Wikipedia co-founder locks ‘Gaza genocide’ article over ‘failing high standards’
Jimmy Wales: 'at present, the lede and the overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested'
The co-founder of Wikipedia has confirmed that he intervened to prevent continuous edits of the online encyclopedia’s page on the “Gaza Genocide”, describing how the article “fails to meet our high standards and needs immediate attention.”
Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, wrote on a page accompanying the article that he had been “asked point-blank in a high profile media interview about this article, and I answered with transparency and honesty: this article fails to meet our high standards and needs immediate attention.”
In its locked status, the page currently begins with the claim that “The Gaza genocide is the ongoing, intentional, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war”.
In his comment alongside the locked page, Wales said that while he “assume[d] good faith of everyone who has worked on this Gaza ‘genocide’ article…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, who clarified that he was writing in a “personal capacity”, described this claim as being in “violation” of key Wikipedia rules and that this “requires immediate correction”
He suggested 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.’
Wikipedia has been accused of being susceptible to targeted campaigns designed to shape its content and information, particularly with regard to Israel. In October 2024, the Pirate Wires technology investigations site alleged that “A coordinated campaign led by around 40 Wikipedia editors has worked to delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favourable light, and position fringe academic views on the Israel-Palestine conflict as mainstream over past years, intensifying after the October 7 attack”. Both the ADL and World Jewish Congress have published their own reports on how groups of editors on the site, which is famously open to all to edit, engaged in concentrated efforts to promote antisemitism or Holocaust revisionism.
The Wikipedia page on Zionism, which is currently locked, presents sweeping claims like “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible” as fact.
In his statement, Wales confirmed that “As many of you will know, I have been leading an NPOV [Neutral Point of View] working group and studying the issue of neutrality in Wikipedia across many articles and topic areas including ‘Zionism’.
“While this article is a particularly egregious example, there is much more work to do.”
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