Feeding biased narratives into Google
How Wikipedia’s New Israel Listing Is Rewriting the Internet, Even If You Never Use Wikipedia
For Jewish readers, this isn't just an academic concern; it's a direct assault on our historical narrative, with far-reaching consequences that touch everyone, even those who never visit the site.
In a recent episode of his podcast "Ask Haviv Anything," Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur sat down with researcher Ashley Rindsberg to unpack a troubling trend: Wikipedia, the world's go-to online encyclopedia, has allegedly been co-opted by a tight-knit group of editors pushing an antisemitic agenda. What they describe as a "gang of 40," a cluster of about three dozen individuals working in coordinated small teams, has systematically reshaped articles on Zionism, Israel, Judaism, and Palestine.
The podcast, broken into reels shared on Instagram, paints a stark picture. These editors, often evading detection by operating in pairs or trios, have manipulated content to downplay deep Jewish historical and biblical connections to the Land of Israel. For instance, they've stripped away references to Talmudic history from relevant pages, severed the biblical context of the Jewish people's ties to the land, and presented a one-sided, anti-Zionist view as the only lens through which to understand Zionism.
As Gur notes in the reel, "You cannot learn the Jewish Zionist understanding of Zionism from Wikipedia... If you go to Wikipedia, you will only learn one very narrow ideological explanation by non-Zionists and anti-Zionists." The distortions don't stop there. Rindsberg highlights how these changes whitewash human rights abuses by regimes and groups like Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah,removing mentions of terror attacks or atrocities wholesale from dozens of articles.
A surge in "revenge editing" followed the October 7, 2023, attacks, with thousands of biased alterations to pages like the Nakba, and even controversial listings placing Israel alongside authoritarian states. One editor openly displays a user box declaring support for "his ballet," likely a garbled reference to Hezbollah in the transcript.While this "antisemitic bent" directly erodes accurate representations of Jewish history and Israel's story, its impact extends far beyond Wikipedia's pages.
As the third-largest website globally, Wikipedia serves as the unseen foundation of the digital information ecosystem. Content from its articles flows directly into Google searches, appearing at the top of results, in knowledge panels, and AI-generated summaries. Imagine querying "Zionism" on Google: The snippet you see often pulls straight from Wikipedia's skewed version, subtly shaping perceptions for billions without a single click on the encyclopedia itself.This ripple effect intensifies with artificial intelligence. Large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and even voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri draw heavily from Wikipedia for their responses.
As Rindsberg explains, "You might not go to Wikipedia, but Wikipedia comes to you... through the AIs, the LLMs." A student researching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War or a policymaker seeking quick facts could unknowingly absorb a narrative that omits Zionist perspectives or softens depictions of anti-Israel actors. With Wikipedia's direct traffic dipping 8% recently, largely because people rely on these integrated summaries, the biases embed themselves deeper into everyday knowledge.
For the Jewish community, this is particularly alarming. It normalizes a worldview that diminishes our resilience, from the millions saved by Zionism in the 20th century to our ancient roots in the land. But Gur warns it's bigger than Israel: "If they can hijack it on our issue, then there isn't a controversial issue where it can't be hijacked." The same tactics could warp entries on climate change, elections, or public health, eroding trust in shared facts across society.
As AI reshapes how we learn and decide, these distortions perpetuate misinformation at scale, influencing education, media, and even diplomacy. The podcast calls for urgent reforms, better oversight of edits, restoring neutral versions, banning repeat offenders, or even shutting down compromised sections. Without action, even those indifferent to Jewish issues risk a world where "established facts" are quietly rewritten, one biased entry at a time.