Censorship on wikipedia

“

I have learned that the people probably angriest at Wikipedia are Hindus.

”

— Larry Sanger, founder of Wikipedia^[1]

This article needs expansion.

Wikipedia is actively censored, and users are blocked not only for reasons of spam and vandalism. Their carefully formulated policies, especially those on "reliability" and "notability" are tools to extend Operation Mockingbird's control of corporate media to give de facto control of what appears on Wikipedia.^[2]

Systemic censorship

There is systemic bias in censorship on wikipedia because in most of the cases, it is the following that is censored:

Information on persecution of Hindus
...

Censorship of Article content

Censoring sources

Censoring and blacklisting media houses

Practically all major right-wing and/or pro-Hindu media houses have been blacklisted by wikipedia.

Like Google, English Wikipedia maintains a blacklist of sites, which must never be cited as sources. This domain blacklist simplifies the inclusion of the site within an Operation Mockingbird style system of broad spectrum censorship.^[3]

The Wikipedia-style is the article which quotes biased newspaper opinions as though they are fact, but ignores, downplays or censors opposite published opinions.

Anti-Free speech zealots have blacklisted almost all right-wing Indian media, such as Republic World, OpIndia, Swarajya Magazine and others.

Indian right-wing media are most censored section of the media on the face of the Earth to be so censored.

DailyMail, another blacklist victim, reports: More worrying, this ban has set a dangerous precedent, raising profoundly troubling questions about free speech and censorship in the online era. And ultimately it provides an object lesson in the way well-organised campaigners from extremes of the political spectrum are now seeking to impose their prejudices on society by seizing control of the most valuable resource of the internet age: information... Blacklisting is a term which in its modern context was popularised by the Nazis, who drew up a ‘Black Book’ of 2,820 Britons, including the philosopher Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill, who would be sent to concentration camps if Hitler won the war.^[4]

TFI reports:

For Wikipedia, Opindia, Swarajya and TFIPOST are not authentic sources to site in a Wikipedia article but blatantly left-wing and controversial Indian media portals like The Wire, The Quint, News Laundry and Scroll are.
Why have India’s top right-wing media outlets been banned on Wikipedia? It is to prevent our articles and reports from being cited as sources by the many people who contribute to Wikipedia, for if they allow our links to be used as sources, it would seriously dent the leftist narrative being peddled on Wikipedia.
— Script error: No such module "If empty"., Script error: No such module "If empty"., Script error: No such module "If empty".

TFI further reports: in the absence of right-wing portals, since they cannot be cited as sources, the left-liberal nature of Wikipedia remains intact and unchallenged, while the stories that dent their narrative are filtered out and literally deleted from people’s memory in the long run. Which is why, during the Northeast Delhi riots, Wikipedia was able to paint the incidents as purely anti-Muslim, and a doing of the oh-so-terrible Hindus, whose charge was led by people like Kapil Mishra. Now, had the three right-wing media outlets of India not been blacklisted by Wiki, there would be plenty of individuals willing to set the tone of the Delhi riots page right. However, they were unable to do so, since TFIPOST, Swarajya and OpIndia, all of these cannot be cited as sources for any edits, courtesy the infamous ‘blacklist’.^[6]

Examples of blacklisted (=censored) media

OpIndia
Swarajyamag
TFI
Republic World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist ^[archive]
Hindu-friendly outlets like @OpIndia_com , @SwarajyaMag and @republic are Blacklisted/Deprecated.^[7]

Indians are not allowed

Only sources should be allowed where "the author is not of South Asian descent"^[8]^[9]^[10]

Censorship by deleting Articles

When there is not enough enough biased, anti-Hindu content from "allowed" sources that can be spammed into an article, the article becomes worthless for Wikipedia and has to be deleted.

The Wikipedia Mullahs have different ways to censor and delete content:

Add a PROD template to the article (which means the article will be automatically deleted in 7 days unless somebody sees the template and removes it.
Add a speedy deletion template to the article (See comment about PROD).
Simply blank the article and/or redirect it to another article, citing some BS reason
Attack the person who created the article (claiming they are a sock or claiming they are pov pushing), then blank the article on these grounds
When all else fails, nominate the article for deletion

Examples:

In 2012 User Qworty ^[archive] had been systematically flagging articles for deletion relating to Pagan authors, events, and notable figures.^[11]
In 2021, the article for Hindu Human Rights was nominated for deletion. This was part of a wider campaign to cancel the Hindu Human Rights group, and to promote the anti-Hindu hate group (according to many critics) "Hindus for Human rights".^[12]
Observers have noted : The attitude now is more conservative, reactionary, and deltionist to anything that doesn't fit the preferred categories of secular modernity and geek interests. It is likely that this trend will continue in coming years. ^[13]
The article on Dabgarwad massacre (about anti-hindu violence) was deleted [1] ^[archive]

Articles on Hindu writers, journalists, historians, and opinion-makers are routinely deleted, except when they can be used to smear the subject. When there is not enough defamatory material available, then the article is deleted. These include the articles on Anand Ranganathan, Sanjeev Sanyal, Vikram Sampath (now there is an article on wikipedia), and R. Jagannathan. Another example is the article on OpIndia, which was deleted when the article was neutral, but later re-created in a biased form.^[14]

Examples of Articles nominated for deletion

Neo-fascism and religion
Persecution by Christians
Persecution by Muslims
Rape in the Bible/The Bible and Rape
Category:Wikipedia censorship

There is malicious targeting against articles that the censors believe to be pro-Hindu ^[archive].

Source alt.wikipedia

Some examples of deletions by redirecting

Some examples of deletions by redirecting, usually without discussion

Some wikipedia editors delete articles by stealth. They delete the article by moving it to a "draft space" and claim they will work on it, but in reality they just let the article die there. This way the article gets deleted without going through any discussion. Examples of articles that were deleted in this way : [2] ^[archive]

Some examples of deletions by "prodding" or by speedy deletion

see WP:PROD (PROD (Deletion of articles without discussion))

Very incomplete list of notable articles that were prodded:

Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism

Standing Alone in Mecca‎

Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love

Vishal Agarwal

What the Koran Really Says,...

Censorship of bibliographies and further reading sections

Some articles preemptively discourage the addition of more items in the bibliography section like in the article Reiki. This is arbitrarily and selectively applied to only very few articles.

Bibliographies should become a resource that aims for exhaustiveness. Here is an admin deleting an entry from a bibliography ^[archive] because the article does not exist on wikipedia (this is not a requirement for bibliographies on wikipedia!)

Censorship of External links (and of redirects, categories and see also links)

In 2022, there was a discussion to censor the redirect "Genocide of Kashmiri Hindus". [3] ^[archive] (Redirects like Gujarat genocide, which redirects to the 2002 Godhra riots where both Hindus and Muslims were victims, are okay for wikipedia)

Some users believe "Genocide in Kashmir" should not redirect to Genocide of Kashmiri Hindus, but to an article about alleged human rights abuses by the Indian army in their "war against terrorism" in Kashmir [4] ^[archive] One user said redirecting "Genocide in Kashmir" to "Genocide of Kashmiri Hindus" would smack of WP:RECENTISM, and says it is basically a revisionist project where you magnify the sufferings of one select group of people, and downplay the rest.

Censorship by blocking and banning Hindu editors

A form of censorship is the bullying and banning of users with different views.

This is a bullying tactic that is often seen on wikipedia especially in India topics where users are banned for their views without going through a fair process. Users who specialize in this bullying include admins ^[archive] and users like Winged Blades of Godric, Darkness Shines,... and their admin friends ^[archive], Bishonen, Sandstein...

India is also under the special ARB rules which allows even faster banning than other areas.

Many editors are also driven away simply because of the massive bullying, see for example this user, who wrote : "Perhaps you would like to clean up the whole internet? I deeply regret ever donating money and time to Wikipedia" ^[archive]

Blocking editors because of their (alleged) political or religious views

If an admin would block an Islamist because of their Islamism, it would usually result in uproar of claims of Islamophobia.

As another comparison, Trump supporters and Republicans are not banned as editors on wikipedia (there are some admins that have said that Trump supporters should not be allowed to be admins ^[archive]).

But when it comes to Indian politics, wikipedia admins seem to believe that Narendra Modi voters, BJP supporters or Hindutva leaning editors should be banned and blocked.

But Hindu editors are routinely blocked and banned because of their (alleged and misrepresented) political and religious views and opinions.

For example, in the process for the banning of the editor LearnIndology, the editor was attacked because he (allegedly) holds "pro-Hindutva" views [5] ^[archive]

Proposal I request that ^[archive] these editors examine CJS's history ^[archive], and if there is evidence of POV promotion I propose that the user be topic banned from South Asia-related articles broadly construed. In my own view, born of a 17-year-long intuition on Wikipedia. they are very cautiously, but doggedly, promoting the Hindu nationalist POV on Wikipedia's controversial pages. [6] ^[archive]

Wrongly accusing of sockpuppetry and checkuser abuse

One tactic is to make baseless wrong accusations of sockpuppetry. Sometimes this harassment even works and editors are wrongly blocked because the admin believes the accusations.

There are claims that there is a wiki where checkuser may track information on SPI cases ^[archive] which is against the privacy policy. Another claim is that some CU maintain a personal vault of data ^[archive], which is again, against the privacy policy. It is claimed some CU are known to engage in fishing routinely ^[archive]; fishing means checking CU data without proper justification as mentioned in terms of usage.

However Wikipedia also permits to operate multiple accounts on Wikipedia ^[archive] under some conditions.

Checkusers are listed here [7] ^[archive].

Wrongly accusing of meatpuppetry

Another harassment is to wrongly accuse editors of meatpuppetry. It has been observed that sudden appearance of new editors ^[archive] with little or no editing history in the same discussion is treated very suspiciously ^[archive]. In fact, it is often the case that such users are treated as sock puppet for the purpose of enforcement of any blocks. It is impolite to accuse some one to be a meat puppet of another user ^[archive]. Unless you see a deception being played out there is no reason to hurl such accusations.

Censorship by page protection

“

No longer is Wikipedia a purely publicly sourced platform, as was proved during the Delhi Riots fiasco where the page was locked and people’s counters were dismissed with derision.

”

— OpIndia^[15]

Page protection is another tool used for censorship. After ensuring an article is thoroughly biased it is protected from editing by new users. Users who specialize in this tactic include this admin ^[archive], who advocates even automatic protection of vast swathes of India- and Politics- related articles to prevent new or dissenting users to edit.

Another policy use by Wikipedia (since December 1, 2012^[16]) has been using a system of "page protection" which will prevent the above technique from working. Particularly sensitive pages may be assigned a "protection level", illustrated by the icon shown right, which prevents unregistered or new users from changing them - thus preventing their contribution being reflected in the page history, as it is likely to be rejected by an editor versed in the Template:On. ^[17]

While some gaps in Wikipedia represent a mere failure to input information - echoing gaps in the public record, others result from active censorship. Wikipedia's system of page protection (i.e. actual prevention of edits) is usually dispensed only to the most sensitive issues, but many page histories show an active policy of censorship. Wikipedia's "notability" guidelines effectively mean that anyone who has been blacklisted by commercially controlled media will be therefore deemed "non-notable" and is subject to automatic removal from Wikipedia as a result.^[18]

OpIndia reported that the article on North East Delhi riots has been made semi-protected, which means only confirmed registered users can make edits to it. ^[19]^[20]

The Love Jihad article has also been locked to prevent new and objective editors from making corrections to the biased page.^[21]

Examples of protected articles on wikipedia

Here are some admins who often protect India-related articles: [8] ^[archive]

The following are some of the wikipedia admins who often protect articles after requested doing so by pov pushers who want to censor the article.

regentspark ^[archive]

Censorship by blocking the talkpage

Even the talk page is not exempted from censorship by page block. This effectually censors even the talkpage and any discussion about the article.

Examples:

Censorship by revision delete

Since Summer 2006, Wikipedia has had a "Revision delete" (a.k.a. "suppression" or "oversight") facility ^[archive] which allows a small number of administrators ^[archive] (i.e. 52 as of February 2018, reduced to 41 as of August 2019) to make the content of edits inaccessible for ordinary users, editors and other administrators alike. The explanation of this, as of February 2018 was that the "Wikimedia Foundation may have to delete, protect, blank a page or take other actions without going through the normal site/community process(es) to do so. These changes may be temporary or permanent measures to prevent legal trouble or personal harm and should not be undone by any user."^[22] Since the dates of revisions are available, one way to try to get round it is to look at the internet archive, which might have a copy of the censored edits. Another sensible move is to pay particular attention to other edits made by the user(s) whose edits have been censored in this way.^[23]

Admins with the oversighter tool are listed here [10] ^[archive], those active in India related articles include : [11] ^[archive] [12] ^[archive] [13] ^[archive]

Computerra Magazine: “Participants in the discussion were able to prove from the records of Wikipedia that certain administrators, contrary to their own rules, had completely removed editing evidence. Jimmy Wales had to admit that yes, this is sometimes done.”^[24]

All wikipedia admins can hide content in the article history from the public (other admins may still be able to restore and see the hidden content). See for example here an admin doing "normal" deletions [14] ^[archive]. The difference is that oversighters can delete content from the article history for everybody, including from other admins, and it cannot be restored.

Censorship on the wikipedia Main page

Some users advocate that special rules should be made for India related topics. Before such topics can be published on the wikipedia main page, they should require the explicit approval of the anti-Hindu cabal. One user says "A case is to be made for why all DYKs related to Indian history/politics shall be advertised on WT:INB before passing to main page."^[25]

Censorship on wikipedia talk and discussion pages

Even talk page comments and discussions are censored on wikipedia.

Here is one example of censoring talkpage comments ^[archive] (that was reverted, but a lot of times the censorship does not get reverted).

Censorship of images

Deletion of image that shows Islamic gender segregation because the picture "can easily be interpreted to be both insulting to Kashmiri women and to Islam in a Hindu majoritarian country" ^[archive], when the picture has nothing to do with Hindus. (also [15] ^[archive]) (The same user who censors everything related to Islamic violence against women, in another article, attacks Hindus claiming they are responsible for child marriage and violence against women[16] ^[archive][17] ^[archive])

Double standards

Hindus or Hinduism is criticized on wikipedia in lengthy sections. When Hindus are criticizing anti-Hindu persons or institutions, then it is claimed that this represents an "attack on academic freedom" that should be censored ^[archive]. See also articles on Wendy Doniger, Audrey Truschke, California textbook controversy, Sheldon Pollock,...

External links

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[1] ttps://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1301340344760578048 ^[archive]

[2] ttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Censorship ^[archive]

[3] ttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Censorship ^[archive]

[4] ttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4280502/Anonymous-Wikipedia-activists-promote-warped-agenda.html ^[archive]

[5] ttps://tfipost.com/2020/06/tfipost-opindia-and-swarajya-the-3-top-rw-portals-are-in-wikipedia-blacklist-but-quints-and-wires-arent/ ^[archive]

[6] ttps://tfipost.com/2020/06/tfipost-opindia-and-swarajya-the-3-top-rw-portals-are-in-wikipedia-blacklist-but-quints-and-wires-arent/ ^[archive]

[7] ttps://twitter.com/GKChesterton000/status/1690782556147564545 ^[archive]

[8] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Urdu&diff=980051221&oldid=980031134 ^[archive]

[9] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Urdu&diff=979961781&oldid=979961445 ^[archive]

[10] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Urdu&diff=978032781&oldid=978030941 ^[archive]

[11] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20220120043658/https://wildhunt.org/2013/05/anti-pagan-wikipedia-editor-outed-by-salon-com.html ^[archive]

[12] ttps://www.hinduhumanrights.info/hindus-for-human-rights-stole-hhr-google-knowledge-panel/ ^[archive]

[13] ttps://www.integralworld.net/kazlev15.html ^[archive]

[14] ttps://www.opindia.com/2020/06/wikipedia-opindia-crusade-left-bias-wiki-editors-negative-all-you-need-to-know/ ^[archive]

[15] ttps://www.opindia.com/2020/11/caravan-magazine-questions-opindia-wikipedia-coverage-full-response/ ^[archive]

[16] ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pending_changes#Frequently_asked_questions ^[archive]

[17] ttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Censorship ^[archive]

[18] ttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Problems ^[archive]

[19] ttps://www.opindia.com/2020/02/delhi-riots-wikipedia-article-biased-anti-hindu/ ^[archive]

[20] ttps://www.opindia.com/2020/03/delhi-anti-hindu-riots-wikipedia-bias-edits-dbigxray-investigation/ ^[archive]

[21] ttps://www.opindia.com/2021/06/wikipedia-dismisses-love-jihad-as-a-conspiracy-theory-by-hindus/ ^[archive]

[22] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Office_actions&action=history ^[archive]

[23] ttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia/Censorship ^[archive]

[24] ttps://inteltoday.org/2018/06/02/wikipedia-the-spooks-the-remake-update-philip-cross-identified/ ^[archive]

[25] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/New_Medina ^[archive]

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Censorship on wikipedia

Contents

Systemic censorship

Censorship of Article content

Censoring sources

Censoring and blacklisting media houses

Indians are not allowed

Censorship by deleting Articles

Examples of Articles nominated for deletion

Some examples of deletions by redirecting

Some examples of deletions by "prodding" or by speedy deletion

Censorship of bibliographies and further reading sections

Censorship of External links (and of redirects, categories and see also links)

Censorship by blocking and banning Hindu editors

Blocking editors because of their (alleged) political or religious views

Wrongly accusing of sockpuppetry and checkuser abuse

Wrongly accusing of meatpuppetry

Censorship by page protection

Censorship by blocking the talkpage

Censorship by revision delete

Censorship on the wikipedia Main page

Censorship on wikipedia talk and discussion pages

Censorship of images

Double standards

See also

External links

Navigation menu

Censorship on wikipedia

Systemic censorship

Censorship of Article content

Censoring sources

Censoring and blacklisting media houses

Indians are not allowed

Censorship by deleting Articles

Examples of Articles nominated for deletion

Some examples of deletions by redirecting

Some examples of deletions by "prodding" or by speedy deletion

Censorship of bibliographies and further reading sections

Censorship of External links (and of redirects, categories and see also links)

Censorship by blocking and banning Hindu editors

Blocking editors because of their (alleged) political or religious views

Wrongly accusing of sockpuppetry and checkuser abuse

Wrongly accusing of meatpuppetry

Censorship by page protection

Censorship by blocking the talkpage

Censorship by revision delete

Censorship on the wikipedia Main page

Censorship on wikipedia talk and discussion pages

Censorship of images

Double standards

See also

External links

Navigation menu

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