Comment by emacsen
17 hours ago
Aren't you making their point though?
The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.
I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.
All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world population.
While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to materialize that truth.
To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to address its bias problem and that's best done through internal reform.
Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of equal weight.
[1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.
I agree 100%. It's exhausting fighting against antisemitic bias, and it feels like it's everywhere these days. My problem with Ed Martin is that what he is doing is clearly wrong. Hannah Arendt wrote a book about people like him.
At a time when students are having their visas revoked merely for writing Op-Eds critical of Israel, it's rather ridiculous to see the pro-Israel side acting like you're the ones being persecuted everywhere.
Since when do two wrongs make a right?
The fact that my comment is -2 on HN is a great example of the problem.
I'm working on a solution to the effects of this isolation, but it's not ready for a big announcement.
Could one of you point me to antisemitic bias on wikipedia just so I have a concrete example at hand?
Basically, almost any time Zionists are mentioned, they're mentioned in a negative light and with genuine disinformation, such as that Zionism is the belief that Arabs needs to be destroyed. That is like saying the Civil Rights movement in the US was about killing white people.
They also position things in such a way that implies antisemitic things, such as saying that Zionism is only 200 years old, or discussing the Israel wars only or primarily through an Arab lens.
These biases around Jewish topics are small individually but large in aggregate, especially in how they present Jews and Jewish topics.
Multiple Jewish and civil rights organizations have done a more comprehensive job at discussing this, even organizations who don't usually agree on things. While they talk about "anti-Israel bias" Wikipedia articles on or mentioning Zionism (80% of Jews are Zionist) are IMHO just as, if not more damaging, and demonstrate the issue.
Most importantly though, talk to the Jews in your life about this. They will tell you.
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/wikipedia-entrie...
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-846563
https://cameraoncampus.org/blog/seven-tactics-wikipedia-edit...
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...
https://www.standwithus.com/post/it-s-time-to-correct-wikipe...
https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit...
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https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...
Read it for yourself.
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Anti semitism or anti Zionist? Asking as the ADL doesn't seem to understand that there's a difference.
This is the same ADL that said that Nazi salutes are fine, but that protesting against genocide isn't? Why do we care what the ADL says about anything? They're fascist sympathisers.
It was not remotely okay that they did this, and I agree that refusing to speak out severely hurt their credibility. The next time I get a fundraising email, I'm going to tell them they can kiss something.
Demanding moral perfection from an organization in order to believe that discrimination exists is a standard that I don't believe is fair to any group.
I don't demand "moral perfection", but I draw the line at overt fascism. The ADL are fascist sympathisers.
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Could you point me to an example of what you have in mind on wikipedia? I'm admittedly not as practiced at discerning subtle antisemitism as I am some other forms of discrimination. But also usually when it's being alluded to in the abstract like this people mean something closer to "criticism of israel's actions."
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...
I didn't read that because the person asked for an example and you directed them to a 150 printed page article where you didn't specify which page(s)
This is the equivalent of stating that dinosaurs evolved into birds then when asked for one piece of evidence directing a person to a book, by another author, on how dinosaurs evolved into birds
OK yeah I've read that. Thanks.