Wikipedia:Disinformation

This is an essay on the do not create hoaxes guideline.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

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WP:DISINFOWP:DISINFO

For the most similar article on this topic, see WP:Propaganda

Disinformation on Wikipedia is the practice of intentionally spreading false information for the purpose of deception and to promote discord. It concerns state-sponsored efforts such as by so-called "Russian troll" accounts, and other countries known to use social media and other outlets for the spread of disinformation. It is distinct from regular propaganda, conflict of interest or vandalism in that it involves state-actors (or state-sponsored or condoned actors) and is a form of information warfare ie. a weapon meant to cause harm.

The purpose of this page is to centrally collect links and information about disinformation as it relates to Wikipedia.

Resources

Anti-Disinformation Repository
Counter-Vandalism Unit
Tag: disinformation at the Wikimedia blog
WP:UPSD, a user script which highlights potentially unreliable citations

Research

Summary of paper on state-sponsored strategies to influence Wikipedia (2022)

Astroturfing (also known as coordinated inauthentic behavior)^[1]
- Outsourcing to:
  - Private firms (WP:undisclosed paid editing)
  - Junk science
  - Media entities (eg 2024 Tenet Media investigation)
  - Politicians and political parties
- Hacking or hijacking accounts
- Amplification of existing messages
Intimidating, threatening, reputation tarnishing and harassing of editors and their family members^[1]
- Wikipedia:Trust and safety
  - As of 2022, the interviewees said Wikipedia was not able to protect editors from most forms of harassment.
    - One interviewee: “if you accuse someone of being a state agent, you’re more likely to be sanctioned than they are.”
Community capture^[1] (E.g. Croatian Wikipedia by far-right groups)

Wikipedia discussions

Misinformation And Its Discontents: Narrative Recommendations on Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities and Resilience, Meta project proposal
The Disinformation Age at Signpost, 30 June 2019
Editor with ties to Russian government
Russian disinformation on Wikipedia, Village Pump thread started 8 March 2019

Media sources

This section is for external links that discuss specific incidents on Wikipedia, or Wikipedia and disinformation generally.

Carl Miller

Signpost Interview, October 31, 2019
Wikipedia Wars, BBC, October 9, 2019
Carl Miller (August 29, 2018). "Wikipedia has resisted information warfare, but could it fight off a proper attack?". NewStatesman. Archived from the original on 2018-08-29.

Summary: Discusses ways Wikipedia might get compromised with disinformation attacks.

2015 New York poisoned turkey incident

Rob Barry (February 20, 2018). "Russian Trolls Tweeted Disinformation Long Before U.S. Election". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2018-02-20.

Summary: Russian disinformation trolls used Wikipedia in conjunction with Twitter and Tumblr to promote fake news in 2015. They created a hoax story about a food poisoning attack in New York, then created a Wikipedia page about it (2015 New York poisoned turkey incident), then tweeted about it thousands of times. The fake story was quickly uncovered and a Sock Puppet Investigation blocked 4 accounts. Those accounts were "sleepers" previously making uncontroversial edits while establishing user editing privs. They previously edited articles about Hillary Clinton, the Central Intelligence Agency and American extremist groups.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17

Kadhim Shubber (July 18, 2014). "Russia caught editing Wikipedia entry about MH17". Wired. Archived from the original on March 11, 2019.

Summary: Someone from the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) was caught editing a Russian-language Wikipedia reference to MH17. The edit placed the blame for the downing on Ukraine and deleted any fault of Russia. The edit was caught by a Twitter bot that monitors Wikipedia edits made from Russian government IP addresses.

Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax

Russian Social Media Influence (PDF) (Report). Rand Corporation. 2018.

Chen, Adrian (June 2, 2015). "The agency". The New York Times.

Other sources

Notable sources that discuss disinformation generally that might be of interest to Wikipedia.

Elizabeth Dwoskin (May 26, 2021). "Russia is still the biggest player in disinformation, Facebook says". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 26, 2021 – via Yahoo! News.
Jim Sciutto (2019). The Shadow War: Inside Russia's and China's Secret Operations to Defeat America. HarperCollins.
"EU vs Disinfo". European External Action Service East StratCom Task Force.
Clint Watts (2018). Messing with the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News.
A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling, Bloomberg, 19 July 2018

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Miller, Carl; Smith, Melanie; Marsh, Oliver; Balint, Kata; Inskip, Chris; Visser, Francesca (October 2022). "Information Warfare and Wikipedia" (PDF). BEAM, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, CASM Technology.

[:0-1] Miller, Carl; Smith, Melanie; Marsh, Oliver; Balint, Kata; Inskip, Chris; Visser, Francesca (October 2022). "Information Warfare and Wikipedia" (PDF). BEAM, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, CASM Technology.

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