Look back to the earliest version of the history and information of various countries on Wikipedia. They say themselves they were from US State department or CIA histories of those countries.
I was editing a page on the US massacre of civilians in No Gun Ri, Korea with some IP at CENTCOM removing my edits. I spend my off tine trying to send in facts of what happened, my taxes from my on time pay for some propaganda arm of the US armed forces to remove it.
As the US kidnaps the president of Venezuela and his wife, blockades Cuba, bombs Iran and on and on, great to know someone else is smearing Russia to further my tax dollars funding the endless war on their borders too.
ARIN shows that 214.0.0.0/8 CIDR is still US Department of Defense (or Department of War as Trump and Hegseth aptly call it) but reverse DNS over 20 years later does not still point to the same CENTCOM IP.
Also to a point - US military propaganda arm was doing this over 20 years ago. After getting the gift of country articles to mostly come verbatim from CIA and US State department sheets.
> The moderation of this website is downright shameful.
It's more like a series of tradeoffs compared to other platforms when it comes to features and userbase tendencies, and none are perfect. Every platform sucks in some way.
Also, users (and user bots) do the flagging here, not moderators.
Yes, the fact that the paid moderators of the site let the users do the work for them so they don’t have to work themselves is one of the shames of the moderation of this site, but there’s much more.
You sure seem to have an axe to grind with this site in particular, when in reality it is not wholly better or worse than any other social media / discussion platform. In fact, in some ways it's somewhat innovative with some really simple ideas that help distinguish it from the rest.
I don't know why you think moderators should work for free. That's up to the platform to decide.
Also, I'd take the lenience found on HN any day over the ban hammer / shadow ban / user siloing approaches that others sites cave to. As we've seen, there is no perfect approach.
They shouldn’t allow users to moderate the site, even if it means longer response times to remove spam, since it very commonly leads to the users abusing that power to remove things that they do not like even if they do not break the rules. That happens very often and the moderators are okay with it because it lowers dissent and therefore they have to work less.
It's almost like both imperialist powers could be problematic and awful and we don't have to pick a side or excuse the actions of the one because the other does the same.
The fact that the bad actions of only one of the sides is so widely broadcasted must be explicitly noted though.
We should not be living in some perpetual Gell-Mann Amnesia state where we just react to the current news report in whatever appropriate manner while forgetting all of the old news, history, and so on around it.
I mean that's clearly not the case. I'm swimming in anti-imperialist anti-US content.
That it doesn't lead to mass action and the end of the current state of the American regime is a domestic American population problem, not a missing information problem.
There is no poverty of information. The fact of the matter is a powerful section of the US population benefits from the current situation.
Quite the opposite, in fact. But there’s a difference between the information being present somewhere, and a reasonable way to get that information in front of people in an actionable form.
We’re drowning in “information,” at present. But the mass media narratives that are most readily available distort things quite a bit for a lot of reasons. (Ratings, owner bias/interference, format.)
In general imperalism is annoying to no ends. Smaller countries get abused.
I think this is not really connected to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a quality-control problem; even if all state-actors were not to try to ruin Wikipedia, that quality-control issue would still persist. Wikipedia needs to improve its intrinsic quality. Instead what it seems to do as of late, is make pointless UI changes. I hate this "you can hide the toolkit here" - that simply should not be on by default. I only want the content as-is, not side bars with useless things I am never going to use anyway.
Seems to be very critical of western, and especially American, foreign policy. Reasonably well argued and factual, although a bit edgy at times. A decent read.
I think the article tried to refer to this link https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10663
As I understand from scanning the paper, the authors attempt to determine differences between the Russian wikipedia articles and the articles on the Russian fork. They show that articles on the fork that were that differ from RU wikipedia have a significantly higher number of edits on RU wikipedia. The authors suggest that these may be signs of manipulations, however, it may not have affected the quality negatively (as stated in the discussion).
I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.
So just like some other country is poisoning Wikipedia and Internet to influence ChatGPT training corpus and hide their crimes and atrocities and influence public opinion
> Yesterday, I read a Wikipedia page for a book I’m about to review.
Without buying a new copy of that Wikipedia page on Amazon and comparing it to an old copy from Ebay, there's just no easy way to verify this.
It'd be neat if there were a way to take every letter of these different versions of the Wikipedia articles and pretend they are numbers. Then subtract them from each other, and collate all the ones that don't come out zero.
The author would still have to publish this "difference article" to Amazon so we could universally locate the resource. So I totally understand why they didn't do that expensive work. It's just frustrating nobody has solved this rocket science-level problem in 2026.
Like god frobid you will know about McCain, Nuland and what have you changing the Kiev regime in 2013 despite literal photos. Imagine the shitstorm if Russian state department officials were giving out food to guys that were attacking Capitol in 2021
In fact the commenter’s point is quite relevant. A central characteristic of the information war is to dismiss the “other side”’s POV as propaganda. This works to prop up one’s own propaganda.
The article makes this quite clear:
> Those words — foreign digital interference — are very important.
> The West has neglected to fight on the battlefield that has been right in front of them the entire time — the internet.
It’s remarkable that the author thinks this is true. The issue is the foreign source of the propaganda, not the propaganda itself, and in fact the solution is more propaganda, according to them.
By limiting our focus to pro-Russia edits, and refusing to acknowledge the larger context, we let ourselves become unwitting dupes, casualties in this information war.
Genuinely interesting strategy, the term “poison” should really apply more to AI that depend on Wikipedia for training
>This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.
I want the equivalent of Mythos for Wikipedia - I want world-class tooling that helps human editors efficiently find, prioritize, and mitigate attempts to add deceptive and low-quality content - and I know it's possible to build this kind of thing. A whole bunch of long-time editors, including myself, are excited about building better tools, trying a range of experiments. This is one of the really fun parts about a community-built encyclopedia: you can help build tools too! A few interesting experiments - you can also use these as a Wikipedia reader (some require logging in):
There are also interesting conversations happening about developing and maintaining better data about questionable sources - check out this amazing compilation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kuru/fakesources
What an interesting article that definitely isn't pulling incredibly obvious red scare tactics. I'd be quite interested to know what damn article it was that was apparently so out of touch with reality that it left this author reeling in shock and horror.
Perhaps they neglected to mention what Wikipedia article it was, because they knew that if people were able to visit the page, look through its edit history, and inspect the content of its talk page, they would be able to come to their own conclusion that the author's claims are overstated, sensationalist fearmongering? In a time where the US federal government is trying its hardest to undermine the freedoms of its own people, I find any accusations of foreign actors to be laughable.
You know its funny, I think I'm less worried about people on the other side of the planet stealing my personal data and trying to influence the way I think than I am about the people in the same country as me. Since, you know, not only would it be easier for them to, since we are in the same country, but also they stand to gain a lot more from it as well!
Wikipedia should be more like Github, such that topics can be forked ad hoc, and we can get a truly diverse set of viewpoints on everything. Then auto-generate a summary page that highlights the agreements and disagreements.
Or someone else should do it. If you build it I will come.
I've heard this a number of times, but how do you imagine this working?
For every legitimate case of a "diverse set of viewpoints" on some hot-button political issue, you have hundreds of crackpots and trolls who want to talk about free energy, telekinesis, chemtrails, and so on. Do you really want to have 50 versions of the article on gravity to choose from, most of them abject nonsense? Who gets to choose which one is given more prominence? If they're given equal weight, then the crackpots win the numbers game because there might be only 1-2 articles representing mainstream scientific thought versus dozens of "here's what I came up with in the shower".
I don't disagree that Wikipedia has some regrettable biases, but the solution probably isn't "allow all viewpoints". Look at the thread you're commenting on and the amount of whataboutism from single-issue accounts who seem to argue that the US is no different from murderous dictatorships.
Yep, the open data makes it possible. The unified UI is the key feature here, so that we can contrast and compare the various takes from one place. It doesn't work if they are spread and unlinked, across the web. Basically, take every article in the corpus and make it one leaf in a bush. The Wikipedia version can remain canonical for those who want it to.
Russia is hardly the only one trying to put propaganda into Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is great in general, but the quality of articles often is lacking. And some do have a lot of details and, to some extent, quality, but Average Joe - including me - often does not understand anything. I have this issue with mathematics on Wikipedia; on other websites it is often better explained. Wikipedia needs to improve here.
Every site that can be random-user-edited or allow comments are infested with shills, grifters, astroturfers, scammers, spammers, propagandists within minutes. This only increases as the site gains popularity. What each site turns into depends on how it was engineered, how it is moderated and actively managed it is. To me personally I think that Wikipedia may have been purpose designed to let this happen or it would have stopped happening a long time ago. I am certain everyone here could each think of a dozen ways to minimize this behavior.
Just as one example if it were up to me the edited version invisible until a panel of moderators gives the edit a +1. If a sub-set of moderators give it a +2 (override) everyone can see who did that. Moderators would have to show real names and their country of origin and current country of residence. A watchdog group must be able to vote out moderators. If users try to overwhelm the moderators then they get perma-banned. I would probably not allow edits from wireless devices. Edits must be treated like changes to the Linux kernel and I want the original abrasive version of Linus back for this but that's just my personal preference.
"Protection restricts the modification of pages to specific groups of users. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied."
My understanding which could be misinformed is that this tool is selectively applied to articles that parties are not interested in. Of course this could be meant to make people distrust the platform but it could also be true.
I for one will always assume the site is entirely fan fiction unless I can prove otherwise.
How familiar are you with Wikipedia processes? Asking because they are very sophisticated and definitely not « anyone’s can do anything unchecked », unless it is a page that isn’t visited much
Familiar enough I have seen organizations and companies gripe for its entire existence that they can't keep topics related to them accurate because there are non-stop edit wars. I also remember when Stephen Colbert mass edited and resurrected an extinct animal out of extinction using his audience on Wikipedia. There are plenty of examples of this being a disinformation platform that people can find if they look.
Disinformation isn't about convincing you that something is true; it's about convincing you that nothing is true. If information is considered to be unreliable, you are less likely to act on it decisively.
It also seems to have the effect of encouraging you to latch on to whatever "truth" you fancy, providing tools to dismiss any contradictions.
I don't quite get how that keeps people from applying those critical tools to their own beliefs, but we certainly see that a lot. People show up with a Gish gallop attack, without considering the sources that they're using for it.
Regardless, the effect is that in a world that has deliberately deprived people of certainty, they'll defend their own personal domains literally to the death.
News organizations each push their own agendas by misrepresenting facts or present rumors or second comments as certainty. Then months later, we finally learn really what happened and realize that a lot of the context of story was missing or completely fabricated.
Well, not only Russia, there is a number of other countries that also do this. So don't count on wikipedia on any topic that might be politically difficult for someone.
You would think they'd run out of money. They are, but clearly this sort of thing is economical, especially in the age of AI: you don't even need banks of cellphones on little stands anymore, that was years ago.
Technology evolves. The interesting part is not that this is happening, but the means and extent to which it happens. Who expects Wikipedia to be more resilient than, say, network television?
I’ve been watching people in /r/balticstates talk about how Russia has been actively changing the birth places of Estonian officials to say Russia instead of occupied Estonia.
Most countries never recognized the Soviet annexation de jure, and under the legal-continuity doctrine Estonia remained an independent state under occupation throughout 1940–1991.
I wonder if French people born in Vichy France should have their Wikipedia entries changed to say that they were born in the French State and not the French Republic.
the "other countries recognition" is a valid point which I missed
Still, it kind of feels weird if (I assume) for 40 years everyone had "Estonian SSR" stamped in their birth certificates / passports, and then we say "actually they were born in Republic of Estonia (occupied)"
> If some force occupies and renames your country for 40+ years, seems fair to use that name in wikipedia when talking about this period
"Estonia" is a distinct geographic and cultural region, the same way "Norway" is. Nobody refers to people born in Oslo during the German occupation in WWII as having been born in "Reichskommissariat Norwegen" or whatever name the Nazis invented, despite the fact that Norwegians were unable to govern their country at the time.
The same applies to Estonia. Anyone born in the geographic region of Estonia is referred to as having been born in Estonia, regardless of whether that occurred during the German occupation in World War II when German forces advanced east, or later during the Soviet occupation, which lasted until the fall of communism.
Last year, a page hidden deep in talk pages held a vote on how to name birthplaces of Estonians. Twenty regular Wikipedia users participated in the vote. Twelve of them voted in favor of a fringe naming convention that emphasizes the internationally unrecognized Soviet-installed authorities. Wikipedia now refers to this as a "consensus" that cannot be overturned.
The person who initiated the vote was a Russian troll who was later banned for attempting to organize a harassment campaign against a journalist who broke the story., but the "consensus" remains. A handful of powerful administrators continue to protect an utterly fringe naming convention. Their only argument is the "consensus" itself.
That’s hardly an unbiased news source (Ukrainian state media which is a country under martial law and at war with Russia). Perhaps true, but any other reputable sources for this claim? Because we’ve seen similar stuff about “Russian” drones (flying around airports, etc) that ended up being bogus and other spicy stuff like.
Can someone do another research article of similar nature for Wikipedia articles in any way related to Israel? There is a similar disinformation campaign happening there.
We need to erase the Cold War term "whataboutism". It's cold war boomer brain poison that disabled the critical thinking capacities of an entire generation.
Context and understanding the situation to make better decisions? WHATABOUTISM!
The West has suffered enormously from this deliberate myopia.
If some entity is stating themselves to be an arbiter of truth, it's not unfair to critique other actions by that party, even if it's not directly relevant to the topic. Whataboutism can provide an indication of the underlying process/affiliation of that party.
That's not what "whataboutism" means. "Whataboutism" is an anti-communist propaganda term from the 1950s that describes when you criticize a country's economic liberties, and they remind you that you live in an apartheid state.
The fact that you live in an apartheid state is bad, but it has nothing to do with the restriction of economic liberties in my country. I am just trying to distract you by reminding you of how disgustingly you behave, rather than defending my system on its own terms.
The dumb lib version of this is when you tell me that I stole my watch, I point out that you already stole three watches and are currently slipping off my watch.
"According to lexicographer Ben Zimmer,[14] the term originated in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Zimmer cites a 1974 letter by history teacher Sean O'Conaill which was published in The Irish Times where he complained about "the Whatabouts", people who defended the IRA by pointing out supposed wrongdoings of their enemy" (WP)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Or we could just call it by its older name, the "Tu quoque" defense. "The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.[1]"
the point you're contesting is who coined the term, the unimportant part of the comment you're replying to. it sounds like you're saying, "of course the liberals are hypocrites, but they didn't coin the term!" is that what you mean to say?
If you go to the Google ngram viewer you won’t see a single occurrence of whataboutism before 2006. I’m not saying it was coined at the Liberals Coining Scare Words 2006 conference, but use of the word is a hallmark of a shitlib hypocrite. Whatabout and whataboutism are two different words.
I'm unsure what the controversy is that you are pointing out. I clicked on the links you provided but don't see a reference to Atlantic Council. Can you point me to a summary of what atlanticist ghouls means? What happened in 2018 that relates to her claims made in her article?
Although I believe that the war in Ukraine is unjust, I still do love Russia. They are an extreme people and that cuts both ways. If you learn even a little bit of their language and make friends with Russians you will see a glimpse of the Russian soul. It is a tragedy that they didn’t join NATO after the Cold War ended.
No one blathering about Russia truly cares about the Ukranian people. No one who cares about the Ukranian people would commit the country and its people to destruction to avoid one Russian speaking corrupt short guy from replacing another Russian speaking corrupt short guy. These are psychos who think "becoming European" is more important than "being alive". Zelensky has been a total disaster for Ukraine, in objective terms.
Hatred of Russia is not the same thing as respect for the sovereignty of the Ukranian people. In this case, they lead to extremely different outcomes.
this advice is lazy if not well intentioned IMO. There are certainly basic epistemological classifications that cut through "everything is an advert or propaganda" assertions; for example Science. It is not a matter of propaganda, the behavior of a solid fat above a certain temperature. Wikipedia is full of this kind of information. A physics colleague regularly cites Wikipedia on topics of linear algebra, rather than the thirty+ text books on the shelf. Why? because Wikipeda pages on certain topics are more useful, and more concise, than many of those books in practice.
From which didactic approach does "throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from here? Wise words from a crypto practitioner ? say more
Wrong. I mentioned the second world war, and it is one of the key issues on which the western disinformation against Russia is concentrated (other ones: who exactly was threatening the world with nuclear bombs in the first place, trying to make people forget who it was who actually used them: in his recent commemoration the japanese pm (I think it was him) did not even mention the americans..)
I don't doubt this happens, but given all the wolf crying about clandestine Russian operations, it's hard to assess what the scale and influence of these are. Especially as this is based on an analysis by Atlantic Council, which is essentially a NATO think tank.
This will probably read to many as me being a useful idiot for Putin or something. And maybe I am, hard to say definitely.
OK, those are interesting choices that are outside of the realm of stuff that I was thinking about. What I was thinking about is that the Russians have been working the American people via the media for decades.
What public state speculation about Russian interference in anything ever was substantiated?
As far as I can tell, nothing that has been said about Russian intelligence operations in the West (over the past decade or so) has ever been substantiated. That's why everybody started blaming every single problem or disagreement in the West on Russia, because you wouldn't be asked to or expected to be able to substantiate it.
I've been called Russian or Chinese more times since 2015 than I've ever been called anything else other than my name. I was usually called that by people when I was denying something that those same people now say nobody ever really believed or insisted was true.
Most people lack principles and act purely emotionally. It is wicked and evil and vile if Russia does something because it is Russia doing it. It is good and right and true if “Western” powers do a thing because it is Western powers doing it. To a principled observer, they’re all evil regardless of which country is doing the thing.
Wikipedia is full of various large disinformation campaigns. Not just Russia, but Iran, Qatar, North Korea, etc. Unless I'm looking at the history of DB-9 connectors or early Simpsons episode summaries, etc, it's not a reliable source.
Why wouldn't they be doing it? They are actively engaged in such campaigns in various other media for foreign audiences. Wikipedia being blocked for the Chinese general population doesn't mean The Party isn't targeting it to influence opinions of non-Chinese in exactly the same way, since it's a fantastic platform with incredible reach and an unrivaled level of trust from the public.
Anyone that does business with China understand that VPN usage is rampant (generally Shadowsocks with V2Ray and the likes, it's plug and play, ton of local companies sell it, on every markets you can buy as well), companies and people aren't actually limited by it, the people that don't circumvent it are often the ones not talking english, there is a huge tolerance as well for businesses, gov is completely aware of the mass "VPN" usage, lot of hotels as well provide you with solutions if you just ask and so-on.
That's awfully naive. China's cyber units or state actors most likely have access to Wikipedia and are not bothered by the Great Firewall. The citizens on the other hand, I agree with you.
Citizens do/can have access to Wikipedia, that's also very naive, estimations range from 15-35% of the population using VPN but in practice, any IT business and all their staff are behind VPNs and it's completely tolerated.
Almost all street markets sell those USB/QRcode to access unrestricted internet.
Most people don't need a VPN as well, similarly to the US population not accessing much of the content from let say Austria, France, Germany... due to language barrier or just not caring at all.
If you learn to read, the fragments "not just" and "etc" clearly answer your question.
Yes, China and the US also participate in this. Everyone knows this. You are not clever or special for pointing it out, you're just being stupid and trying to distract from the conversation.
Literally whataboutism. Classic FUD and distraction technique. Go somewhere else with this nonsesne.
All of them, I dislike how people seem to perceive it, while most of the time, politician job is "damage-control" (which practically means pushing an agenda by ensuring the discourse goes the way they want).
And then, we have the international brainwashing, which is where we think we understand a nation we've never even stepped-in but we don't. Anyone that has been in Shenzhen suddenly can see for themself, most US news don't talk about all the greatness in China, literally majority it is to denigrate the country, news are just so annoying in general and people just love to parrot non-sense (or incomplete non-sense, which is the same thing as not understanding at all), politicians understand that, news understand that.
We can observe Google Trends with Ukraine as an example, when the news and politicians switch-up the topic, then most people just stop caring altogether and move-on and go to the next "big thing", all over again.
Not on Wikipedia sure, but they do with many different type of media or local ways which is then translated into the "international news" (with a big sprinkle on top of non-sense and unqualified opinion).
On the contrary, injecting your own views/propaganda in Wikipedia is a great way for your content or your version of history to be included in the outputs of LLMs since they all rely more or less on it during their training phase.
That's the US government and Israeli POV, but the reality is that it is full of large, medium, small and micro manipulation campaigns backed from everybody from nation-states, to video game publishers, to political parties up for reelection defending cuts they made to heating oil subsidies, to people trying to bring up property values in a town in Ohio with a 16K population, all the way down to a guy applying to jobs trying to associate himself with a project that he put on his resume and a guy in an argument on twitter who added something that he needed to win.
It's not a source at all. It should be designed as a guide to sources - one that will allow you to get accurate information about both official statistics and wacky conspiracy theories (which are as important to be accurate in discussing as anything else.) Instead it prefers to be a voice of God, egotistical narcissistic middle-class Western elites, intelligence agencies, and any random manipulator who wants to juice up some stock.
edit: the people trying to get the truth stated plainly (whatever that is to them) into Wikipedia require exactly the same skills as the people who are trying to get consciously deceptive information into Wikipedia. The problem with Wikipedia is that it is a pseudo-government built out of Confucianist aphorisms rather than rules, so instead of being directed by reason, it is ultimately directed by authority. Authority comes from strength, not justice or truth.
It is unfortunate that they can't think for themselves during the training process itself. The think-mode might help in training too if used correctly.
They're not trained on a raw feed of the internet. They are given curated and synthetic data. The curation and synthesis of new data is done by existing LLMs.
The Russian government is so all powerful that they control the minds of the majority of Americans and their leaders. I applaud the brave windmill fighters.
Pretty silly to point the finger at Russia when their firepower is obviously much smaller than Western state actors such as the United States and Britain.
This is whataboutism - an unhelpful comparison to something else bad to dismiss criticism.
If you had said “the US and Britain also does this, we need ways to combat state propaganda on wikipedia” it would be a helpful addition to the conversation.
I was editing a page on the US massacre of civilians in No Gun Ri, Korea with some IP at CENTCOM removing my edits. I spend my off tine trying to send in facts of what happened, my taxes from my on time pay for some propaganda arm of the US armed forces to remove it.
As the US kidnaps the president of Venezuela and his wife, blockades Cuba, bombs Iran and on and on, great to know someone else is smearing Russia to further my tax dollars funding the endless war on their borders too.
Especially with LLMs being trained on Wikipedia (probably pretty extensively), the impact of these edits should not be dismissed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/214.13.2...
ARIN shows that 214.0.0.0/8 CIDR is still US Department of Defense (or Department of War as Trump and Hegseth aptly call it) but reverse DNS over 20 years later does not still point to the same CENTCOM IP.
Also to a point - US military propaganda arm was doing this over 20 years ago. After getting the gift of country articles to mostly come verbatim from CIA and US State department sheets.
It's more like a series of tradeoffs compared to other platforms when it comes to features and userbase tendencies, and none are perfect. Every platform sucks in some way.
Also, users (and user bots) do the flagging here, not moderators.
I don't know why you think moderators should work for free. That's up to the platform to decide.
Also, I'd take the lenience found on HN any day over the ban hammer / shadow ban / user siloing approaches that others sites cave to. As we've seen, there is no perfect approach.
Second, HN shadowbans all the time - they shadowban so much that regular bans do not even exist here. If they ban you, it will be a shadow ban.
How was this determined?
More info on this in my other reply.
We should not be living in some perpetual Gell-Mann Amnesia state where we just react to the current news report in whatever appropriate manner while forgetting all of the old news, history, and so on around it.
That it doesn't lead to mass action and the end of the current state of the American regime is a domestic American population problem, not a missing information problem.
There is no poverty of information. The fact of the matter is a powerful section of the US population benefits from the current situation.
Quite the opposite, in fact. But there’s a difference between the information being present somewhere, and a reasonable way to get that information in front of people in an actionable form.
We’re drowning in “information,” at present. But the mass media narratives that are most readily available distort things quite a bit for a lot of reasons. (Ratings, owner bias/interference, format.)
I think this is not really connected to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a quality-control problem; even if all state-actors were not to try to ruin Wikipedia, that quality-control issue would still persist. Wikipedia needs to improve its intrinsic quality. Instead what it seems to do as of late, is make pointless UI changes. I hate this "you can hide the toolkit here" - that simply should not be on by default. I only want the content as-is, not side bars with useless things I am never going to use anyway.
I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.
1. https://forward.com/news/467423/adl-may-have-violated-wikipe...
2. Israel wants to train ChatGPT to be more pro-Israel https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-chatgpt/
Without buying a new copy of that Wikipedia page on Amazon and comparing it to an old copy from Ebay, there's just no easy way to verify this.
It'd be neat if there were a way to take every letter of these different versions of the Wikipedia articles and pretend they are numbers. Then subtract them from each other, and collate all the ones that don't come out zero.
The author would still have to publish this "difference article" to Amazon so we could universally locate the resource. So I totally understand why they didn't do that expensive work. It's just frustrating nobody has solved this rocket science-level problem in 2026.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240630174704/https://ru.wikipe...
Like god frobid you will know about McCain, Nuland and what have you changing the Kiev regime in 2013 despite literal photos. Imagine the shitstorm if Russian state department officials were giving out food to guys that were attacking Capitol in 2021
https://web.archive.org/web/20240630174704/https://ru.wikipe...
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%95%D0%B2%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC...
The article makes this quite clear:
> Those words — foreign digital interference — are very important.
> The West has neglected to fight on the battlefield that has been right in front of them the entire time — the internet.
It’s remarkable that the author thinks this is true. The issue is the foreign source of the propaganda, not the propaganda itself, and in fact the solution is more propaganda, according to them.
By limiting our focus to pro-Russia edits, and refusing to acknowledge the larger context, we let ourselves become unwitting dupes, casualties in this information war.
"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history"
>This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.
* Cite Unseen (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite_Unseen): show icons in an article's References section that indicate what the Wikipedia community knows about that source, such as whether a website is a known unreliable source - such as whether a source is banned on Russian and/or Ukrainian Wikipedia. [https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/kevinpayravi/cite-unseen]
* AI Source Verification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alaexis/AI_Source_Verific...): use LLMs to help check whether the citations in an article support the claims, providing a summarized report. [https://github.com/alex-o-748/citation-checker-script]
* Suggestion Mode (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Suggestion_Mode): provide automatic in-line edit suggestions, including using small language models to detect potential tone issues. Demo: https://www.tiktok.com/@wikipedia/video/7634591061553237266?...
* Microtask Generator (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Micro-task_Generato...): provide a list of prioritized edit suggestions based on the editor's choice of category. [https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/toolforge-repos/microtask-gener...]
* WikiTask Pro (https://nethahussain.github.io/wikitask-pro/ + https://github.com/nethahussain/wikitask-pro) - another approach to integrating signals to recommend potential edits to editors.
There are also interesting conversations happening about developing and maintaining better data about questionable sources - check out this amazing compilation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kuru/fakesources
Some places to stay in touch with these things if you're interested: https://www.wikicred.org/ + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AI_Tools (not all of these kinds of tools involve AI, but it's a component of various things people are working on). If you’re in the SF Bay Area, come to our meetups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bay_Area_Wikipedians...
Perhaps they neglected to mention what Wikipedia article it was, because they knew that if people were able to visit the page, look through its edit history, and inspect the content of its talk page, they would be able to come to their own conclusion that the author's claims are overstated, sensationalist fearmongering? In a time where the US federal government is trying its hardest to undermine the freedoms of its own people, I find any accusations of foreign actors to be laughable.
You know its funny, I think I'm less worried about people on the other side of the planet stealing my personal data and trying to influence the way I think than I am about the people in the same country as me. Since, you know, not only would it be easier for them to, since we are in the same country, but also they stand to gain a lot more from it as well!
Or someone else should do it. If you build it I will come.
This context of the conversation is Wikipedia, an encyclopedia with a responsibility to verify and attribute its content.
Reading the Talk page for any contemporary culture war stuff makes it clear Wikipedia’s not really a place for diverse thinking.
For every legitimate case of a "diverse set of viewpoints" on some hot-button political issue, you have hundreds of crackpots and trolls who want to talk about free energy, telekinesis, chemtrails, and so on. Do you really want to have 50 versions of the article on gravity to choose from, most of them abject nonsense? Who gets to choose which one is given more prominence? If they're given equal weight, then the crackpots win the numbers game because there might be only 1-2 articles representing mainstream scientific thought versus dozens of "here's what I came up with in the shower".
I don't disagree that Wikipedia has some regrettable biases, but the solution probably isn't "allow all viewpoints". Look at the thread you're commenting on and the amount of whataboutism from single-issue accounts who seem to argue that the US is no different from murderous dictatorships.
Wikipedia is great in general, but the quality of articles often is lacking. And some do have a lot of details and, to some extent, quality, but Average Joe - including me - often does not understand anything. I have this issue with mathematics on Wikipedia; on other websites it is often better explained. Wikipedia needs to improve here.
Just as one example if it were up to me the edited version invisible until a panel of moderators gives the edit a +1. If a sub-set of moderators give it a +2 (override) everyone can see who did that. Moderators would have to show real names and their country of origin and current country of residence. A watchdog group must be able to vote out moderators. If users try to overwhelm the moderators then they get perma-banned. I would probably not allow edits from wireless devices. Edits must be treated like changes to the Linux kernel and I want the original abrasive version of Linus back for this but that's just my personal preference.
"Protection restricts the modification of pages to specific groups of users. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied."
These mechanisms do include a "Pending changes" mode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes
I for one will always assume the site is entirely fan fiction unless I can prove otherwise.
I don't quite get how that keeps people from applying those critical tools to their own beliefs, but we certainly see that a lot. People show up with a Gish gallop attack, without considering the sources that they're using for it.
Regardless, the effect is that in a world that has deliberately deprived people of certainty, they'll defend their own personal domains literally to the death.
News organizations each push their own agendas by misrepresenting facts or present rumors or second comments as certainty. Then months later, we finally learn really what happened and realize that a lot of the context of story was missing or completely fabricated.
Then we lament at the death of democracy.
Technology evolves. The interesting part is not that this is happening, but the means and extent to which it happens. Who expects Wikipedia to be more resilient than, say, network television?
https://united24media.com/latest-news/pro-russian-narratives...
https://news.err.ee/1609903256/estonian-volunteers-strugglin...
It’s rather devious
If some force occupies and renames your country for 40+ years, seems fair to use that name in wikipedia when talking about this period
I understand invading countries is not cool, but you cannot fix crimes of USSR by retroactively renaming places
I wonder if French people born in Vichy France should have their Wikipedia entries changed to say that they were born in the French State and not the French Republic.
Still, it kind of feels weird if (I assume) for 40 years everyone had "Estonian SSR" stamped in their birth certificates / passports, and then we say "actually they were born in Republic of Estonia (occupied)"
The same applies to Estonia. Anyone born in the geographic region of Estonia is referred to as having been born in Estonia, regardless of whether that occurred during the German occupation in World War II when German forces advanced east, or later during the Soviet occupation, which lasted until the fall of communism.
Last year, a page hidden deep in talk pages held a vote on how to name birthplaces of Estonians. Twenty regular Wikipedia users participated in the vote. Twelve of them voted in favor of a fringe naming convention that emphasizes the internationally unrecognized Soviet-installed authorities. Wikipedia now refers to this as a "consensus" that cannot be overturned.
The person who initiated the vote was a Russian troll who was later banned for attempting to organize a harassment campaign against a journalist who broke the story., but the "consensus" remains. A handful of powerful administrators continue to protect an utterly fringe naming convention. Their only argument is the "consensus" itself.
Context and understanding the situation to make better decisions? WHATABOUTISM!
The West has suffered enormously from this deliberate myopia.
^ A teacup defence of whataboutism.
The fact that you live in an apartheid state is bad, but it has nothing to do with the restriction of economic liberties in my country. I am just trying to distract you by reminding you of how disgustingly you behave, rather than defending my system on its own terms.
The dumb lib version of this is when you tell me that I stole my watch, I point out that you already stole three watches and are currently slipping off my watch.
"Whataboutism!"
Or we could just call it by its older name, the "Tu quoque" defense. "The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.[1]"
C'mon, try harder.
.. and yes, I see it's flagged/dead now.
Edit: ah, account few days old and this is your first comment. Hello, Ivan, nice social influencing campaign you're running there.
Theres always their side, your side and the truth.
There's a push for extremes on both sides and both refuse to acknowledge it.
It's as if the conflict is good for something...
Hatred of Russia is not the same thing as respect for the sovereignty of the Ukranian people. In this case, they lead to extremely different outcomes.
From which didactic approach does "throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from here? Wise words from a crypto practitioner ? say more
This will probably read to many as me being a useful idiot for Putin or something. And maybe I am, hard to say definitely.
- Russia blowing up Nordstream
- "Havana syndrome"
- The Steele dossier
As far as I can tell, nothing that has been said about Russian intelligence operations in the West (over the past decade or so) has ever been substantiated. That's why everybody started blaming every single problem or disagreement in the West on Russia, because you wouldn't be asked to or expected to be able to substantiate it.
I've been called Russian or Chinese more times since 2015 than I've ever been called anything else other than my name. I was usually called that by people when I was denying something that those same people now say nobody ever really believed or insisted was true.
Tenet Media
https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/sp...
Almost all street markets sell those USB/QRcode to access unrestricted internet.
Most people don't need a VPN as well, similarly to the US population not accessing much of the content from let say Austria, France, Germany... due to language barrier or just not caring at all.
Yes, China and the US also participate in this. Everyone knows this. You are not clever or special for pointing it out, you're just being stupid and trying to distract from the conversation.
Literally whataboutism. Classic FUD and distraction technique. Go somewhere else with this nonsesne.
And then, we have the international brainwashing, which is where we think we understand a nation we've never even stepped-in but we don't. Anyone that has been in Shenzhen suddenly can see for themself, most US news don't talk about all the greatness in China, literally majority it is to denigrate the country, news are just so annoying in general and people just love to parrot non-sense (or incomplete non-sense, which is the same thing as not understanding at all), politicians understand that, news understand that.
We can observe Google Trends with Ukraine as an example, when the news and politicians switch-up the topic, then most people just stop caring altogether and move-on and go to the next "big thing", all over again.
It's not a source at all. It should be designed as a guide to sources - one that will allow you to get accurate information about both official statistics and wacky conspiracy theories (which are as important to be accurate in discussing as anything else.) Instead it prefers to be a voice of God, egotistical narcissistic middle-class Western elites, intelligence agencies, and any random manipulator who wants to juice up some stock.
edit: the people trying to get the truth stated plainly (whatever that is to them) into Wikipedia require exactly the same skills as the people who are trying to get consciously deceptive information into Wikipedia. The problem with Wikipedia is that it is a pseudo-government built out of Confucianist aphorisms rather than rules, so instead of being directed by reason, it is ultimately directed by authority. Authority comes from strength, not justice or truth.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor...
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-grayzone/
If you had said “the US and Britain also does this, we need ways to combat state propaganda on wikipedia” it would be a helpful addition to the conversation.