Wikipedia cracks down: Pro-Palestine editors suspended

An Arbitration Committee set by Wikipedia for “Palestine-Israel Cases” has banned two editors indefinitely and imposed restrictions on three others.

These measures were taken against the said editors following attempts at “canvassing,” which is regarded by Wikipedia as bringing fellow editors into a discussion regarding a specific edit “with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate.”

According to Wikipedia’s standards, such instances of canvassing are deemed inappropriate “because they compromise the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore (it) is generally considered disruptive behavior.”

The Committee highlighted the off-wiki misconduct in the Palestine–Israel topic area, accusing editors of making edits in the Palestine–Israel topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests and “encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing.”

“Wikibias,” an X account that examines these attempts and exposes anti-Israel bias on the Free Encyclopedia, lauded the decision taken by the committee, adding that other “toxic editors” are still manipulating information in articles such as “Use of Human Shields by Hamas.” The outlet continued: “it is high time the Arbitration Committee takes immediate action to thoroughly investigate and hold all editors… accountable for their distortion of Wikipedia content.”

* The Jerusalem Post contributed to this article.