Last week, two Israeli Zionist groups unveiled a seminar series on Wikipedia editing designed “to influence what is written there, how it’s written and to ensure that it is balanced and Zionist in nature.” The groups were concerned that entries on the user-edited encyclopedia did not offer a balanced, honest, and Zionist worldview. They are seeking to put the record straight.
This is certainly not the only case of politically motivated editing by Wikipedia users. In 2006, Wikipedia blocked the Washington, DC, offices of several senators from editing the site because their staffers had been deleting accurate entries and posting unflattering descriptions of their enemies. Similarly, the practice known as “Google Bombing” involves specifically linking web searches to certain pages. One example was the 2007 effort to link a Google search for “miserable failure” to a biography of George W. Bush.
The organizers of the Jerusalem seminar are concerned that Wikipedia readers in Europe and the U.S. see only anti-Israel information. According to one attendee, Wikipedia is currently “filled with anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and garbage and there’s not enough of us out there working to counteract that and make sure that the other side of the story – our side of the story, the right side of the story – is getting the right coverage and the coverage that it needs.”
Naftali Bennet, the director of the Yesha Council, an organization representing Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and an organizer of the seminar, thinks that the commentary available about the Gaza Flotilla incident in May is biased against Israel. The editing seminar was organized to change that.
He wants to ensure that “Israel’s side, with all the correct arguments and explanations,” is readily available on the web.
The internet provides a decidedly unbiased account of the Gaza Flotilla incident. The Wikipedia entry cites Haaretz twice and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) once in its first ten citations. Haaretz, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, and the IDF are fairly pro-Israel sources of information. Also, the third entry on a Google search for “Gaza Flotilla” is a New York Daily News article that argues Israel obeyed international law during the raid and gives a balanced account of the history of the Gaza blockade.
The next time you’re searching for unbiased commentary, come to this blog instead of Wikipedia.
