ERIC ZUESSE -- More About Wikipedia’s Corruption

ERIC ZUESSE | 23.05.2018 | WORLD / AMERICAS

More About Wikipedia’s Corruption

The latest report about Wikipedia’s corruption comes from the great investigative journalist Craig Murray, who had been in the UK’s Foreign Service from 1984-2004 and who was forced out in 2004 because, having been since 2002 UK’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan, he decided to whistleblow instead of to accept the corruption by his own and Uzbekistan’s Governments. Wikipedia’s article about him says that his immediately prior posting had involved participating in enforcement of the prior economic sanctions against Iraq, and “His group gave daily reports to Margaret Thatcher and John Major. In Murder in Samarkand, he describes how this experience led him to disbelieve the claims of the UK and US governments in 2002 about Iraqi WMDs.” So, his disenchantment with UK’s foreign policies seems to have grown over the years, instead of suddenly to have appeared only during the two years in which he was an Ambassador.

On May 18th, he headlined at his much-followed blog, “The Philip Cross Affair”, and reported: “133,612 edits to Wikipedia have been made in the name of ‘Philip Cross' over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week. And I do not use that figuratively: Wikipedia edits are timed, and if you plot them, the timecard for 'Philip Cross’s' Wikipedia activity is astonishing ... if it is one individual."

He presents reasons to question that it’s a one-person operation, then states that,

the purpose of the “Philip Cross” operation is systematically to attack and undermine the reputations of those who are prominent in challenging the dominant corporate and state media narrative. particularly in foreign affairs. “Philip Cross” also systematically seeks to burnish the reputations of mainstream media journalists and other figures who are particularly prominent in pushing neo-con propaganda and in promoting the interests of Israel…

“Philip Cross”‘s views happen to be precisely the same political views as those of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales has been on twitter the last three days being actively rude and unpleasant to anybody questioning the activities of Philip Cross. His commitment to Cross’s freedom to operate on Wikipedia would be rather more impressive if the Cross operation were not promoting Wales’ own opinions. Jimmy Wales has actively spoken against Jeremy Corbyn, supports the bombing of Syria, supports Israel, is so much of a Blairite he married Blair’s secretary, and sits on the board of [the neoconservative and neoliberal] Guardian Media Group Ltd alongside Katherine Viner.

The extreme defensiveness and surliness of Wales’ twitter responses on the “Philip Cross” operation is very revealing. Why do you think he reacts like this? Interestingly enough. Wikipedia’s UK begging arm, Wikimedia UK, joined in with equal hostile responses to anyone questioning Cross.

In response, many people sent Jimmy Wales evidence, which he ignored, while his “charity” got very upset with those questioning the Philip Cross operation.

Wikimedia had arrived uninvited into a twitter thread discussing the “Philip Cross” operation and had immediately started attacking people questioning Cross’s legitimacy. Can anybody else see anything “insulting” in my tweet?

I repeat, the coincidence of Philip Cross’s political views with those of Jimmy Wales, allied to Wales’ and Wikimedia’s immediate hostility to anybody questioning the Cross operation – without needing to look at any evidence – raises a large number of questions.

“Philip Cross” does not attempt to hide his motive or his hatred of those whose Wikipedia entries he attacks. He openly taunts them on twitter. The obvious unbalance of his edits is plain for anybody to see.

Among the hundreds of reader-comments to that article, one seems to have come from a Wikipedia-insider, and is abbreviated here:

Andrew H

May 18, 2018 at 18:49

… Wikipedia is a source of information, and so cannot peddle alternative theories of any kind. …[and] no doubt there is some political bias that comes into this process. If you look at the article on the Skripal’s – it is not unreasonable – almost all statements are supported by references to main stream media articles or statements from official organisations such as the Russian government, OPCW or UK authorities. This is what it has to be. (you wouldn’t seriously be suggesting that Wikipedia should have links to craigmurrary or info from RT?).

I haven't done any scientific study of the sources that are cited in Wikipedia’s many footnotes and whether sites such as Murray’s and RT are banned from them, but this article by Murray does suggest that the bias in favor of mainstream, and against small, ‘news’media, does adhere to the pattern that’s succinctly stated by “Andrew H." Murray presents remarkable documentary evidence that this is Wikipedia’s pattern. “Andrew H” seems to believe that it’s the right pattern to adhere to. 

The present writer also has personal experience with Wikipedia that confirms the existence of this pattern. Among my several articles on that, was “How Wikipedia Lies”, in which I reported that “Smallwood,” the Wikipedia overseer on Wikipedia’s article “United Airlines Flight 93” about the 9/11 plane that came down in Pennsylvania, blocked stating in the text of the article an important fact that was documented even buried within some of the article’s own footnote sources — all coming from mainstream media — that Vice President Dick Cheney had ordered that plane to be shot down and that, therefore, the article’s (and the ’news’media’s and ‘history’ books’) common allegations that resistance on the part of heroic passengers on that plane had had something to do with the plane’s coming down when and how it did, are all false. “Smallwood” blocked me from adding to the text a mention that Cheney on the very day of 9/11 admitted that he had ordered that plane to be shot down and stated his reasons for having done so, and that the order was promptly fulfilled; and “Smallwood” refused to say why my addition of Cheney’s role was blocked, other than that to say that that fact “did not appear constructive.” (He refused to say how, or why.)

Back on 8 July 2015, I had headlined, "Wikipedia As Propaganda Not History — MH17 As An Example”, and reported and documented regarding the MH17 Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine, that “Wikipedia articles are more propaganda than they are historical accounts. And, often, their cited sources are misleading, or even false.” The Wikipedia article on that was anti-Russian propaganda, not a historical account.

As I mentioned in those articles, even Britain’s own BBC had previously headlined, "Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits’.” What both Murray, and I, in my latest article about Wikipedia, add to that information regarding some of the people who “edit” Wikipedia, is that Wikipedia itself, in the individuals whom it hires to nix or else to accept each editorial change that is being made to a given article, actually also, in effect, writes Wikipedia articles — and that it does so consistently filtering out facts — no matter how conclusively proven to be true — that contradict the ‘news’media’s (and CIA’s) boilerplate ‘history’ of the given matter. In other words: Wikipedia is a perfect embodiment of the type of society that was described in the fictional 1949 allegorical novel, 1984.

This is the reason why I never link to a Wikipedia article unless I have independently confirmed that, regarding the fact for which I cite the given article, that article is honestly and truly representing that matter, or that given detail of it. I do not exclude truths that happen to be included in the standard account; but neither do I (as Wikipedia does] exclude facts which contradict the standard account.