“Imagine a world in which all people have free access to all available knowledge. That's what we're doing,” says Jimmy Donal Wales, one of the founders of the free online encyclopedia read by billions of people, better known as Wikipedia.
On any given topic, Wikipedia is often the first and most easily accessible source of information available to us. The same applies to our students, if they are interested in reading more about topics they are exposed to in class. The platform, created in 2001, currently offers 61 million articles in more than 300 languages; just last month there were 116,233 contributors. The ease with which new articles can be added on any topic and then edited serves to democratize knowledge, because it allows everyone access to content that transcends the borders of its place of production. However, the existing biases in societies are often reflected in the final product, and the consequences of this can be misinformation and distortions, and even anti-Semitism. This is the conclusion of recent research by professors Jan Grabowski, from the University of Ottawa, and Shira Klein, a historian from Chapman University in California, in their article, "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust".
Published in February this year, the study looked at Wikipedia's portrayal of the Holocaust in the Polish context, finding that, over the past decade, a group of editors of the English-language Wikipedia (the most widely-read version) have promoted a "skewed version of history" aligned with the ideology of right-wing Polish nationalists. This narrative downplays the role of Polish society in the Holocaust, emphasizes complicity of Jews with the Nazis, and promotes negative stereotypes and fallacies about the Jewish community. The aim of Grabowski and Klein is to contribute to the memory of the Holocaust "by revealing the digital mechanisms by which ideological fervor, prejudice and bias triumph over reason and historical accuracy."
Through the analysis of 25 articles and almost 300 Wikipedia pages, including discussion areas, field interviews with editors, and statistical data from the platform, the researchers discovered that the group in question made use of questionable sources of information - such as the websites of fringe historians, rather than internationally recognized research studies – concerning events in Poland. On the basis of these sources they then wrote factually distorted articles and amended existing ones. Although no connection to the government or any official authority in Poland was found, the researchers cite a leaked email from 2018 (in the context of a law passed in Poland prohibiting the linking of the country to crimes during the Holocaust) in which Polish officials indicate their awareness of Wikipedia's influence on public discourse and its impact on shaping memory.
The power of sources
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Shira Klein maintains that the objective of the denialist groups was to steer readers away from mainstream research and lend exposure to marginal points of view, abusing the fact that "the Wikipedia community does not know the difference between one and the other." Furthermore, she affirms that the impact of these distortions and falsifications is alarming, because these Wikipedia articles are being read by tens of thousands of people every month. In an article she wrote for the Forward site, Klein adds that Wikipedia's policy of allowing moderators to control editors' behavior, but not the content itself (because anyone can be a moderator, but not everyone is an expert in any subject) “leaves a huge hole in the security apparatus” because when an area is dominated by a group of people who are selective in their use of facts and studies with the aim of promoting an inaccurate picture of the research, “misinformation becomes consensus.” The researcher suggests that the Wikimedia Foundation (the main source of funding for the site) should intervene in this case and include reviews by recognized historians for the articles in question.
At a time when conspiracy theories concerning climate change, a New World Order, the shape of the planet Earth, the effectiveness of vaccines, and even the sinking of the Titanic – all supported by audiovisual material - gain prominence on social networks and digital media, our role as educators, in our institutions and in our communities, requires us to be critical of massive information sources, such as Wikipedia or even ChatGPT, by means of which biased content can intentionally or unintentionally be widely disseminated and amplified. It is essential to familiarize ourselves with the tools, to regard what we read with a critical eye, to compare different sources of information and to consult with a variety of scholars and/or institutions where doubts or incompatible data arise. We at Melton Center believe that as Jewish educators it is necessary for us to reflect on the study and its findings to better promote Holocaust education and combat denial. At the same time, we invite teachers and education professionals to use this opportunity to strengthen their critical thinking and constant questioning of what they see and read.
Sources
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939?scrol...
https://forward.com/opinion/550600/wikipedia-holocaust-disinformation/
https://forward.com/opinion/552514/to-fix-wikipedias-holocaust-denial-we...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-02-14/ty-article-magazine/.prem... -af9e-cfffa9900000
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-10-04/ty-article-magazine/.prem... -d568-ad7f-f36f77000000