Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media
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Disinformation in war and politics
Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.
Wikipedia editors deem Anti-Defamation League unreliable
editThe Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Wikipedia editors came to consensus to recognize the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as "generally unreliable" as a media source for information regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. While Wikipedia editors routinely discuss the reliability of sources following anyone raising a concern at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, the discussion about ADL attracted more editor comments than such discussions usually get.
This review follows a March 2021 discussion about the extent to which ADL was complying with Wikipedia's rules for conflict of interest as it encouraged its staff to edit Wikipedia articles. Jewish newspaper The Forward reported that ADL suspended their staff editing project as a result of the challenges with compliance. – BR
Other sources:
- CNN
- Haaretz
- Rising produced by The Hill newspaper "Wow" headline
- [1] Editor & Publisher
Photos from a friendly journalist
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Will Maupin in the Inlander newspaper in Spokane, Washington writes 'I'll be trading my laptop for a camera and road trips to visually document our region for Wikipedia'. Maupin takes photos of sites on the National Register of Historic Places and other local sites. He's edited Wikipedia since 2005. Check out more of his photos in this issue's Gallery.
WMF's cloak-and-dagger "Disinformation Response Taskforce" fights election-related fake news
editThe Brussels Times explains How Wikipedia fights against fake news, based on statements by Rebecca MacKinnon (who heads the Wikimedia Foundation's Global Advocacy team, having previously worked in journalism and digital rights). Besides summarizing various longstanding features (such as page protection, watchlists, or ArbCom) that help Wikipedia's "volunteers vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site's policies for what constitutes reliably sourced, encyclopaedic information," the article highlights a more recent innovation:
Ahead of major elections in 2024, a new Disinformation Response Taskforce (DRT) has formed to partner with trusted Wikimedia volunteers and Wikimedia affiliates to identify potential information attacks on Wikipedia.
And it seems to be working. Wikimedia has not uncovered any specific disinformation campaigns, either private or foreign state-driven campaigns in the run-up to the elections.
"As far as we are aware, Wikipedia's content moderation processes and systems are working well and as normal. We have not been alerted to any unusual activity on EU elections-related pages," MacKinnon said.
Perhaps due to the apparently highly sensitive nature of its work, no documentation of this taskforce could be found on-wiki on the English Wikipedia at the time of writing. Elsewhere on the internet, the only information about the DRT that the Foundation has published seems to be two short paragraphs in an October 2023 blog post. There, the DRT was (somewhat confusingly) first described as a single entity being run by the "Wikimedia Foundation’s Trust and Safety Disinformation team". Right afterwards, the same team is reported as "preparing for several Disinformation Response Taskforces (DRTs), designed to support Wikimedia communities to maintain knowledge integrity during high-risk events."
Further information was revealed in emails sent last month by a WMF "Disinformation Specialist" (forwarded to a public mailing list by a Dutch Wikipedian). These listed the purposes of such taskforces, described them as "a project that we are doing related to the upcoming EU parliamentary elections, taking place from the 6th-9th of June, 2024", and appeared to invite Dutch Wikipedia's ArbCom members to an "initial meeting to discuss disinformation challenges with folks from across various European-language communities" on May 21.
The EU's recently implemented Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes various obligations on "Very Large Online Platforms" (VLOPs) such as Wikipedia. In late March, the EU Commission finalized its "Guidelines for providers of Very Large Online Platforms ... on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes pursuant to the Digital Services Act", with specific mention of the European Parliament elections in June. As explained some weeks ago by MacKinnon's colleague Dimitar Dimitrov from Wikimedia Europe (long known to Wikimedians as "our man in Brussels"), the Commission's document applies to Wikipedia too, although "to be honest it feels simultaneously overwhelming and underwhelming. A ton of well meant recommendations (as guidelines are non-binding), but it also says that VLOPs are free to come up with other measures to mitigate risks." As summarized by Dimitrov, the Commission's exhortations come in several categories, e.g. "specific recommendations for during the election period (put in place an *internal incident response mechanism*)". – H
In brief
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- The end of the world as chronicled on a Wikipedia talk page: A short story in Nature Futures, the science fiction offshoot of the scientific journal Nature (Burnett, Emma (2024-06-12). "Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01723-z.) takes the form of a Wikipedia talk page (without mentioning Wikipedia). It starts with the header
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the End of Plastic (2029) article, about the Tremella purgare fungus, released into the Gulf of Mexico after the TransAm War Oil Spill, and the knock-on impact of the attempted bioremediation.
This page has been listed as a level-3 vital article in Earth. If you can improve it, please do.- The talk page discussions progress from a request to disambiguate a "deadly fungi" link over frantic attempts to keep the article updated with the UN's rapidly rising death numbers to mentions of internet access becoming spotty and editors retreating into their family bunkers.
- (See also the February 28, 2021 issue of "In the media" for coverage of other dystopian science fiction in Wikipedia style)
- 90% of Israelis use Wikipedia: A survey conducted by Wikimedia Israel (presented at a June 9 event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hebrew Wikipedia) finds that "Wikipedia remains primary source of information for about 90% of Israelis", with "no significant gaps" between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Overall, though, Israeli internet users face high rates of fake or biased content, according to a Ynet article reporting about the study.
- Bias "infects" AI training, claims conservative magazine: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-study-confirms-long-held-conservative-suspicions-of-wikipedia-bias/ (National Review)
- "Suggestive evidence of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles", says conservative think-tank: https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically-biased (Manhattan Institute)
Possible other articles
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/14/wikipedia-war-fierce-row-erupts-over-israels-deadly-nuseirat-assault
- https://chatelaine.com/living/wikipedia-women-venturekids/
- https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/06/13/famous-birthdays-wants-to-be-the-wikipedia-for-gen-z In the Economist ("try it for free") but maybe not
- https://www.medievalists.net/2024/06/medieval-studies-articles-may-2024/ Let's get Medieval! (possible headline) takes some digging though
Oddities
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- Miki buses join the Wiki Wiki buses: The Wiki Wiki Shuttle at the Honolulu airport has a special place in Wikipedia lore. When Ward Cunningham wrote the first Wiki software he named it after the shuttle whose name means "quick" in Hawaiian. The airport has just added an AI powered self-driving electric sibling, "The new fleet, named "Miki", the Hawaiian word for agile, will augment the existing Wiki Wiki shuttle bus service and provide travelers with another transportation option between gates and terminals." Perhaps there is an AI powered self-writing Mikipedia in our future? I hope not. —S
- Wiki in the scrum and on the links: [2] Dallas Wiki, age 24, is a rugby player in New Zealand. He is also a golfer. "It wasn’t the first hole-in-one for Wiki, who captained his Shannon club rugby team the day before in a senior club rugby game against Rahui." I wonder if he has any relatives named Miki? —S
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