Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has jumped into a conflict over the online encyclopedia’s page on “Gaza genocide.” Just days after a Wikipedia editor froze changes to the article, Wales posted a statement on a page dedicated to discussing edits, saying the article “requires immediate correction” and is part of a broader neutrality problem on the site, where “there is much more work to do.”
On October 28th, a Wikipedia editor changed the status of the “Gaza genocide” page to “protected,” meaning editors can’t make changes to the article until November 4th, or until “editing disputes have been resolved,” according to a notice at the top of the article. As noted by Wikipedia, editors typically protect pages to prevent vandalism or “edit wars,” when multiple editors disagree about an article and continuously revert each other’s changes — which some editors mentioned happening recently on the Gaza page.
Wales joined discussions about the article on November 2nd. He wrote that he has been “studying the issue of neutrality” across Wikipedia and that the Gaza genocide article “is a particularly egregious” example of the problem.
“At present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested,” Wales said. He added that a “neutral approach would begin with a formulation such as: ‘Multiple governments, NGOs, and legal bodies have described or rejected the characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.’” Currently, the article bases its position that a genocide exists on conclusions from United Nations investigations, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and “multiple human rights groups,” among others.
Wales referenced a recent interview with CNN, where Walter Isaacson asked him about Wikipedia’s “Gaza genocide” article. During the interview, Wales called it “one of the worst Wikipedia entries I’ve seen in a very long time” and said it “doesn’t live up to our standards of neutrality.”
In a statement to The Verge, Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson Lauren Dickinson said it’s not unusual for Wales to comment on Wikipedia entries. “In his personal capacity during interviews about his new book, Jimmy Wales has discussed multiple Wikipedia articles and topics, expressing his own perspectives and reflections,” Dickinson said. “Even as the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy is one of hundreds of thousands of editors, all striving to present information, including on contentious topics, in line with Wikipedia’s policies.”
Wales is calling on editors to “move from debate to concrete improvements immediately.” He did not provide specific examples of what changes they should make, but referenced several Wikipedia policies, including that articles “must not declare a legal conclusion,” and should include “significant, high-quality sources from all sides,” including governments, courts, non-governmental organizations, and commentators. “No side should speak in Wikipedia’s own voice,” Wales said.
Contrary to reporting from the New York Post, however, the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed that Wales didn’t lock the article himself or direct it to be locked. “On occasion, a page can be placed under protection by volunteer editors to limit editing to the article for a period of time,” Dickinson said. “This can happen when a topic is suddenly in the news, for example, and attracts negative editing. Protecting a page can only be done by volunteer Wikipedia administrators, who are more senior, trusted volunteer editors who have been selected by the broader editor community.”
In recent months, Wikipedia has become the subject of repeated attacks from Republican lawmakers and conservatives who accuse it of having a left-wing bias. After a March report from the Anti-Defamation League found “extensive issues with antisemitic and anti-Israel bias” on Wikipedia, lawmakers sought more information from the site on how it plans to “curb editor bias.” More recently, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation last month, questioning Wikipedia’s alleged “ideological bias.” Elon Musk, who has also been a vocal critic of Wikipedia, also launched a non-”woke” alternative called Grokipedia that adapts Wikipedia articles with — among other changes — additional racist and transphobic contents.
Many members of Wikipedia’s community pushed back on Wales’ statement. One editor said it’s “a bad faith read of the community when suggesting that among the most read and debated articles on the community is poorly done,” adding that “there has been dozens of hours of discussions” and requests for comments when creating the article. Another editor says that Wikipedia “should not be sending anyone the message that they can change article content from above by pressuring the foundation,” while someone else calls Wales’ involvement an “appalling overreach.”
In response to another comment, which asked why Wikipedia should equally weigh the opinions of the “largely impartial” United Nations and human rights scholars to “the obviously partisan opinions of commentators and governors,” Wales said that the job of a Wikipedian “is not to take sides in that debate but to carefully and neutrally document it.”
