Wikipedia’s Ideological Editing Wars: How Online Battles Reshape Global Narratives

Wikipedia ide­o­log­i­cal edit­ing wars reveal how online edi­tors clash to con­trol nar­ra­tives on con­tentious glob­al issues, influ­enc­ing pub­lic per­cep­tion and knowl­edge. On 4 Sep­tem­ber 2025, Tablet Mag­a­zine report­ed that, as Hamas is being defeat­ed mil­i­tar­i­ly in Gaza, a group of rad­i­cal Wikipedia edi­tors with appar­ent ties to for­eign actors are work­ing to rede­fine foun­da­tion­al con­cepts such as Zion­ism on one of the world’s most vis­it­ed sources of infor­ma­tion. The arti­cle begins:

On Aug. 27, the House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Gov­ern­ment Reform launched a probe into the Wiki­me­dia Foun­da­tion, the non­prof­it that hosts Wikipedia, to deter­mine the role and the meth­ods of for­eign indi­vid­u­als in manip­u­lat­ing arti­cles on the plat­form to influ­ence U.S. pub­lic opin­ion. In the committee’s let­ter to the foundation’s CEO, com­mit­tee Chair James Com­er and Sub­com­mit­tee on Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Chair Nan­cy Mace request­ed “doc­u­ments and infor­ma­tion relat­ed to actions by Wikipedia vol­un­teer edi­tors” to uncov­er “poten­tial­ly sys­tem­at­ic efforts to advance anti­se­mit­ic and anti-Israel infor­ma­tion in Wikipedia arti­cles.” I shed light on these orga­nized efforts in an Octo­ber 2024 inves­tiga­tive report. Specif­i­cal­ly, I iden­ti­fied a net­work of more than three dozen editors—whom I dubbed the “Gang of 40”—who sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pushed the most extreme anti-Zion­ist nar­ra­tives on Wikipedia. These edi­tors have made 850,000 com­bined edits across 10,000 arti­cles relat­ed to Israel, effec­tive­ly reshap­ing the entire top­ic area.

Read more: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/wiki-wars

Key Points

• Wikipedia ide­o­log­i­cal edit­ing wars involve coor­di­nat­ed efforts by groups with polit­i­cal or state-backed agen­das to con­trol the nar­ra­tive on sen­si­tive top­ics such as Zion­ism, often freez­ing con­tro­ver­sial def­i­n­i­tions despite aca­d­e­m­ic objections.

• These edit­ing cam­paigns extend beyond the Mid­dle East, affect­ing arti­cles on geopol­i­tics, his­to­ry, and sci­ence, with some edi­tors linked to for­eign influ­ence oper­a­tions aim­ing to shape glob­al pub­lic opinion.

• Wikipedia’s open-edit­ing mod­el and reliance on con­sen­sus make it vul­ner­a­ble to sus­tained ide­o­log­i­cal cam­paigns, which can per­sist for years and influ­ence main­stream under­stand­ing of com­plex issues.

• The bat­tles are often hid­den in dis­cus­sion pages and edit his­to­ries, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for casu­al read­ers to detect manip­u­la­tion or under­stand the edi­to­r­i­al process behind con­tentious articles.

Russia, China, Iran Target Wikipedia to Shape Global Narratives on Conflicts

Wikipedia is now a crit­i­cal bat­tle­ground for state-spon­sored infor­ma­tion war­fare, with Rus­sia, Chi­na, and Iran lever­ag­ing its open-edit­ing mod­el to advance glob­al nar­ra­tives that serve their polit­i­cal inter­ests. The Krem­lin has expand­ed its cam­paign to poi­son AI mod­els and rewrite Wikipedia arti­cles, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly inject­ing pro-Russ­ian and anti-West­ern nar­ra­tives into high-traf­fic entries, espe­cial­ly on con­tentious top­ics like the war in Ukraine—using both human edi­tors and manip­u­lat­ed AI train­ing data.

Russ­ian influ­ence is fur­ther ampli­fied when pro-Krem­lin media are cit­ed as sources, a phe­nom­e­non doc­u­ment­ed in EU stud­ies on mis­in­for­ma­tion sources repeat­ed on Wikipedia. In Chi­na, edit wars between pro-CCP and pro-democ­ra­cy Wikipedia edi­tors have erupt­ed over top­ics such as Hong Kong and Tai­wan, with pro-Bei­jing users aggres­sive­ly remov­ing dis­sent­ing con­tent, adding pro-regime nar­ra­tives, and some­times resort­ing to intim­i­da­tion tac­tics; these bat­tles extend beyond Chi­nese-lan­guage edi­tions to Eng­lish-lan­guage arti­cles, reflect­ing Beijing’s strate­gic effort to shape per­cep­tions globally.

China’s large-scale, orga­nized influ­ence also seen coor­di­nat­ed edit­ing blitzes on sen­si­tive top­ics, with state-linked edi­tors work­ing to align Wikipedia con­tent with offi­cial posi­tions. Iran, while less exten­sive­ly doc­u­ment­ed, employs sim­i­lar tac­tics: state-linked edi­tors on Per­sian Wikipedia have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly purged ref­er­ences to human rights abus­es and Iran­ian offi­cials’ involve­ment in attacks, while Eng­lish Wikipedia pages on Iran have seen anony­mous edi­tors down­grade men­tions of regime atroc­i­ties and dis­cred­it oppo­si­tion groups.

These cam­paigns exploit Wikipedia’s rep­u­ta­tion for neu­tral­i­ty and its vis­i­bil­i­ty in search results, allow­ing author­i­tar­i­an regimes to present their nar­ra­tives as objec­tive facts to a glob­al audience.

Exter­nal References:

• Expos­ing Prav­da: How pro-Krem­lin forces are poi­son­ing AI mod­els and rewrit­ing Wikipedia – Atlantic Coun­cil, April 2025

• Wikipedia in Chi­nese edit­ing war of words – BBC, Octo­ber 2021

• Wikipedia’s chal­lenges in Iran

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.