Disinformation

Disinformation is false or inaccurate information spread on purpose^[1] to deceive the targeted audience. Disinformation may include the distribution of forged documents, manuscripts and photographs, or the promotion of harmful rumors, conspiracy theories and fake intelligence.^[2][3]

A major form of disinformation is conspiracy theories. Examples of conspiracy theories include but not limited to

• Holocaust denial
• Irish slaves myth^[4][5]
• 9/11 conspiracy theories^[6]
• UFO conspiracy theories^[7]
• Chemtrail conspiracy theory^[8]
• Moon landing conspiracy theories^[9]
• John F. Kennedy's assassination conspiracy theories^[10]
• Illuminati and Freemasonry-related conspiracy theories^[11]
• Diana, Princess of Wales' death-related conspiracy theories^[12]

Disinformation is particularly common on the most visited websites worldwide,^[13] including Wikipedia,^[14][15] Reddit^[16] and Instagram.^[17][18]

Between 2009 and 2021, Croatian Wikipedia was controlled by a group of far-right administrators who promoted Holocaust denial by censoring^[14] the war crimes of the pro-Nazi Ustaše-ruled Independent State of Croatia (NDH)^[19] and blocking dozens of rule-abiding users for trying to remove the false content.^[14]

Željko Jovanović, the Minister of Science of Croatia back then, also advised against the use of the Croatian Wikipedia.^[20] The most serious violation by the far-right administrators was their anti-historical designation of the Jasenovac concentration camp, in which 77,000–99,000 were killed,^[21] as a "collection camp".^[14] Their Holocaust denial was condemned by scholars, officials, advocacy groups and media critics.^[14]

Following a year-long investigation (2020–21) by the Wikimedia Foundation, several complicit users and administrators were either banned or demoted, with one of the administrators found to have consolidated his or her power with 80 sockpuppet accounts.^[22]

In the 57-page article Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust^[23] published in The Journal of Holocaust Research, Prof. Jan Grabowski and Dr. Shira Klein reported to have found widespread distortions of the Polish Holocaust history on the English Wikipedia,^[15][23] which involved the exaggeration^[15][23] of Jewish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers, invention of Jewish "atrocities" against Poles, downplaying of Polish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers and blaming Jews for their own suffering in the Holocaust.^[15][23]

Prof. Grabowski and Dr. Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle,^[15][23] leaving the site vulnerable to state-sponsored disinformation:

Wikipedia’s administrators have largely failed to uphold Wikipedia’s policies [. ...] unable to deal with the issue of persistent distortion [...] Wikipedia’s articles [...] have become a hub of misinformation and antisemitic canards.

On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,^[15]

As a historian, I was aware [...] of various distortions [...] of the Holocaust on Wikipedia. What I found shocking, was the sheer scale [...] and the small number of individuals needed to distort the history of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity.

In 2024, independent journalist investigations uncovered a large-scale off-site canvassing campaign to rewrite Jewish history and reshape the narrative surrounding the Israel–Palestine conflict, which involved 40 accounts having made at least 2,000,000 edits to over 10,000 Jewish-related articles.^[24]

The off-site canvassing campaign was coordinated by an 8,000-member Tech for Palestine Discord channel,^[24] where the organizers provided the participants in-depth training (e.g. strategy planning sessions, group audio "office hour" chats)^[24] on getting used to Wikipedia's site operation, assigning participants (in groups of 2~3) to edit hundreds of articles in rotation,^[24] and gaming the rules to block others from correcting them.^[24]

Reported examples of their revisionist^[25] edits include^[24]

• Removal of "Land of Israel" from the origin of Jews in Jewish-related articles
• Removal of mentions of 16th century Jewish immigration to Israel in Jewish-related articles
• Removal of mentions of Hamas' 1988 charter which involved the incitement to mass murder of Jews
• Removal of mentions of the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's alliance with Hitler^[26][27] in Holocaust-related articles
• Redefinition of Jews as an "ethnoreligious group and cultural community" from "ethnoreligious group and nation from the Levant" in Jewish-related articles

On 12 December 2024, English Wikipedia's arbitration committee announced that two editors^[28] had been banned indefinitely for off-site canvassing^[24][28] and "encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing."^[28] Another three editors have also been slapped with sanctions for similar reasons.^[28]

• Antisemitism
• Cognitive bias
• Anti-intellectualism
• Antisemitism in Europe
• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

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