Born in Reading, Berkshire, Readi ...

led to a controversy on the English Wikipedia.

used the example to illustrate his notion about a "gender gap" in Wikipedia on the

Wikimania Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by Wikimedian, volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source ...

2012. The issue received press coverage. **

chairperson and administrator of the English Wikipedia

Ashley van Haeften Wikimedia UK (WMUK), also known as Wikimedia United Kingdom, is a registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the W ...

was banned from the

for six months for sockpuppeting and other violations of Wikipedia's norms and policies. Wikimedia UK's board fully supported van Haeften following the case, until van Haeften resigned as chair in August. *September 2012 **Author

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (; March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

published an

open letter An open letter is a Letter (message), letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally. Open letters usually take the form of a letter (mess ...

to Wikipedia, describing conflicts he experienced with the Wikipedia community while attempting to modify the Wikipedia article about his novel ''

The Human Stain ''The Human Stain'' is a novel by Philip Roth, published May 5, 2000. The book is set in Western Massachusetts in the late 1990s. Its narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appears in several earlier Roth novels, including two boo ...

'': although the character Coleman Silk had been inspired by the case of

Melvin Tumin Melvin Marvin Tumin (February 10, 1919 – March 3, 1994) was an American sociologist who specialized in race relations. He taught at Princeton University for much of his career. Early life Tumin was born and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. His ...

, many literary critics had drawn parallels between Silk and the life of

Anatole Broyard Anatole Broyard (1920-1990) was an American writer, literary critic, and editor whose literary output spanned several decades. His ''oeuvre'' encompassed short stories, essays, and reviews. He was a prolific contributor to several literary maga ...

, and Roth sought to remove statements that Broyard had been suggested as an inspiration; however, Roth's edits had been reverted on the grounds that direct statements from the author were a

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an Artifact (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...

, not a secondary. Wikipedia administrator and community liaison Oliver Keyes subsequently wrote a blog post criticizing both Roth and his approach, and pointed out that even prior to Roth's attempts to modify the article, it had ''already'' cited a published interview in which Roth stated that the inspiration for Coleman Silk had been Tumin rather than Broyard. Keyes also pointed out that the edits had been made via an anonymous

, with no evidence provided to support the claim that Roth was actually involved. ** The Gibraltarpedia project, where editors created articles about

, came under scrutiny due to concerns about Roger Bamkin, a

board member who was head of the project, having a professional relationship with the government of Gibraltar in connection with Gibraltarpedia. Of primary concern was that the site's main page "Did You Know" section was allegedly being used for the promotional purposes of Bamkin's clients. Bamkin, under pressure, resigned from the board. *October 2012 – Asian soccer's governing body was forced to apologize to the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

soccer team for referring to them as the "Sand Monkeys"; the spurious nickname had been taken from a vandalized Wikipedia article."Asian soccer body blames Wikipedia for slur of UAE team"
, ''

'', July 31, 2006. *November 2012 –

Lord Justice Leveson Sir Brian Henry Leveson ( ; born 22 June 1949) is an English retired senior judge who is the current Investigatory Powers Commissioner, having previously served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice. Leves ...

wrote in his report on British press standards, "''The Independent'' was founded in 1986 by the journalists Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Brett Straub..." He had used the Wikipedia article for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' newspaper as his source, but an act of vandalism had replaced Matthew Symonds (a genuine co-founder) with Brett Straub (an unknown character). ''The Economist'' said of the Leveson report, "Parts of it are a scissors-and-paste job culled from Wikipedia." Cherie Blair with Jimmy Wales and cake Allan Warren

Cherie Blair with Jimmy Wales and cake Allan Warren

*December 2012 – A discussion took place on the Wikipedia user talk page of Jimmy Wales about his connection with the Republic of Kazakhstan WikiBilim organization and the repressive government of the

Republic of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

. Wales unilaterally shut down the conversation when other Wikipedia editors questioned him about his friendship with

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

, whose company provides paid consultancy services to the Kazakh government. Wales stated that the line of questioning was "just totally weird and irrelevant" and told Andreas Kolbe, a moderator at

Wikipediocracy Wikipediocracy is a website for discussion and criticism of Wikipedia. Its members have brought information about Wikipedia's controversies to the attention of the media. The site was founded in March 2012 by users of Wikipedia Review, another ...

who edits Wikipedia under the username "Jayen466": "please stay off my talk page." * The Wikipedia ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' debate began on December 1, 2012 and lasted until January 31, 2013. It was largely centered on the capitalization of "into" in the title ''

Star Trek Into Darkness ''Star Trek Into Darkness'' is a 2013 American science fiction film, science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It is the 12th installment in the ''Star Trek'' franchise ...

''.

2013

*January 2013 **The discovery of a hoax article on the "Bicholim conflict" caused widespread press coverage. The article, a meticulously crafted but completely made-up description of a fictitious war in Indian

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

, had been listed as a " good article" – a quality award given to fewer than 1 percent of all articles on the English Wikipedia – for more than five years. *February 2013 – Prison company

GEO Group The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The company ...

received media coverage when a Wikipedia editor using the name "Abraham Cohen" (who was, at the time, also GEO Group's Manager of Corporate Relations) edited the company's entry to remove information on its past controversies, following the announcement that it had obtained

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

Florida Atlantic University Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, United States. The university is a member of the State University System of Florida and has s ...

's new stadium. *March 2013 – Controversy arose in March 2013 after it emerged that large segments of the BP article had originated from a corporate employee who was a Wikipedia editor.Violet Blue
"Big Oil's Wikipedia cleanup: A brand management experiment out of control"
ZDNet, March 27, 2013. Retrieved March 28, 2013 *April 2013 **The French-language Wikipedia article '' Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre-sur-Haute'', about a military radio station, attracted attention from the French interior intelligence agency DCRI. The agency attempted to have the article about the facility removed from the French-language Wikipedia. After a request for deletion in March 2013, the

had asked the DCRI which parts of the article were causing a problem, noting that the article closely reflected information in a 2004 documentary made by ''Télévision Loire 7'', a French local television station, which is freely available online and had been made with the cooperation of the French Air Force. The DCRI refused to give these details, and repeated its demand for deletion of the article. The DCRI then pressured

Rémi Mathis Rémi Mathis (; born 20 November 1982) is a French historian and curator. He was president of Wikimedia France from 2011 to 2014. Early life Rémi Mathis was born in 20 November 1982 in Besançon, France, son of paleontologist . Mathis graduat ...

, a volunteer

administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...

of the French-language Wikipedia, and president of

Wikimedia France Wikimedia chapters are national or sub-national not-for-profit organizations created to promote the interests of Wikimedia projects locally, by members of the movement. Chapters are legally independent of the Wikimedia Foundation, entering into ...

, into deleting the article by threatening him with arrest. Later, the article was restored by another Wikipedia contributor living in Switzerland. As a result of the controversy, the article temporarily became the most read page on the French Wikipedia, with more than 120,000 page views during the weekend of April 6/7, 2013. For his role in the controversy, Mathis was named ''Wikipedian of the Year'' by

2013. **It was confirmed by a spokesperson for the

Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN), is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media. ...

that Wikipedia had been blacklisted over the Russian Wikipedia's article about cannabis smoking. Being placed on the blacklist gives the operator 24 hours to remove the offending material. If the website owner refuses to remove the material then either the website host or the network operator will be required to block access to the site in Russia. The ''New York Times'' had reported in March that Russia had begun to "selectively" block internet content that the government considered either illegal under Russian law or otherwise harmful to children. ** UK tabloid ''

The Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...

'' alleged that Labour Party MP

Chuka Umunna Chuka Harrison Umunna (; born 17 October 1978) is a British businessman and former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Streatham from 2010 until 2019. A former member of the Labour Party, he was part of the Shadow Cabine ...

, in 2007 before his election, used the Wikipedia username "Socialdemocrat", to create and repeatedly edit his own Wikipedia page. Umunna told ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' that he did not alter his own Wikipedia page, but the paper quoted what they called "sources close to Umunna" as having told the newspaper that "it was possible that one of his campaign team in 2007, when he was trying to be selected to be Labour's candidate for Streatham in the 2010 general election, set up the page." On April 11, 2013, the ''

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

'' alleged that an edit in January 2008 was made on a computer at the law firm at which he then worked. Umunna said that he had "no recollection" of doing so. **An edit war on the Wikipedia article of Canadian politician and leader of the

New Democratic Party The New Democratic Party (NDP; , ) is a federal political party in Canada. Widely described as social democratic,The party is widely described as social democratic: * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Editors of ''Encyclopædia Britann ...

(NDP) in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Adrian Dix Adrian Dix (born April 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician who is the current Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vancouver-Kingsway in British Columbia. A member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party (BC NDP), he was the party ...

, was widely reported in the Canadian press. Dix, while employed by

Glen Clark Glen David Clark (born November 22, 1957) is a Canadian retail executive and former politician who served as the 31st premier of British Columbia from 1996 to 1999. Early life and education Clark attended independent Roman Catholic schools, na ...

, then premier of British Columbia, had falsified a memo related to a scandal involving casinos in which Clark was implicated, leading to Dix being fired from his post. The Wikipedia editor who led the effort to keep mention of the incident out of Dix's article was identified by ''

Global News Global News is the news and Current affairs (news format), current affairs division of the Canadian Global Television Network. The network is owned by Corus Entertainment, which oversees all of the network's national news programming as well as ...

'' and the ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, and is the larg ...

'' as Mike Cleven, who edits Wikipedia under the username Skookum1. Cleven denied that he was associated with the NDP, stating that "I am the editor who's spent the most energy on keeping the people pushing an inflammatory and undue-weight account of this. Whitewashing the article to prevent mention of this is not the aim here, it is to prevent articles being used for defamatory purposes... the BC Liberals have pulled this kind of crap on Wikipedia before; they can say it's not them, sure uh-huh, but the agenda of those claiming NOT to be them is too much like theirs to be worth explaining further." ** Amanda Filipacchi portrait

Amanda Filipacchi Amanda Filipacchi (; born October 10, 1967) is an American novelist. She was born in Paris and educated in both in France and in the U.S. She is the author of four novels, '' Nude Men'' (1993), ''Vapor'' (1999), '' Love Creeps'' (2005), and '' T ...

wrote an op-ed for ''The New York Times'' on April 24, 2013, titled "Wikipedia's Sexism Toward Female Novelists", in which she noted that "editors have begun the process of moving women, one by one, alphabetically, from the 'American Novelists' category to the 'American Women Novelists' subcategory." She suggested the reason for the move might be to create a male-only list of 'American Novelists' on Wikipedia. The story was picked up by many other newspapers and websites and

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

s said in response that they were disappointed and shocked by the action. Wikipedia editors initiated various responses soon after Filipacchi's article appeared, including the creation of a category for 'American men novelists' along with an immediate proposal to merge both categories back into the original 'American novelists' category. The 'American men novelists' category was criticized because the two categories together would have the effect of emptying the 'American novelists' category. When the 'American men novelists' category was first created, its only entries were

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. , he is the only person to have won a Hugo Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for Best Novel, Nebula Award in List of joint ...

and P. D. Cacek (who is female). A few days after the op-ed, Filipacchi wrote in the ''New York Times Sunday Review'' about the reaction to it, which included edits to the Wikipedia article about her that she suggested were retaliatory. In an article in ''The Atlantic'' responding to accounts that the edits she had initially complained of were the work of one rogue editor, Filipacchi detailed edit histories identifying seven other editors who had individually or collectively performed the same actions. Andrew Leonard, reporting for ''

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive and liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, includ ...

'', found that Filipacchi's articles were followed by what he called "revenge editing" on her article and articles related to her, including that of her father,

Daniel Filipacchi Daniel Filipacchi (born 12 January 1928) is the Chairman Emeritus of Hachette Filipacchi Médias and a French collector of surrealist art. Career Filipacchi wrote and worked as a photographer for '' Paris Match'' from its founding in 1949 b ...

. Leonard quoted extensively from talk page comments of Wikipedia editor Qworty, who, e.g., wrote on the talk page of Filipacchi's article: "Oh, by all means, let's be intimidated by the Holy New York Times. Because when the New York Times tells you to shut up, ''you have to shut up.'' Because that's the way 'freedom' works, and the NYT is all about promoting freedom all over the world, which is why they employed

Judith Miller Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948) is an American journalist and commentator who is known for writing about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, but her writings were later discov ...

Andrew Leonard poses in front of his own Wikipedia article

*May 2013 –

Andrew Leonard Andrew Leonard (born 1962) is an American journalist who writes feature articles for ''San Francisco'' and contributes to Medium. From 1995 to 2014 he wrote for '' Salon.com''. He has also written for ''Wired''. Career Leonard is credited with c ...

, writing in salon.com, revealed Wikipedia editor Qworty's

real life Real life is a phrase used originally in literature to distinguish between the real world and fictional, virtual or idealized worlds, and in acting to distinguish between actors and the Character (arts), characters they portray. It has become a ...

identity to be Robert Clark Young, a novelist and writer. Qworty first drew attention to himself through his "revenge editing" on the Wikipedia article of novelist and Wikipedia critic

. Young routinely made negative revisions to the pages of authors with whom he disagreed. Leonard was aided in his investigation by members of Wikipedia criticism site

. According to ''

Washington Monthly ''Washington Monthly'' is a bimonthly, nonprofit magazine primarily covering United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C. The magazine also publishes an annual ranking of American colleges and universities, which ser ...

'' columnist Kathleen Geier, "The Qworty case reveals the Achilles' heel of the Wikipedia project. Anyone possessing enough time and resources, and who is obsessed enough, can post information on the site that is false, misleading, or extremely biased." Shortly after the publication of Leonard's article, Qworty/Young was indefinitely blocked from editing Wikipedia and a sockpuppet investigation was opened in order to determine the extent of Young's editing with multiple accounts. Sockpuppet investigation on Qworty. Writing about the episode on his talk page, Wikipedia co-founder

quoted Leonard's original article: "For those of us who love Wikipedia, the ramifications of the Qworty saga are not comforting." and went on to write that "That sums it up for me. More thoughts soon. I would have banned him outright years ago. So would many others. That we did not, points to serious deficiencies in our systems." Leonard's continued investigations into Young's editing revealed a years-long crusade against articles about topics and people related to

modern Paganism Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the Paganism, beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some comm ...

. Leonard reported that one of the pagans whose article Young had nominated for deletion in 2012 nominated Young's article, in an act of revenge, for deletion after Young's revenge editing came to light. However, the pagan editor told Leonard "that he was unlikely to be successful in getting Young's page deleted, because ''Salon's'' series of articles on the Qworty affair had enshrined the entire saga as a notable moment in Wikipedia history." The Robert Clark Young article was, however, deleted in January 2017. *June 2013 –

, co-founder of Wikipedia, asked other editors to post their suspicions about

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...

's activities on Wikipedia to Wales' talk page, arguably violating Wikipedia's strict "outing" policy. No evidence of Snowden's editing was uncovered. *August 2013 – On August 22, 2013, Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning announced her intention to transition. Shortly thereafter, Manning's Wikipedia page was moved from "Bradley Manning" to "Chelsea Manning", and the page was rewritten to reflect Manning's female name and gender "with remarkably little controversy" at first. Within a day, however, a long move request had begun which found no consensus for the move, resulting in the page being returned to "Bradley Manning" until a second long move request in October found consensus that it should indeed be "Chelsea Manning". The same month (October), Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee heard a case about the disputes about the article, which resulted in several editors being topic-banned from editing transgender-related pages for either making

transphobic Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender or transsexual people, or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social ...

remarks or accusing others of making such remarks. This led

Trans Media Watch Trans Media Watch (TMW) is a British charity founded in 2009 to improve media coverage of transgender and intersex issues. By improving media coverage, TMW strives to "foster social acceptance and civil recognition for trans persons", and to pr ...

to criticize the committee for implying that accusations of transphobia were as bad as actual transphobia. *September 2013 **Lawyer Susan L. Burke who had represented Iraqi civilians against the private military company Blackwater Inc. (now known as

Academi Constellis, formerly Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1997, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acqui ...

) sued to discover the identity of two Wikipedia editors who allegedly inserted misleading information into the Wikipedia article about her and who she alleged were associates of Blackwater Inc. **Croatian newspapers reported that the

Croatian Wikipedia The Croatian Wikipedia () is the Croatian language version of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, started on 16 February 2003. This version has articles and a total of edits have been made. It has registered users, out of which have been active ...

had been taken over by "a clique of fascists" who were rewriting Croatian history and promoting

anti-Serb sentiment Anti-Serb sentiment or Serbophobia ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, србофобија, srbofobija, separator=" / ") is a generally negative view of Serbs as an ethnic group. Historically it has been a basis for the persecution of ethnic Serbs. A distinctiv ...

. The Croatian Minister of Education, Science, and Sport, Željko Jovanović, made a public statement saying that the country's students should not rely on the Croatian Wikipedia: " have to point out that much of the content in the Croatian version of Wikipedia is not only misleading but also clearly falsified." In an interview with Croatian news agency

HINA Hina may refer to: People and deities * Hina (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Hina (goddess), the name assigned to a number of Polynesian deities. * Hina (singer), of 2021 group Lightsum Other u ...

, Snježana Koren, a historian at the

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences or the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb ( Croatian: ''Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu'') is one of the faculties of the University of Zagreb. History The Faculty of Philosophy is the oldes ...

, judged the disputed articles "biased and malicious, partly even illiterate", adding that "These are the types of articles you can find on the pages of fringe organizations and movements" and expressing doubts on the ability of its authors to distinguish good from evil. *October 2013 **Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director

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 ...

expressed concerns that too much money from Wikipedia donations was flowing to the various Wikimedia chapters around the world, funding bureaucracy rather than benefiting the encyclopedia. She also expressed concerns that Wikimedia's Funds Dissemination Committee process, being "dominated by fund-seekers, does not as currently constructed offer sufficient protection against

log-rolling Logrolling is the trading of favors, or ''quid pro quo'', such as vote trading by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member. In organizational analysis, it refers to a practice in which different ...

self-dealing Self-dealing is the conduct of a trustee, attorney, corporate officer, or other fiduciary that consists of taking advantage of their position in a transaction and acting in their own interests rather than in the interests of the beneficiaries of ...

, and other corrupt practices." **

Rand Paul Randal Howard Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

was accused of quoting Wikipedia in some of his speeches. Specifically, Jeremy Peters of ''

'' accused Paul of plagiarizing the Wikipedia article on the sci-fi film ''

Gattaca ''Gattaca'' is a 1997 American dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol in his List of directorial debuts, feature directorial debut. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Go ...

'' when Paul was giving a speech about

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

. The ''Gattaca'' article was semi-protected soon after for a period of a week. **An investigation by Wikipedians found that the Wiki-PR company had operated "an army" of sockpuppet accounts to edit Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients. The company's website claimed that its "staff of 45 Wikipedia editors and admins helps you build a page that stands up to the scrutiny of Wikipedia's community rules and guidelines." The company's Twitter profile stated: "We write it. We manage it. You never worry about Wikipedia again." The Wikimedia Foundation subsequently sent Wiki-PR a cease-and-desist letter. After a Wikipedia sockpuppet investigation related to the company, more than 250 Wikipedia user accounts were blocked or banned. **Australian Environment Minister

Greg Hunt Gregory Andrew Hunt (born 18 November 1965) is an Australian former politician who was the Minister for Health between January 2017 and May 2022. He was a Liberal Party member of the House of Representatives between November 2001 and 2022, repr ...

made headlines in Australian media in an interview with the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

stating that he had "looked up what Wikipedia says about bushfires" and read there that bushfires were frequent events that had occurred in hotter months prior to European settlement. At the same time, meteorologists funded by the federal government, other scientists and politicians expressed concerns that increasingly extreme fire and flood events are linked to scientifically accepted climate change. According to the ''Sydney Morning Herald'', Wikipedia's article about Hunt was edited to state that he uses Wikipedia for important policy research, and editing of the article was then disabled for new or unregistered users due to vandalism.

2014

*January 2014 **The Wikimedia Foundation announced that Program Evaluation Coordinator Sarah Stierch was "no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation", after evidence was presented on a Wikimedia mailing list that she had been editing Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients, a practice the Wikimedia Foundation said was "frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation". **The Wikipedia page about

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

state senator Jim Davis was edited to state, incorrectly, that he had died of a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

. ** There was concern that the Wikipedia article on the

Hillsborough disaster The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crowd crush at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the tw ...

had been Hillsborough Wikipedia posts, vandalized with offensive comments posted from computers within various UK government departments. *July 2014 **''

'' reported that IP addresses belonging to the Russian government had edited articles relating to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 to remove claims that it helped provide the missile system used to shoot down the aircraft. Among the pages edited was the Russian Wikipedia's article listing of civil aviation incidents, to claim that "the plane [Flight MH17] was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers". **''The Wall Street Journal'' reported on a controversial article-writing program called Lsjbot that has created millions of articles on Swedish Wikipedia and several other language editions. ** Macaca nigra self-portrait large

The 5-year-old ''Amelia Bedelia Cameroon'' "accidental hoax" about Amelia Bedelia, main character of its eponymous popular children's book series, was revealed by journalist EJ Dickson. Dickson, who authored the fabricated statements with a friend when they were "stoned", only rediscovered the hoax after it had been propagated tens of times by blogs, journalists, academics, as well as Amelia Bedelia's current author, causing debate about Wikipedia, the usage made of it, as well as responsibility regarding online sources in general. *August 2014 – Photographer David Slater sent a copyright takedown notice to the

over a photograph of a Celebes crested macaque taken on one of his cameras, which at the time was being operated by the macaque, resulting in a "monkey selfie". The Wikimedia Foundation dismissed the claims, asserting that the photograph, having been taken by a non-human animal, rather than Slater, is in the public domain per United States law. Subsequently, a court in San Francisco ruled copyright protection could not be applied to the monkey and a University of Michigan law professor said "the original monkey selfie is in the public domain."

2015

* January 2015 – ''The Guardian'' reported that the

Arbitration Committee had banned five editors deemed to be breaking the site's rules from gender-related articles amid the Gamergate controversy. This gathered a response from outlets such as ''Gawker'', ''Inquisitr'', ''Think Progress'', ''The Mary Sue'', ''de Volkskrant'', and ''Wired (magazine), Wired Germany''. The accuracy of these reactions was promptly addressed by the committee, which had not yet released its final decision. The Wikimedia Foundation also released a statement on its blog. On January 28, the Arbitration Committee issued a final ruling in the GamerGate case, in which one longtime editor was banned from the site and other editors were prohibited from editing articles related to Gamergate or gender. * February 2015 – Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee banned Wikipedia administrator Wifione after accusations that they had for years manipulated the Wikipedia article on the Indian Institute of Planning and Management, an unaccredited business school. The Wikipedia page was used as a marketing tool by the school. Indian journalist Maheswhar Peri said, "In my opinion, by letting this go on for so long, Wikipedia has messed up perhaps 15,000 students' lives." * June 2015 – Wikipedia administrator "Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry", who in real life is Richard Symonds, a Liberal Democrats (UK), Liberal Democrat, was stripped of his advanced permissions on English Wikipedia after the site's Arbitration Committee found that he improperly blocked the account "Contribsx" and attributed its edits to then Chairman of the Conservative Party Grant Shapps. The committee stated the account in question could not be connected to "any specific individual". * September 2015 – Wikipedia was hit by the

blackmail scandal, as it came to light that hundreds of businesses and minor celebrities had faced demands for payment from rogue editors to publish, protect or update Wikipedia articles on them. * November 2015 – The ''Washington Examiner'' and several other outlets reported that editors associated with ''The Hunting Ground'', a documentary on rape on college campuses, were discovered making edits to various Wikipedia articles "to make facts conform to the film." In response, Jimmy Wales started a discussion on his talk page about people who edit when they have a conflict of interest (COI) "I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with COI editors. The usual objections (from some quarters – I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done."

* December 2015 – The

Board of Trustees voted to remove board member

on December 28. Heilman was one of three members elected by the Wikipedia editing community in May of that year. The unclear circumstances of his dismissal led to a number of discussions critical of the Board, exacerbating long-standing tensions concerning its relationship with the community. Heilman suggested that his internal inquiry to make the Knight Foundation grant public was a factor in his dismissal from the WMF's board of trustees.

2016

*January 2016 – On January 5, the Wikimedia Foundation announced the addition of Arnnon Geshuri, vice president of human resources at Tesla Motors, to its board of directors. The appointment was controversial among Wikipedia editors due to his prior role as senior director of human resources and staffing at Google, where he was involved with a "no cold call" arrangement between tech companies that ended with High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, action by the Department of Justice. Nearly 300 editors signed a vote of no confidence, urging his removal from the board. On January 27, board president Patricio Lorente announced Geshuri would step down. *February 2016 – On February 25, owing to pressures presented by a "community revolt", Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov resigned from the organization. Sources attributed the resignation largely to concerns that the organization's leadership was not being transparent enough with a proposal to develop a Knowledge Engine (search engine), search engine, which was seen by many as being outside the remit of the non-profit educational charity.

2018

*May 2018 – In May 2018, a Wikipedia user rejected a draft biography of Canadian laser physicist Donna Strickland. An entry only appeared after she jointly won a Nobel Prize for Physics in October 2018. *May–June 2018 – News media reported about Philip Cross, a prolific editor who edited articles about left-leaning anti-war sites and activists. Cross also used Twitter, where he engaged with people critical of his editing, sometimes in a hostile manner, referring to one group of anti-war activists as "goons". British politician George Galloway complained about edits that Cross had made to his article. Various groups, including media backed by the Russian government offered a financial reward for the exposure of his real identity. In July, Cross was banned from editing about post-1978 British politics by the Arbitration Committee. *September 2018 – On September 27, 2018, the home addresses and phone numbers of United States senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, and Orrin Hatch were posted to their respective Wikipedia articles during confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Wikipedia administrators deleted the information shortly afterwards. Jackson A. Cosko, a Congressional aide, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for making the posts and for theft of personal data of Congressional employees.

2019

*January 2019 – On January 11, 2019, in the midst of the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, the Venezuelan state company Block of Wikipedia in Venezuela, CANTV started completely blocking Wikipedia, affecting 1.5 million users. *April 2019 - Following the Higashi-Ikebukuro runaway car accident in Japan, an article of the suspect, Kozo Iizuka, was created on the Japanese Wikipedia. The article itself, however, did not touch upon his actions of that day and any attempts to make light of this were reverted by editors, resulting in edit wars and the article being protected by Wikipedia administrators, administrators. The edit war was covered by major news outlets, most notably The Asahi Shimbun. * May 2019 – In May 2019, Leo Burnett Tailor Made, a marketing agency for The North Face Brazil, Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia#The North Face, revealed that they had surreptitiously replaced photos of popular outdoor destinations on

with photos featuring North Face products in an attempt to get these products to Search engine optimization, appear more prominently in search engine results. Following widespread media coverage and criticism from the

, The North Face ended and apologized for the campaign, and the product placement was undone. * June 2019 – On June 10, 2019, the English Wikipedia administrator Fram was banned by the

(WMF) from editing the English Wikipedia for a period of one year. The ban was eventually overturned. It was the first ever partial ban implemented by the WMF Trust and Safety team. According to Joseph Bernstein of ''BuzzFeed News'', this took place "without a trial", and WMF did not "disclose the complainer nor the complaint" to the community. Some in the editor community expressed anger at the WMF not providing specifics, as well as skepticism as to whether Fram deserved the ban. An internal Wikipedia page called "Community response to the Wikimedia Foundation's ban of Fram" was created to discuss the controversy, and within weeks surpassed 470,000 words, more than there are in the novel ''A Game of Thrones''. An administrator unblocked Fram, later citing "overwhelming community support", but the WMF reblocked Fram and revoked the administrative abilities of this administrator. A second administrator then unblocked Fram. Three weeks after the initial ban, 21 English Wikipedia administrators had resigned. An open letter to WMF Board by the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee on June 30 acknowledged and channelled some of the community dissatisfaction. On July 2, the WMF board opened up the Fram case for a review by the Arbitration Committee, and supported further community involvement in the "debate on toxic behavior" and how to deal with it; a commitment echoed by a July 3 statement from Wikimedia CEO Katherine Maher, who also acknowledged "that there are things that the Foundation could have handled better". The Arbitration Committee completed a review of the Foundation's confidential evidence in September 2019, and overturned the ban. * July 2019 – On the Russian Wikipedia a group of 12 users (meatpuppets and sock puppet account, sockpuppets) was revealed, which coordinated their edits praising current Russian governments officials (mostly governors) and slandering Russian opposition activists, especially top Anti-Corruption Foundation activists Alexei Navalny and Lyubov Sobol, Russian non-government media and journalists critical to Russian government (e.g. Arkady Babchenko and Yevgenia Albats), using as references almost exclusively articles from media belonging to Yevgeny Prigozhin, an Russian oligarch, oligarch who reportedly was very close to Vladimir Putin and was rumored to be in charge of a Internet Research Agency, social media bot network exercising state-sponsored Internet propaganda. Those users were initially noticed by an editor who saw them almost simultaneously apply for advanced user rights. * November 2019 – On November 11, 2019, the American magazine ''

'' wrote a story about a banned Wikipedia user named slowking4, his real-life name being Jim Hayes. Slowking4 is a long-term Sock puppet account, sockpuppeter who, in his words, wages "guerrilla war" against Wikipedia by repeatedly uploading images to

that are against licensing rules from various accounts. Slowking4 has created 30 to 40 sockpuppets since 2019, and, by his own estimates, has created 3,000 articles in English Wikipedia that are focused on women and other "underrepresented" groups, he also made about 50,000 edits despite being banned from editing Wikipedia. One of slowking4's sockpuppets, Queen-Washington, created 557 English articles since the summer of 2017 before being blocked. One of the articles that the sockpuppeter created was about Noam Cohen, an American journalist that wrote the story about slowking4's sockpuppetry.

2020s

2020

*August 2020 – A Reddit user publicized that a prolific Scots Wikipedia administrator did not speak the Scots language; tens of thousands of articles were in fact English with eye dialect spellings to suggest a Scottish accent, or word-by-word machine translations of articles from English Wikipedia. Wikimedia users debated recruiting fluent speakers of Scots to repair the articles, reverting all edits from the administrator in question, or – as the latter would entail removing nearly half the articles in the encyclopedia – even deleting and restarting Scots Wikipedia afresh. ''The Guardian'' attributed the problem to systemic issues in Wikipedia culture, suggesting that some administrators are afforded effectively unchecked power based on sheer volume of edits (rather than the quality of their work). Robyn Speer, chief scientist at Luminoso, expressed concern that artificial intelligence corpora which used Wikipedia for language-training data had been corrupted by the pseudo-Scots. *September 2020 – ''The Guardian'' reported on an experiment conducted by economists from Collegio Carlo Alberto in Italy and ZEW in Germany where they added content into articles about randomly selected cities in Spain. The researchers claimed that adding photos increased the nights spent in those cities by 9%. The experiment resulted in the research team being barred from making further edits on Dutch Wikipedia.

2021

* March 2021 – In March 2021, Yumiko Sato released an article for ''Slate (magazine), Slate'' detailing disinformation on the Japanese Wikipedia. Among other Japanese war crimes, war crime revisionism, most notably, the title for the Nanjing Massacre () has been retitled to "The Nanjing Incident" (:ja:南京事件 ''romanized: nankin jiken''), to minimize the atrocity. Since then, "Nanjing Incident" has become the common name for the atrocity in Japanese. The Japanese Wikipedia had been accused of Japanese history textbook controversies, right-wing historical revisionism by scholars prior to Sato's article. The

responded, "With more than 300 language versions of Wikipedia it can be hard to discover issues like this." The Japanese language Wikipedia is the second most popular edition. While initially the Wikimedia Foundation said the Japanese Wikipedia was not a priority, they eventually started working with a native Japanese speaker to evaluate the issues with Japanese Wikipedia. * September 2021 – After years of investigations, the Wikimedia Foundation 2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia, decided to ban seven accounts and desysop 12 accounts who were associated with the Wikimedians of Mainland China (WMC) on the Chinese Wikipedia. The Foundation stated that the Chinese Wikipedia was infiltrated by the WMC, including vote-stacking, election manipulation, and legal threats to Hong Kongese editors. Some banned accounts decided to establish their own online encyclopedia, Qiuwen Baike. * November 2021 ** For several years, a man named Nathaniel White had his picture associated on Wikipedia and Google with a Nathaniel White, serial killer also named Nathaniel White. ** The

's entry for "Mass killings under communist regimes" was nominated for deletion, with some editors arguing that it has "a biased 'anti-Communist' point of view", that "it should not resort to 'simplistic presuppositions that events are driven by any specific ideology", and that "by combining different elements of research to create a 'synthesis', this constitutes original research and therefore breaches Wikipedia rules." This was criticized by historian Robert Tombs, who called it "morally indefensible, at least as bad as Holocaust denial, because 'linking ideology and killing' is the very core of why these things are important. I have read the Wikipedia page, and it seems to me careful and balanced. Therefore attempts to remove it can only be ideologically motivated – to Whitewashing (censorship), whitewash Communism." Other Wikipedia editors and users on social media opposed the deletion of the article. The article's deletion nomination received considerable attention from conservative media. The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, called the arguments made in favor of deletion "absurd and ahistorical". On December 1, 2021, a panel of four administrators found that the discussion yielded no consensus, meaning that the status quo was retained, and the article was not deleted. The article's deletion discussion was the largest in Wikipedia's history by a significant margin.

2022

* June 2022 – A Chinese woman was found to have "created over 200 fictional articles on the Chinese Wikipedia, writing millions of words of imagined history that went unnoticed for more than 10 years." She went under the username Zhemao (Chinese language, Chinese: 折毛). Some of the Zhemao hoaxes were translated and entered into other Wikipedias, among them the English Wikipedia, English and Russian Wikipedias. * July 2022 – A dispute broke out among Wikipedia editors over the definition of an economic recession given in the article on that subject. Right-wing critics accused Wikipedia of aligning with the

administration's definition of recession, but according to ''

'', the article had always reflected a variety of definitions and was recently changed to give "slightly more emphasis to the two-quarter definition, noting that it is 'commonly used as a practical definition of a recession." The ''Post'' also noted that "Locking Wikipedia pages to prevent partisan edits is nothing new." When Elon Musk used Twitter to accuse Wikipedia of "losing its objectivity", Wikipedia co-founder

replied: "Reading too much Twitter nonsense is making you stupid." According to Slate (magazine), ''Slate'', the recession dispute "shows that [Wikipedia] can have trouble communicating their complexities to outsiders". *September 2022 – Following a loss of India to Pakistan in a cricket game at the 2022 Asia Cup, an editor at the article on Indian cricketer Arshdeep Singh (cricketer), Arshdeep Singh changed the country for which he plays to the separatist movement of Khalistan. Under 2021 regulations governing large Internet intermediary, intermediaries, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology summoned Wikimedia executives to ensure that "deliberate efforts at incitement and user harm" are not made in the future. *December 2022 – On 6 December, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that it had globally banned 16 users for conflict-of-interest editing of Middle East and North Africa topics after a year-long investigation. It was alleged that these were agents of the Saudi Arabian government. In the media reporting following the bans it transpired that two former administrators had been arrested in 2020 and then jailed by the Saudi government. These were Osama Khalid, who was sentenced to 32 years in jail, and Ziyad al-Sofiani, who was sentenced to eight years.

2023

* February 2023 ** Retired baseball umpire Joe West (umpire), Joe West reportedly made numerous attempts to remove information off his Wikipedia page, specifically related to an incident where he pushed a manager, and issued legal threats to many Wikipedia editors who reverted his edits. ** A Wikipedia Signpost report was published which claimed the Adani Group employed undeclared paid editors to write and sanitize related Wikipedia pages. ** In 2023, Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein published an article in the ''Journal of Holocaust Research'' in which they said they had discovered a "systematic, intentional distortion of Holocaust history" on the English-language Wikipedia. Grabowski and Klein stated they have shown how a small group of editors managed to impose a fringe narrative on Polish-Jewish relations informed by Polish nationalist propaganda. In addition to the article on the Warsaw concentration camp, the authors conclude that the activities of the editors' group had an effect on several articles, such as History of the Jews in Poland, Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust and Jew with a coin. Nationalist editing on these and other articles allegedly included content ranging "from minor errors to subtle manipulations and outright lies", examples of which the authors offer. A response to Grabowski and Klein's article, which argues that their main conclusions are misleading or false, was published by Piotr Konieczny in the journal Holocaust Studies (journal), Holocaust Studies in 2025. * March 2023 – It was noticed that Wikipedia had displayed an incorrect image of the flag of Vatican City for many years. * November 2023 – A Wikipedia administrator, Lourdes, exposed themselves as a sockpuppet account of the user Wifione, a former administrator who had been banned as the result of a 2015 Arbitration Committee case regarding Wifione's promotional editing of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management business school article and other related entries (see #2015 above). In their edits and in private correspondence, Wifione under the Lourdes account had pretended to be Spanish singer Russian Red (real name Lourdes Hernandez). * December 2023 – In an apparent use of editing Wikipedia for the purpose of Google bombing, American rapper Eminem's Wikipedia article was edited to incorrectly state that he would die in Madison, Wisconsin, on December 10, 2023, causing it to also appear in Google search results for Eminem.

2024

* January 2024 – A report by ''The Times of London'' alleged that the Iranian government was consolidating its presence in Farsi Wikipedia through revision deletion of text related to human rights violations. Justice for Iran has reported the Iranian regime pursued a user after his identity was compromised at a Wikipedia event, and also criticized sysops on Farsi Wikipedia connected to Iranian Islamic Republic regime ministries. * September 2024 – Athletic apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica ended its association with American ultramarathon runner Camille Herron in the wake of a controversy in which she and/or her husband were found to be removing positive information about other athletes from Wikipedia while adding positive information about herself. * October 2024 – Following the death of singer Liam Payne, Wikipedia faced backlash for allowing images purporting to be of Payne's trashed hotel room to be published on Payne's Wikipedia page in the hours following his death. Wikipedia was also criticised for listing Payne as a "past member" of One Direction on the band's Wikipedia page, with fans arguing the update was both "insensitive and inaccurate", as Payne was a member of One Direction for its entire run.

2025

* February 2025 – In the aftermath of the Elon Musk salute controversy, Musk revisited his previous attacks on Wikipedia, calling for the "defunding" of Wikipedia, calling it an extension of "legacy media" that is "captured by leftist politics". In February 2025,

, co-founder of Wikipedia, called on the Department of Government Efficiency to reveal any undisclosed paid editing supported by United States government agencies on Wikipedia. *January/March 2025 – In January and March, edit warring on articles related to Israeli–Palestinian conflict resulted in the Arbitration Committee (Wikipedia), Arbitration Commitee banning at least 14 fake users for "manipulation and deception on Wikipedia", also known as sockpuppetry. *March 2025 ** On March 18, 2025, the Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish civil rights organization and pro-Israel advocacy group, claimed to have found evidence of Wikipedia's antisemitic and Anti-Zionism, anti-Israel bias. The ADL claimed that it identified a network of 30 Wikipedia editors that are coordinating circumvention of Wikipedia's policies to introduce "antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias, and misleading information" in Israeli-Palestinian conflict related articles. According to the ADL's report, the 30 editors collectively made changes to 10,000 articles related to Israel and Palestine, with edits starting since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The ADL's report stated that a "suspicious editor" removed sources to mainstream media coverage about calls for the destruction of Israel from the Palestinian political violence article. The report also stated that a news article referencing sexual violence committed by Hamas during the October 7 attacks was removed from Hamas' Wikipedia article by one of the editors. The ADL stated that the edits of the 30 aforementioned editors are a “systematic effort to skew numerous Wikipedia entries to promote a set of narratives critical of Israel”. The ADL also accused Wikipedia of failing to enforce its neutrality policy, stating that Arabic Wikipedia articles about Hamas "glorify" the group and promote "pro-Hamas propaganda". The ADL called on Wikipedia to restrict closure of Israel/Palestine-related content disputes to a group of editors entrusted by administrators to make decisions consistent with Wikipedia policies. The ADL also called on Wikipedia policymakers to create a special task force aimed at "combating antisemitic bias" on the site. ** On March 20, the Jewish Journal reported that the Wikipedia community had voted in an RfC to place a 12-month moratorium on a controversial sentence in the lead of the Zionism article, prohibiting anyone from editing it. The sentence read: “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible”. A Wikipedia administrator named "Chetsford" concluded that all discussions about editing, removing, or replacing the sentence should be stopped until February 21, 2026. Some Wikipedia editors have disagreed with this decision, stating that the sentence violates Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Neutral point of view and is sourced by Bias, biased Anti-Israeli historians. * April 2025 – A division bench of the Delhi high court on Tuesday directed Wikipedia to Notice and take down, take down allegedly

statements about news agency Asian News International (ANI) from its page, holding that it was obligated under the Information Technology (IT) Act to take down “false” and “untrue” content following the court order and could not contest the matter on merits. The defamation suit arose from ANI’s plea before a single judge that its Wikipedia page falsely described it as a “propaganda tool” for the government. “Since Wikipedia claims to be intermediary, in terms of Information Technology Rules, 2021, IT Rules, the intermediary has an obligation to make efforts not to publish any objectionable content. Perusal of Rule 3 of the IT Rules shows that if there is any content on Wikipedia website which a person whose info it professes to publish is false and untrue, on receipt of court order, within 36 hours, the intermediary is obliged to take down content. The single judge heard parties and gave prima facie opinion that content is defamatory. Wikipedia would be liable to follow IT Rules and if the same is not taken down, the plaintiff can approach this court,” a bench of justices Prathiba M. Singh and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta said.

Overview

Editing restrictions

Controversies

2000s

2002

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010s

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2018

2019

2020s

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

See also

References

Further reading

Legal citations of Wikipedia

Wikipedia and juries