UK media reported last month that online encyclopedia Wikipedia was targeted by a large-scale influence operation involving a group of pro-Chinese government editors and administrators who sought control of Wikipedia editing in favor pro-Chinese viewpoints. According to a BBC article:
September 16, 2021 Wikipedia has suffered an “infiltration” that sought to advance the aims of China, the US non-profit organisation that owns the volunteer-edited encyclopaedia has said. The Wikimedia Foundation told BBC News the infiltration had threatened the “very foundations of Wikipedia”. […] “This case is unprecedented in scope,” foundation vice-president Maggie Dennis said, in a note to volunteers. And she told BBC News the foundation had been investigating the infiltration of Chinese-language Wikipedia for nearly a year. But this summer, “credible threats” to volunteers’ safety had “led us to prioritise rapid response”. The foundation was battling against “capture”, where a group gains control of the editing of the Wikipedia to favour a particular viewpoint, Ms Dennis wrote. And it has recently set up a disinformation team. In this case, the infiltrators had tried to promote “the aims of China, as interpreted through whatever filters they may bring to bear”, Ms Dennis told BBC News. “Controlling content was an aim,” she said. But she also said: “I am not in position to point fingers at the Chinese state nor in possession of information that would lead me to do so.” However, “long and deep investigations” into Wikimedians of Mainland China, a group claiming to have about 300 members, had resulted in the banning of seven users and the removal of administrator privileges from a further 12, Wikipedia said.
Read the rest here.
The BBC article notes that there are currently more than 4,000 Chinese language contributors to Wikipedia websites.
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