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Conflict-of-interest (COI) editing on Wikipedia occurs when editors use Wikipedia to advance the interests of their external roles or relationships. The type of COI editing of most concern on Wikipedia is paid editing for public relations (PR) purposes. Several Wikipedia policies and guidelines exist to combat
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
editing, including Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. Controversies reported by the media include United States congressional staff editing articles about members of Congress in 2006; Microsoft offering a software engineer money to edit articles on competing code standards in 2007; the PR firm Bell Pottinger editing articles about its clients in 2011; and the discovery in 2012 that British MPs or their staff had removed criticism from articles about those MPs. The media has also written about COI editing by BP, the Central Intelligence Agency, Diebold,
Portland Communications Portland Communications is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Director of Communications at BSkyB. In 2012 a majority stake in Portland was purchased by Omnicom. ...
, Sony, the Vatican, and several others. In 2012, Wikipedia launched one of its largest sockpuppet investigations, when editors reported suspicious activity suggesting 250 accounts had been used to engage in paid editing. Wikipedia traced the edits to a firm known as
Wiki-PR Wiki-PR is a consulting firm that formerly marketed the ability to edit Wikipedia by "...directly edit ngyour page using our network of established Wikipedia editors and admin . It received media attention in 2013 after a sockpuppet investiga ...
and the accounts were banned. 2015's
Operation Orangemoody On August 31, 2015, the English Wikipedia community discovered 381 sockpuppet accounts operating an undisclosed paid editing ring. Participants in the ring extorted money from mid-sized businesses who had articles about themselves rejected by th ...
uncovered another paid-editing scam, in which over 380 accounts were used to extort money from businesses to create and ostensibly protect promotional articles about them.


Wikipedia on conflict-of-interest editing

Wikipedia is edited by volunteer contributors. The
conflict-of-interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
Wikipedia guideline is a "generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow". This guideline ''strongly discourages'' COI editing and advises those with a financial conflict of interest, including paid editors, to refrain from direct article editing. The paid-contribution-disclosure policy, which has legal ramifications, ''requires'' that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation" with respect to any contribution for which they are paid, including talk-page contributions. On October 21, 2013,
Sue Gardner Sue Gardner (born May 11, 1967) is a Canadian journalist, not-for-profit executive and business executive. She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December 2007 until May 2014, and before that was the director of the Can ...
, then-executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, condemned paid editing for promotional purposes. The law firm
Cooley LLP Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life s ...
, in a
cease and desist letter A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not disc ...
to
Wiki-PR Wiki-PR is a consulting firm that formerly marketed the ability to edit Wikipedia by "...directly edit ngyour page using our network of established Wikipedia editors and admin . It received media attention in 2013 after a sockpuppet investiga ...
, wrote that "this practice violates the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use, including but not limited to Section 4, which prohibits users from 'engaging in false statements, impersonation, or fraud', and '...misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive'". In 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation updated their terms of use to require that editors disclose their "employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which heyreceive, or expect to receive, compensation".


Laws against covert advertising


United States Federal Trade Commission

The
Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
has published a guide to its regulations to implement federal law concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising at ''Endorsement Guidelines'' and ''Dot Com Disclosures''.


European fair trading law

In May 2012, the Munich
Oberlandesgericht An ''Oberlandesgericht'' (plural – ''Oberlandesgerichte''; OLG, en, Higher Regional Court, or in Berlin ''Kammergericht'': KG) is a higher court in Germany. There are 24 OLGs in Germany and they deal with civil and criminal matters. They ar ...
court confirmed a ruling against a company which edited Wikipedia articles with the aim of influencing customers. It viewed the edits as undeclared commercial practice according to ''The Act against unfair Competition'' Section 4, 3 as it constituted covert advertising, and as such were a violation of European fair trading law (see the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive). The ruling stated that readers cannot be expected to seek out user and talk pages to find editors' disclosures about their corporate affiliation. The case arose out of a claim against a company by a competitor over edits made to the article Weihrauchpräparat on the German Wikipedia. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK reached a similar decision in June 2012 in relation to material about Nike on Twitter. The ASA found that the content of certain tweets from two footballers had been "agreed with the help of a member of the Nike marketing team." The tweets were not clearly identified as Nike marketing communications, and were therefore in breach of the ASA's code.


Incidents


2000s


Jimmy Wales

In December 2005, it was found that Wikipedia co-founder
Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
had edited his own Wikipedia entry. According to public logs, he has edited his biography 19 times, as of 9 September 2013, seven times altering information about whether Larry Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia. It was also revealed that Wales had edited the Wikipedia article of his former company, Bomis. "Bomis Babes", a section of the Bomis website, had been characterized in the article as "
soft-core pornography Softcore pornography or softcore porn, is commercial still photography or film that has a pornographic or erotic component but is less sexually graphic and intrusive than hardcore pornography, defined by a lack of visual sexual penetration. Softc ...
", but Wales revised this to "adult content section" and deleted mentions of pornography. He said he was fixing an error, and did not agree with calling Bomis Babes soft porn. Wales conceded that he had made the changes, but maintained that they were technical corrections.


MyWikiBiz

In August 2006, Gregory Kohs, a market researcher from Pennsylvania, founded MyWikiBiz, a company offering to write inexpensive Wikipedia entries for businesses. * In January 2007, Kohs said that in his view Wikipedia's coverage of major corporations was deficient, stating that "It is strange that a minor Pokémon character will get a 1,200-word article, but a Fortune 500 company will get ... maybe 100 words". A few days after issuing a press release about his business, Kohs' Wikipedia account was blocked. Kohs later recalled a phone call with Jimmy Wales who told him MyWikiBiz was "antithetical" to the mission of the encyclopedia. Kohs said it surprised him that PR agencies were discouraged from editing articles: "There are around 130 'Fortune 1,000' companies absent from Wikipedia's pages ... How could they not benefit from a little PR help?"


Microsoft

In January 2007, Australian software engineer Rick Jelliffe revealed that Microsoft had offered to pay him to edit Wikipedia articles on two competing code standards,
OpenDocumentFormat The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed ...
and
Microsoft Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial versio ...
. Jelliffe, who described himself as a technical expert and not an advocate for Microsoft, said he accepted the offer because he wanted the information on technical standards to be accurate. Microsoft subsequently confirmed that it had offered to pay Jelliffe to edit the articles, stating that they were seeking "more balance" in the entries, that articles contained inaccuracies, that prior efforts to get attention from Wikipedia volunteers had failed, and that Microsoft had agreed that the company would not review Jelliffe's suggested changes. Microsoft also said they had not previously hired anyone to edit Wikipedia. Heated debate resulted after the revelation over whether such practices called Wikipedia's credibility into question. In response to the incident, Jimmy Wales said paying for edits to Wikipedia was against the encyclopedia's spirit. Wales said the better, more transparent choice would have been for Microsoft to produce a white paper on the subject, post it online, and link to it from Wikipedia. He also stated "Although agencies and employees should not edit our pages, they do – but perhaps less than you would expect." Volunteer Wikipedia spokesperson David Gerard said, " ikipediatends not to look favorably in terms of conflict of interest, and paying someone is a conflict." Gerard added that public relations representatives commonly get blocked from editing by Wikipedia administrators. In the same month that had seen conflict of interest issues raised by both Microsoft and MyWikiBiz, Wales stated that editors should not be paid to edit, and PR agencies would be banned if they persisted.


WikiScanner

In 2007, Virgil Griffith created a searchable database that linked changes made by anonymous Wikipedia editors to companies and organizations from which the changes were made. The database cross-referenced logs of Wikipedia edits with publicly available records pertaining to the internet IP addresses edits were made from. Most of the edits WikiScanner found were minor or harmless, but further analysis detected more controversial and embarrassing instances of conflict of interest edits. These instances received media coverage worldwide. Included among the accused were the Vatican, the
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
, the US Democratic Party's Congressional Campaign Committee, the US Republican Party, Britain's Labour Party, Britain's
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
, the Canadian government,
Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; french: Innovation, Sciences et Développement économique Canada; french: ISDE, label=none)''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal I ...
, the Department of Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Defence in Australia, the United Nations, the US Senate, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US
Environmental Protection Agency A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...
, Montana Senator
Conrad Burns Conrad Ray Burns (January 25, 1935 – April 28, 2016) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Montana and later was a lobbyist. He was only the second Republican popularly elected to represent Montana in the Senate ...
, Ohio Governor Bob Taft, the
Israeli government The Cabinet of Israel (officially: he, ממשלת ישראל ''Memshelet Yisrael'') exercises executive authority in the State of Israel. It consists of ministers who are chosen and led by the prime minister. The composition of the governmen ...
,
Exxon Mobil ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
, Walmart, AstraZeneca, Diebold,
Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastics ...
, Disney,
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
, Anheuser-Busch, Nestlé, Pepsi, Boeing, Sony Computer Entertainment, EA, SCO Group, MySpace, Pfizer, Raytheon,
DuPont DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
, Anglican and Catholic churches, the
Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...
, the
World Harvest Church World Harvest Church is an nondenominational, evangelical megachurch pastored by Rod Parsley, based in Columbus, Ohio. History First started in 1977 in Rod Parsley's parents' backyard, the church consisted of 17 people. Two years later Parsley b ...
,
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
, the
Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
, Fox News, CBS, '' The Washington Post'', the
National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...
,
News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...
,
Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
, Bob Jones University, and Ohio State University. Although the edits correlated with known IP addresses, there was no proof that the changes actually came from a member of the organization or employee of the company, only that someone had access to their network. Wikipedia spokespersons received WikiScanner positively, noting that it helped prevent conflicts of interest from influencing articles as well as increasing transparency and mitigating attempts to remove or distort relevant facts.


Church of Scientology

In 2008, a long-running dispute between members of the
Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...
and Wikipedia editors reached Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee. The church members were accused of attempting to sway articles in the church's interest, while other editors were accused of the opposite. The arbitration committee unanimously voted to block all edits from the IP addresses associated with the church; several Scientology critics were also banned.


2010s


Koch brothers' use of PR firm

In 2010, Koch Industries began employing
New Media Strategies New Media Strategies (NMS) was a social media agency headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company was founded in 1999 by Pete Snyder, and as of 2011 has 120 employees. NMS is known as one of the first companies to strictly focus on social me ...
(NMS), an internet PR firm specializing in "word-of-mouth marketing". Shortly afterwards, it was discovered that employees of the company, editing from IPs controlled by NMS, were editing the Wikipedia articles for Charles Koch, David Koch, Political activities of the Koch brothers, and ''
The Science of Success ''The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company'' is a book written by Charles Koch in which he delineates his philosophy of Market Based Management (MBM). Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, Inc., wrot ...
'' (a book written by Charles). Under numerous usernames, NMS employees edited Wikipedia articles "to distance the Koch family from the Tea Party movement, to provide baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros, and to generally delete citations to liberal news outlets." These activities were exposed at Wikipedia and described in the press. A large group of editors who were editing from NMS IPs became the subject of a sockpuppet investigation, were blocked, and later unblocked. Sockpuppet investigations/MBMadmirer


London-based "PR fixer"

In June 2011, ''PR Week'' reported on a "fixer", a known but unnamed London-based figure in the PR industry, who offered services to "cleanse" articles. Wikipedia entries this person was accused of changing included Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, Von Essen Group chairman Andrew Davis, British property developer David Rowland, billionaire Saudi tycoon
Maan Al-Sanea Maan Abdul Wahed Al-Sanea (born 1955, Khobar, Saudi Arabia) is a Saudi businessman of Kuwaiti origin. In 1980, he founded the Saad Group, a conglomerate with operations in construction & engineering, real estate development, financial services ...
, and Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby. According to ''PR Week'', 42 edits were made from the same IP address, most of them removing negative or controversial information, or adding positive information.


Bell Pottinger

In December 2011, blogger Tim Ireland, ''The Independent'', and the British Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) discovered that Bell Pottinger, one of the UK's largest public relations companies, had manipulated articles on behalf of its clients. * Wikipedians discovered up to 19 accounts, 10 of which had over 100 edits each, which traced back to Bell Pottinger's offices; as a result of the investigation 10 of the accounts were blocked. Bell Pottinger was accused of using sock or meatpuppets to edit pages to create the appearance of support for changes in articles. One of the most noted accounts was registered under the name "" (an internal Wikipedia investigation resulted in several such cases). Bell Pottinger admitted that its employees had used several accounts, but said that the company had not done anything illegal. Analysis of the edits demonstrated that the changes had both added positive information and removed negative content, including the removal of information regarding the drug conviction of a businessman and Bell Pottinger client, and changing information about the arrest of a man convicted for
commercial bribery Commercial bribery is a form of bribery which involves corrupt dealing with the agents or employees of potential buyers to secure an advantage over business competitors. It is a form of corruption which does not necessarily involve government person ...
. Undercover BIJ reporters made inquiries while posing as members of the Uzbek government; Bell Pottinger told them that the company offered "sorting" of negative information and criticism on Wikipedia articles, as well as other "dark arts". Jimmy Wales called Bell Pottinger's actions "ethical blindness."
Timothy Bell Timothy John Leigh Bell, Baron Bell (18 October 1941 – 25 August 2019), was a British advertising and public relations executive, best known for his advisory role in Margaret Thatcher's three successful general election campaigns and his co ...
, the chairman, launched an internal review, but disagreed with Wales's view. He said, "You can destroy someone's reputation in one minute and it will take years to rebuild," and continued: "It's important for Wikipedia to recognise we are a valuable source for accurate information," and "apparently if you are not-for-profit what you say is true but that if you are a paid-for advocate you are lying." The head of digital at Bell Pottinger blamed the incident on Wikipedia's "confusing" editing system and "the pressure put on us by clients to remove potentially defamatory or libellous statements very quickly, because Wikipedia is so authoritative." In 2016, Bell Pottinger staff were reported to have edited Wikipedia articles relating to South African individuals and companies, while the agency was working for the
Gupta family The Gupta family is a wealthy Indian-born family with business interests in South Africa, whose most notable members are brothers Ajay, Atul, and Rajesh "Tony" Gupta—as well as Atul's nephews Varun, and US-based Ashish and Amol. The family ow ...
. Substantial editing of the Wikipedia page about the Guptas was also reported; a Bell Pottinger employee was said to have emailed much of the content to a Gupta account for it to be uploaded. In December 2016, South African billionaire Johann Rupert dropped Bell Pottinger as the PR agency of Richemont, accusing Bell Pottinger of running a social media campaign against him, to divert attention away from persistent '
state capture State capture is a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state's decision-making processes to their own advantage. The term was first used by the World Bank, around the year 2000, to describe ...
' allegations leveled at the Gupta family. In February 2017, Rupert alleged that Bell Pottinger had maliciously altered his Wikipedia page.


Portland Communications

In January 2012, British MP Tom Watson discovered that
Portland Communications Portland Communications is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Director of Communications at BSkyB. In 2012 a majority stake in Portland was purchased by Omnicom. ...
had been removing the nickname of one of its clients' products ("Wife Beater", referring to
Anheuser-Busch InBev Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, commonly known as AB InBev, is an American-Belgian multinational drink and brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium. AB InBev has a global functional management office in New York City, and regional headquarters ...
's Stella Artois beer) from Wikipedia. Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) CEO Jane Wilson noted, "Stella Artois is on the 'wife-beater' page because it is a nick-name in common currency for that brand of strong continental lager. The brand managers who want to change this have a wider reputational issue to address, editing the term from a Wikipedia page will not get rid of this association." Other edits from Portland's offices included changes to articles about another Portland client, the Kazakhstan's BTA Bank, and its former head
Mukhtar Ablyazov Mukhtar Qabyluly Ablyazov ( kk, Мұхтар Қабылұлы Әблязов, ''Muhtar Qabyluly Ábliazov''; born 16 May 1963) is a Kazakh businessman and political activist who served as chairman of Bank Turan Alem (BTA Bank), and is a co-fou ...
. Portland did not deny making the changes, arguing they had been done transparently and in accordance with Wikipedia's policies. Portland Communications welcomed CIPR's subsequent announcement of a collaboration with Wikipedia and invited Jimmy Wales to speak to their company, as he did at Bell Pottinger. Tom Watson was optimistic about the collaboration: "PR professionals need clear guidelines in this new world of online-information-sharing. That's why I am delighted that interested parties are coming together to establish a clear code of conduct."


Gibraltarpedia

In September 2012, controversy surrounded Wikimedia UK trustee Roger Bamkin, who along with
OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...
Wikipedian in Residence Maximillian Klein, had been organizing an effort named
Gibraltarpedia Gibraltarpedia is a project by the Government of Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, to improve coverage of Gibraltar-related topics on Wikipedia. It builds on Monmouthpedia, an earlier project along s ...
to create articles about
Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...
in partnership with the Gibraltar Tourism Board. Articles written under this program were featured on the Wikipedia mainpage an unusually high 17 times in the course of a few weeks. This issue brought attention to organizational conflicts of interest regarding Wikimedia Movement partners, leading to an investigation of WMUK. Bamkin stepped down as trustee following the media response. Jimmy Wales commented, "It is wildly inappropriate for a board member of a chapter, or anyone else in an official role of any kind in a charity associated with Wikipedia, to take payment from customers in exchange for securing favorable placement on the front page of Wikimedia or anywhere else."


GEO Group

In February 2013, for-profit prison company GEO Group received media coverage when a Wikipedia user under the name Abraham Cohen edited the entry on the company regarding naming rights to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Stadium. GEO Group's Manager of Corporate Relations at the time was named Abraham Cohen, who is an FAU alumnus, former FAU student body president, and former ex-officio member of the FAU board of trustees. Eleven edits constituting the majority of all those changes had been made in a single day under a Wikipedia account named "Abraham Cohen", the only day on which that account has ever been used.


BP

In March 2013, it was reported that a member of BP's press office had submitted drafts to rewrite the company's article, including sections dealing with its environmental record; the drafts were reviewed and added by other editors. Estimates of the size of the contributions were as high as 44 percent of the article. The BP press officer, who called himself "Arturo at BP," said he had chosen that name to make his affiliation clear, and noted that he had not directly edited the page. The development caused concern because the content was being produced by an employee, while "readers would be none the wiser." Jimmy Wales was quoted in Salon.com, saying "I think that accusing
P employee P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''pee'' (pronounced ), plural ''pees''. History The ...
Arturo of 'skirting' Wikipedia's rules in this case is fairly ludicrous – unless 'skirting' means 'going above and beyond what is required in order to be very clearly in compliance with best practice.' So, I would consider that a blatant factual misrepresentation." The Wikipedia community intensely debated the ethics of the incident and how to handle it and other similar cases.


WikiExperts

This company affirms that "WikiExperts employees do not directly edit Wikipedia. Instead, we act as a consulting company which outsources such editing to most suitable affiliated experts."


Wiki-PR

In 2012, Wikipedia volunteers launched possibly one of the largest sockpuppet investigations in its history after editors on its website reported suspicious activity suggesting a number of accounts were used to subvert Wikipedia's policies. After almost a year of investigation, over 250 sockpuppet accounts were allegedly found, operated by two independent networks of users. Wikipedia editors traced the edits and sockpuppetry back to a firm known as Wiki-PR, leading to a
cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...
letter by
Sue Gardner Sue Gardner (born May 11, 1967) is a Canadian journalist, not-for-profit executive and business executive. She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December 2007 until May 2014, and before that was the director of the Can ...
issued to the founders of the organization. The accounts were banned. On 25 October 2013, a community ban was further placed on Wiki-PR and any of its contractors.


Peking Duk

At a December 2015 Peking Duk show in Melbourne, a fan named David Spargo accessed the backstage area by editing the band's Wikipedia article page and inserting himself as a family member. Upon showing the article and his ID to the security guards, he was granted access to the band with whom he shared a beer. The band reacted positively to this scheme, Adam Hyde stating: "He explained to us his amazing tactic to get past security to hang with us and we immediately cracked him a beer. This dude is the definition of a legend." However, Hyde did add: "It goes to show, never trust Wikipedia".


Orangemoody

In 2015, the Wikipedia community blocked 381 accounts, many of them suspected sock puppets of the same people, after a two-month investigation called Operation Orangemoody revealed that the accounts had been used to blackmail firms "struggling to get pages about their businesses on Wikipedia." These businesses had been told by Wikipedia users that articles about them had been "rejected due to concerns of excessive promotional content." In a few cases, the users asking for money were the same accounts that had earlier rejected the articles for publication. The scammers asked for hundreds of pounds to "protect or promote" the firms' interests. Wikipedia deleted 210 articles related to UK businesses, most of them of middle size. Individuals were also targeted. The investigation was named ''OrangeMoody'' by Wikipedia editors after the name of the first identified account. An unnamed Wikipedia spokesperson stated that "undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia."


Burger King

On 12 April 2017,
Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...
released a commercial in which an employee states that he could not explain a Whopper in 15 seconds, after which he states "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" The dialogue was designed to trigger voice searches on
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
devices and Google Home smart speakers configured to automatically respond to the phrase "OK Google". The specific query causes the device to read out a snippet sourced from Wikipedia's article on the Whopper. However, prior to the ad's premiere, the article had been edited by users, including one named "Burger King Corporation", so that Google's automatically generated response to the query (via the Google Knowledge Graph) would be a detailed description of the Whopper burger that utilized promotional language. The edits were reverted for violating Wikipedia's policies against blatant promotion. Furthermore, the snippet became the target of vandals, who edited the article to claim that the sandwich contained such ingredients as "
cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a ...
", "a medium-sized
child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
", "
rat meat Rat meat is the meat of various species of rat: medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. It is a food that, while taboo in some cultures, is a dietary staple in others. Taboos include fears of disease or religious prohibition, but in many places, the ...
" and "toenail clippings", while some users reported that Google Home had relayed information from these vandalized revisions. Soon after the release of the commercial, Google blacklisted its audio so that it would not trigger the always-on voice detection. Wikipedia also protected the Whopper article to prevent the promotional descriptions or vandalism from being re-inserted. Burger King claimed to have released a modified version of the commercial later that evening which evaded Google's block.


The North Face

In May 2019, marketing agency
Leo Burnett Tailor Made Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc., also known as Leo Burnett Company, Inc., is an American advertising company, founded on August 5, 1935, in Chicago by Leo Burnett. In September 2002, the company was acquired by Publicis Groupe, the world's third l ...
revealed they had been hired by outdoor clothing company
The North Face The North Face is an American outdoor recreation products company. The North Face produces outdoor clothing, footwear, and related equipment. Founded in 1968 to supply climbers, the company's logo draws inspiration from Half Dome, in Yosemite ...
to replace images of outdoor destinations with photos containing the company's apparel, in an attempt to get its apparel to appear at the top of Google results through search engine optimization. Following media coverage, the photos were all removed from articles and some modified by Wikimedia Commons users to remove or obscure the branding. The Wikimedia Foundation condemned the stunt, stating in a press release: "When The North Face exploits the trust you have in Wikipedia to sell you more clothes, you should be angry. Adding content that is solely for commercial promotion goes directly against the policies, purpose and mission of Wikipedia". After Wikipedia volunteers blocked the accounts involved for breaches of Wikipedia policies on paid editing, The North Face posted a response as a reply on Twitter, stating that they had ended the campaign and that "We believe deeply in Wikipedia's mission and apologize for engaging in activity inconsistent with those principles." Leo Burnett Tailor Made stated they "found a unique way to contribute photography of adventure destinations to their respective Wikipedia articles while achieving the goal of elevating those images in search rankings" and that they had "since learned that this effort worked counter to Wikipedia’s community guidelines." The community of Wikimedia Commons started a process to delete the images. After half a month of discussion, all the images were deleted on copyright grounds. The campaign was described as "wildly misguided" and as having "egregiously violated just about every principle you can think about with respect to trying to maintain consumer trust" by Americus Reed, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania in an interview to '' The New York Times''.


Miscellaneous


2000s

In January 2006, a change was made to the article Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau, removing the words "and false" from the characterization "incomplete and false" of information given by the princess regarding her relationship with slain drug lord Klaas Bruinsma. The changes were traced back to a royal palace used by the princess. In April 2008, Phorm deleted material related to a controversy over its advertising deals.


2010s

In September 2012, there was media attention surrounding two Wikipedia employees who were running a PR business on the side and editing Wikipedia on behalf of their clients. Edits involving Daimler AG were reported in March 2012. In August that year, the communications director for Idaho's Department of Education, Melissa McGrath, edited the article on her boss,
Tom Luna Thomas Luna (born 1958)Superintendent of Public ...
. In September it was revealed that Tory Party charmain
Grant Shapps Grant Shapps (born 14 September 1968) is a British politician who is serving as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy since October 2022. He previously served as Secretary of State for Transport in the Premiership of Bo ...
had changed the information about his academic record as well as donor information. Also in September, writer Philip Roth wrote a piece in '' The New Yorker'' chronicling his difficulty changing information about one of his novels. In November,
Finsbury Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as ''Vinisbir'' (1231) and means "manor of a man called Finn ...
, the firm led by
Roland Rudd Roland Dacre Rudd (born April 1961) is the founder and chairman of Finsbury (public relations), Finsbury (formerly RLM Finsbury), a public relations firm. Rudd was educated at Oxford University, becoming List of Presidents of the Oxford Union, ...
, was found to have anonymously edited the article about Alisher Usmanov, removing information about various controversies. In January 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that Sarah Stierch was "no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation", after evidence was presented on a Wikimedia mailing list that she had "been editing Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients" – a practice the Wikimedia Foundation said was "frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation". In June 2014, '' The Wall Street Journal'' reported that
Banc de Binary Banc De Binary was an Israeli financial firm with a history of regulatory issues on three continents. On January 9, 2017, the company announced that it would be closing due to negative press coverage and its tarnished reputation. The firm also ...
, which had been cited for unregistered options trading by US regulators, posted an advertisement on a freelancing bulletin board "offering more than $10,000 for 'crisis management'" of its Wikipedia page. In March 2015, '' The Washington Post'' reported that The New York Police Department had confirmed that at least some edits to Wikipedia entries about people who died following confrontations with NYPD officers were made from computers on the department's servers. In March 2019, '' HuffPost'' reported that Facebook, Axios, NBC News, and Nextdoor have paid lawyer Ed Sussman to lobby for changes to their Wikipedia articles, as well as the articles on Sheryl Sandberg, Jonathan Swan, Chuck Todd,
Andy Lack Andrew Lack (born May 16, 1947) is a businessman, film executive and television executive. He was the chairman of NBC News and MSNBC from 2015 to 2020. Prior to NBCUniversal, Lack held a series of media executive positions, including as the ch ...
, and
Noah Oppenheim Noah Oppenheim (born 1977 or 1978) is an American television producer, author, and screenwriter. Previously, Oppenheim was the executive in charge and senior producer of NBC's ''Today Show'', where he supervised the 7–8am hour of the broadcas ...
. In his October 2019 book ''
Catch and Kill Catch and kill is a surreptitious technique employed by newspapers and media outlets to prevent an individual from publicly revealing information damaging to a third party. Using a legally enforceable non-disclosure agreement, the tabloid purpor ...
'', reporter Ronan Farrow reported that NBC News hired a "Wikipedia whitewasher" who removed references to NBC's role in the Weinstein case from several Wikipedia articles. NBC does not dispute the allegation. In December 2019, '' The Wall Street Journal'' reported on paid conflict-of-interest editing by the reputation management company
Status Labs Status Labs (First Page Management LLC) is a digital reputation management company based in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2012 by Darius Fisher, Jordan French, and Jesse Boskoff. The firm has been hired by various clients to hide unfavorable ...
regarding several of their clients, including former Bank of America executive
Omeed Malik The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
and the health technology corporation Theranos.


2020s

In May 2020, '' Le Monde'' reported on the blocking of about 200 Wikipedia accounts related to French PR companies. In August and September 2021, a plant-based food company called ''This'' replaced images on the
Bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...
article with images of their own products; the edits were quickly reverted and the account blocked. In November 2021, '' The Guardian'' reported on conflict-of-interest editing regarding billionaire Richard Desmond. Attempts to remove the article's description of Desmond as a "pornographer" had been going on for years. Lawyers hired by Desmond have argued for removal. In May 2022, ''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'' reported on conflict-of-interest editing, mainly regarding Russian oligarchs.


Reception


Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement

Phil Gomes, senior vice-president of a PR firm named Edelman Digital, created a Facebook group called "Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement" (CREWE) in January 2012. * According to Gerard F. Corbett, CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, CREWE is based on four principles: 1) Corporate communicators want to do the right thing; 2) communicators engaged in ethical practice have a lot to contribute; 3) current Wikipedia policy does not fully understand numbers 1 and 2, because of the activities of some bad actors and a misunderstanding of public relations; and 4) accurate Wikipedia entries are in the public interest. CREWE lobbies for greater involvement by PR professionals on the site, with the stated goal of maintaining accurate articles about corporations. Some Wikipedia editors, including Jimmy Wales, joined the group to discuss these issues. * * In an open letter to Wales, Gomes argued that Wikipedia's prominence as a top search result adds a level of responsibility to be accurate. Gomes also criticized allegedly inaccurate or outdated articles and the lack of timely response to issues raised in existing channels. He further argued that allowing PR representatives to fix minor errors such as spelling, grammar, and facts leaves too much ambiguity about what are acceptable changes to make. He made the comparison between PR editors and activists, challenging that activists seem to enjoy "much more latitude," and argued that in certain situations direct editing of articles by PR reps was called for.


CIPR and PRSA

In January 2012, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in the UK began to collaborate with the regional Wikimedia UK chapter (WMUK) to provide guidance for CIPR members on how to interact with the Wikipedia community. Jane Wilson, CIPR CEO, said in February 2012: "For the time being, we may have to start with an acceptance that Wikipedians have a problem with our profession and this reputation has unfortunately been earned. We can't change this overnight but by working in partnership with Wikimedia UK and Wikipedians, through outreach, diplomacy and dialogue, we can make a difference." In January 2012, Gerard Corbett, head of the
Public Relations Society of America The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is a nonprofit trade association for public relations professionals. It was founded in 1947 by combining the American Council on Public Relations and the National Association of Public Relations Coun ...
(PRSA), said "We believe there is a case to be made for PR professionals to responsibly edit client Wikipedia entries in an ethical and transparent manner." In June, he commended CIPR for reaching a point of agreement with Wikipedia, but said "... nothing has changed at all".


International Association of Business Communicators

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) devoted their September 2012 ''CW Bulletin'' to paid editing on Wikipedia. PR pro Mark Estes said that: "As an advocate, a public relations professional is accountable to his or her client or organization. As a voice of social conscience, however, a public relations professional is accountable to the public at large. Thus, the innate conflict between the two identities. The theory of responsible advocacy attempts to reconcile that conflict and provide guidance to achieve common ground. PR professional David King recommended "collaborating with nothing to hide," emphasizing transparency and the importance of not editing articles directly. He explained: "When legal and marketing departments establish their corporate Wikipedia strategy or policy, they often feel they are faced with only two choices: Ignore one of the world’s most influential websites with a hands-off policy or engage in the risky, controversial and ethically ambiguous practice of direct editing. In some circumstances these are both good strategies, but most companies can find more effective middle ground by engaging in PR or content marketing with Wikipedia’s citizen journalists—a safe and ethical way to make improvements that is valuable both for the organization and Wikipedia.


WikiProject Cooperation and WikiProject Integrity

On 6 January 2012, a Wikipedian created ' (formerly WikiProject Paid Advocacy Watch). The goal of this Wikiproject is to "discuss, raise awareness of, and hopefully address issues regarding paid editing on Wikipedia, in which people are compensated to create and edit Wikipedia articles." Days later, on 10 January, another editor created '. It has been defunct since April 2019. The project page says that it "facilitates collaboration with editors paid to edit Wikipedia." The group is made up of both paid and volunteer Wikipedia editors. The group provides "education and outreach to public relations and marketing professionals, freelance editors, and employees working on assignments from their employers" with the goal of "support ngethical, transparent paid editors that opt-in to collaborative efforts to meet Wikipedia's encyclopedic goals, serve the public's interest and avoid even the perception of impropriety." The main avenue for accomplishing its goals is a paid editor help page, where paid editors and representatives can requests changes to an article and have it reviewed by an experienced editor. Wikipedia:WikiProject Cooperation WikiProject Cooperation echoes the COI guideline in strongly discouraging paid editors from making direct edits to articles.


2014 statement by 11 PR firms

In June 2014, 11 major public relations companies signed a statement agreeing to comply with Wikipedia's policies on conflict-of-interest editing.


See also

* Reliability of Wikipedia * * Criticism of Wikipedia ** Criticism of Wikipedia#Exposure to political operatives and advocates ** Criticism of Wikipedia#Commandeering or sanitizing articles *
Whitewashing (censorship) Whitewashing is the act of glossing over or covering up vices, crimes or scandals or exonerating by means of a perfunctory investigation or biased presentation of data."Whitewash", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 DVD Ultimate reference suite. Ety ...


References


Further reading

* "My WikiBiz", Wikipedia ''Signpost'', 9 October 2006. * "Paid editing", Wikipedia ''Signpost'', 15 June 2009. * "Does Wikipedia Pay?", Wikipedia ''Signpost'' series, 2012. * Wikipedia community discussion on paid editing, 2009. * Wikipedia community discussion on conflict of interest, 2012. * No paid advocacy (
talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...
) Failed policy proposal, November 2013 * Paid editing policy proposal(
talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...
) Failed policy proposal, November 2013 * Commercial editing essay(
talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...
) Failed policy proposal turned into an essay, November 2013 * Conflict of interest limit (
talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...
) Failed policy proposal as of December 2013
Wikimedia Foundation sends cease and desist letter to WikiPR

Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner’s response to paid advocacy editing and sockpuppetry

Terms of Use
* {{conflict of interest Corporate scandals Public relations Education scandals Wikipedia reliability