Russia Poisons Wikipedia

wheelerwj

This is the shit LLMs are trained on.

fortran77

Wikipedia is full of various large disinformation campaigns. Not just Russia, but Iran, Qatar, North Korea, etc. Unless I'm looking at the history of DB-9 connectors or early Simpsons episode summaries, etc, it's not a reliable source.

recursivedoubts

Thank goodness my government would never stoop to such levels.

the-mitr

A long list of controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedia_controversie...

justin66

That half these comments are whataboutism related is disappointing but unsurprising.

pet_the_bird

I think the article tried to refer to this link https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10663 As I understand from scanning the paper, the authors attempt to determine differences between the Russian wikipedia articles and the articles on the Russian fork. They show that articles on the fork that were that differ from RU wikipedia have a significantly higher number of edits on RU wikipedia. The authors suggest that these may be signs of manipulations, however, it may not have affected the quality negatively (as stated in the discussion). I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.

regularization

Look back to the earliest version of the history and information of various countries on Wikipedia. They say themselves they were from US State department or CIA histories of those countries. I was editing a page on the US massacre of civilians in No Gun Ri, Korea with some IP at CENTCOM removing my edits. I spend my off tine trying to send in facts of what happened, my taxes from my on time pay for some propaganda arm of the US armed forces to remove it. As the US kidnaps the president of Venezuela and his wife, blockades Cuba, bombs Iran and on and on, great to know someone else is smearing Russia to further my tax dollars funding the endless war on their borders too.

delichon

Wikipedia should be more like Github, such that topics can be forked ad hoc, and we can get a truly diverse set of viewpoints on everything. Then auto-generate a summary page that highlights the agreements and disagreements. Or someone else should do it. If you build it I will come.

Isamu

Genuinely interesting strategy, the term “poison” should really apply more to AI that depend on Wikipedia for training >This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.

jampekka

I don't doubt this happens, but given all the wolf crying about clandestine Russian operations, it's hard to assess what the scale and influence of these are. Especially as this is based on an analysis by Atlantic Council, which is essentially a NATO think tank. This will probably read to many as me being a useful idiot for Putin or something. And maybe I am, hard to say definitely.

Bender

Every site that can be random-user-edited or allow comments are infested with shills, grifters, astroturfers, scammers, spammers, propagandists within minutes. This only increases as the site gains popularity. What each site turns into depends on how it was engineered, how it is moderated and actively managed it is. To me personally I think that Wikipedia may have been purpose designed to let this happen or it would have stopped happening a long time ago. I am certain everyone here could each think of a dozen ways to minimize this behavior. Just as one example if it were up to me the edited version invisible until a panel of moderators gives the edit a +1. If a sub-set of moderators give it a +2 (override) everyone can see who did that. Moderators would have to show real names and their country of origin and current country of residence. A watchdog group must be able to vote out moderators. If users try to overwhelm the moderators then they get perma-banned. I would probably not allow edits from wireless devices. Edits must be treated like changes to the Linux kernel and I want the original abrasive version of Linus back for this but that's just my personal preference.

loweritnow

Ehh, Wikipedia is already poisoned already

Teever

I’ve been watching people in /r/balticstates talk about how Russia has been actively changing the birth places of Estonian officials to say Russia instead of occupied Estonia. https://united24media.com/latest-news/pro-russian-narratives... https://news.err.ee/1609903256/estonian-volunteers-strugglin... It’s rather devious

empressplay

Disinformation isn't about convincing you that something is true; it's about convincing you that nothing is true. If information is considered to be unreliable, you are less likely to act on it decisively.

Applejinx

You would think they'd run out of money. They are, but clearly this sort of thing is economical, especially in the age of AI: you don't even need banks of cellphones on little stands anymore, that was years ago. Technology evolves. The interesting part is not that this is happening, but the means and extent to which it happens. Who expects Wikipedia to be more resilient than, say, network television?

nashashmi

Can someone do another research article of similar nature for Wikipedia articles in any way related to Israel? There is a similar disinformation campaign happening there.

cbondurant

What an interesting article that definitely isn't pulling incredibly obvious red scare tactics. I'd be quite interested to know what damn article it was that was apparently so out of touch with reality that it left this author reeling in shock and horror. Perhaps they neglected to mention what Wikipedia article it was, because they knew that if people were able to visit the page, look through its edit history, and inspect the content of its talk page, they would be able to come to their own conclusion that the author's claims are overstated, sensationalist fearmongering? In a time where the US federal government is trying its hardest to undermine the freedoms of its own people, I find any accusations of foreign actors to be laughable. You know its funny, I think I'm less worried about people on the other side of the planet stealing my personal data and trying to influence the way I think than I am about the people in the same country as me. Since, you know, not only would it be easier for them to, since we are in the same country, but also they stand to gain a lot more from it as well!

demek2016

ITT: Western useful idiots out in full force.

giardini

Well, back to Britanica!

piokoch

Well, not only Russia, there is a number of other countries that also do this. So don't count on wikipedia on any topic that might be politically difficult for someone.