Wikipedia:Disinformation

This page is about disinformation attempts on Wikipedia. For the essay about infoboxes that do not add value, see WP:DISINFOBOX.

For similar concepts see WP:Vandalism and WP:Conflict of Interest

Disinformation on Wikipedia is the practice of intentionally spreading false information for the purpose of deception and to promote discord. It concerns state-sponsored efforts such as by so-called "Russian troll" accounts, and other countries known to use social media and other outlets for the spread of disinformation. It is distinct from regular propaganda, conflict of interest or vandalism in that it involves state-actors (or state-sponsored or condoned actors) and is a form of information warfare ie. a weapon meant to cause harm.

The purpose of this page is to centrally collect links and information about disinformation as it relates to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia discussions

• Russian disinformation on Wikipedia, Village Pump thread started 8 March 2019
• Editor with ties to Russian government
• The Disinformation Age at Signpost, 30 June 2019
• Misinformation And Its Discontents: Narrative Recommendations on Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities and Resilience, Meta project proposal

Media sources

This section is for external links that discuss specific incidents on Wikipedia, or Wikipedia and disinformation generally.

Carl Miller

• Carl Miller (August 29, 2018). "Wikipedia has resisted information warfare, but could it fight off a proper attack?". NewStatesman. Archived from the original on 2018-08-29.
• Wikipedia Wars, BBC, October 9, 2019
• Signpost Interview, October 31, 2019

Summary: Discusses ways Wikipedia might get compromised with disinformation attacks.

2015 New York poisoned turkey incident

• Rob Barry (February 20, 2018). "Russian Trolls Tweeted Disinformation Long Before U.S. Election". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2018-02-20.

Summary: Russian disinformation trolls used Wikipedia in conjunction with Twitter and Tumblr to promote fake news in 2015. They created a hoax story about a food poisoning attack in New York, then created a Wikipedia page about it (2015 New York poisoned turkey incident), then tweeted about it thousands of times. The fake story was quickly uncovered and a Sock Puppet Investigation blocked 4 accounts. Those accounts were "sleepers" previously making uncontroversial edits while establishing user editing privs. They previously edited articles about Hillary Clinton, the Central Intelligence Agency and American extremist groups.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17

• Kadhim Shubber (July 18, 2014). "Russia caught editing Wikipedia entry about MH17". Wired. Archived from the original on March 11, 2019.

Summary: Someone from the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) was caught editing a Russian-language Wikipedia reference to MH17. The edit placed the blame for the downing on Ukraine and deleted any fault of Russia. The edit was caught by a Twitter bot that monitors Wikipedia edits made from Russian government IP addresses.

Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax

• Chen, Adrian (June 2, 2015). "The agency". The New York Times.
• Russian Social Media Influence (PDF) (Report). Rand Corporation. 2018.

Other sources

Notable sources that discuss disinformation generally that might be of interest to Wikipedia.

• A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling, Bloomberg, 19 July 2018
• Clint Watts (2018). Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News.
• "EU vs Disinfo". European External Action Service East StratCom Task Force.
• Jim Sciutto (2019). The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America. HarperCollins.
• Elizabeth Dwoskin (May 26, 2021). "Russia is still the biggest player in disinformation, Facebook says". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 26, 2021 – via Yahoo! News.

See also

• WP:UPSD, a user script which highlights potentially unreliable citations.
• Tag: disinformation at Wikimedia blog.