Evan

Israel-Palestine coverage on @Wikipedia has been reshaped since Oct 7 by a core group of roughly three dozen ideologically-motivated editors, the Gang of 40. NPOV conducted an analysis of the six leaders of this group which shows how it works. Our reports, published here, reveal how this accretive, mostly under-the-radar strategy run by a handful of accounts managed to undermine knowledge infrastructure on the most contentious geopolitical topic today. The Key Tactics that our reports reveal: + They worked in groups of 2, 3, 4, 5, or all 6, rotating in ways that obscure coordination. + Pairs overlapped on up to 1,463 articles, and all six converged on 64 pages. + Up to 90% of their edits went to this one topic, sustained for up to two decades. + Deletion sprints cleared material faster than others could respond. - One account removed 14,312 characters from the Labour antisemitism article in two edits, two minutes apart - ~25,500 from Amnesty's in 22 edits; - ~11,600 from the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's in 23 minutes. + The group shaped the Reliable Sources discussions that decide which outlets can be cited anywhere on Wikipedia. - Western and NATO sources were dismissed, while outlets like Al Jazeera were defended. + They logged 18,000+ edits on Wikipedia's administrator noticeboards, where disputes over conduct are decided. + On talk pages, volume stood in for consensus: one editor posted 11 times in four hours on the Zionism page. + On Oct 7, 2023, with the attack still underway, one of the Six renamed the article on it from "Hamas attack on Israel" to "Gaza−Israel conflict." + May 2024: another removed the section on the Oct 7 attack from the Gaza war article, including the Nova festival massacre, 251 hostages and reports of sexual violence. + Eight editors were topic-banned for conduct. Not one of their edits was reversed by the ArbCom proceeding. The pages they built were never audited. << Full reports in the Substack, link below >>