The Wikimedia Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia, has banned seven mainland Chinese users from its websites and revoked administrator access for 12 others, in a case that was described by its vice president as “unprecedented in scope and nature.”
Dennis did not provide detailed explanations over what the 19 users had done, but only said that there was a “security risk” with “infiltration concerns.” For the 12 users who had administrator access, she appeared to suggest that they had engaged in or were connected to election canvassing.
“We have also reached out to a number of other editors with explanations around canvassing guidelines and doxing policies and requests to modify their behaviors,” Dennis wrote. “We need to make sure that the [Wikipedia] community can hold fair elections, without canvassing or fraud.”
The ban could be related to threats that Chinese Wikipedia users directed against members of Wikimedia Community User Group Hong Kong (WMHKG), in an editing war over Hong Kong protest events.
According to HKFP, “Walter Grassroot” is a man living in China’s coastal Jiangsu Province, who shares Beijing’s views on Hong Kong and Taiwan. He also took down many news links from the now-defunct Apple Daily on Wikipedia in July.
Dennis said some users were “physically harmed” because of such infiltration.
Another form of infiltration involved “not only people deliberately seeking to ingratiate themselves with their communities in order to obtain access and advance an agenda contrary to open knowledge goals, but also individuals who have become vulnerable to exploitation and harm by external groups because they are already trusted insiders,” she said.
Dennis wrote that she will host an office hour in the coming weeks to discuss infiltration and other issues, including how to prevent “community capture” in future elections.
The foundation will host a public session in the next few weeks to address these issues as well as to discuss how it can approach future elections to avoid “community ‘capture,'” Dennis said. “We need to make sure that the community can hold fair elections, without canvassing or fraud.”
“We hope to connect with the international Chinese language community in the near future to talk about approaches to elections that avoid the risk of project capture and ensure that people are and feel safe contributing to the Chinese language Wikipedia,” she added.
The WMC issued a statement slamming Wikimedia as having been “instigated by certain individuals within the Chinese Wiki community.” It added that the foundation’s decision was “unfounded.”
