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I thought it was interesting how long Wikipedia took to rename "2023 Israel-Hamas war" to "Gaza war" and start calling it a genocide, but I suppose this is why.

I thought it was interesting how long Wikipedia took to rename "2023 Israel-Hamas war" to "Gaza war" and start calling it a genocide, but I suppose this is why. When major sources have a significant bias, Wikipedia copies that bias as a matter of policy. --- In response to the reply accusing this comment of bias: When people said this two years ago, they were accused of bias. But now, in the present, with the benefit of hindsight and more information, it's a mainstream fact, and Wikipedia does report on it. We also know that major news organizations were aware of this at the time and chose not to report it. After round earth theory becomes mainstream, it's not bias to talk about why it took so long for round earth theory to be recognized.

throw83949448 1y ago
This is not a "bias". There is precise legal definition for "genocide", and it was recognized as such. Israel goverment offials were very specific on record, what they will do to population in Gaza. They also do not allow civilians to evacuate or to surrender!!! All exits from Gaza are blocked by Israel or their allies!
- blueflow 1y ago
  Which does not matter, because for Wikipedia, Journalists are a reputable source regardless of their bias. If the WaPo writes tomorrow that Hannah Arendt was a far-right extremist, that would be a valid source by Wikipedia standards.
lnrd 1y ago
I believe what Wikipedia tries to do (simplifying here) is reporting the "opinion" of reputable sources which should have an informed view on the matter. If reputable sources believe it's a genocide, then they will report it, if not they will not. Calling these sources biased because they do not corroborate your view of the situation is your subjective opinion and doesn't mean they actually do have a bias. The whole point of considering them reputable sources is that they should be as unbiased as possible (even though 100% neutrality is impossible), if they had "significant bias" as you claim they would not be considered as reliable sources to begin with.
- constantius 1y ago
  Circular reasoning that is completely ignorant of the last 2 years of analysis of media reporting on Gaza. The evidence of media bias is extensive and extremely blatant: it spans framing ("[horrible event, war crimes, etc.] happened, according to Hamas" vs no such qualification for Israeli claims, "20 people killed in Gaza" without mentioning who or what killed them), dehumanisation ("2 people killed" when reporting on children deaths in Gaza vs "2 teenagers in hospital" when talking about IDF soldiers), selective reporting (remember the pogroms in Amsterdam that got debunked on social media while every chief of state was sending their condolences?), constant repeat of Israeli "right to self-defence" while Palestinian context is not mentioned, etc., etc., etc. One of many, many, many reports/investigations on this: https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/ https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/ If you need something more visual/real-time, Newscord has been been reporting on this consistently: https://newscord.org/editorials https://newscord.org/editorials The media might be largely a reputable source, when it doesn't contradict the preferred narrative, and the Gaza genocide was probably the strongest example we could have had of this. I'm not sure why I even wrote this out, because 2 years in calling it "subjective opinion" is obviously not a position that is based on facts or reason.
- dlubarov 1y ago
  Actually there's a Wikipedia guideline (WP:BIASED) along the lines of "bias doesn't necessarily make a source unreliable", which in practice is taken to mean that bias doesn't matter. Of course in practice, editors have their own biases and decisions come down popularity contests. Wikipedia's own biases seem to get worse over time, as more neutral editors give up, so we end up with some weird things like - Almost all conservative news sources having low reliability ratings. - Daily Mail for example is deprecated, the lowest possible rating outside of literal spam. - Al Jazeera, which seems largely controlled by the Qatari monarchy, has the highest reliability rating and is the most-used source in Israel-Palestine. Even their blog is the top source on many articles, despite news blogs being against policy. - Al-Manar, the Hezbollah mouthpiece which is very unashamedly biased (e.g. refering to their terrorists as "men of god"), has a somewhat low reliability rating, but still higher than several conservative sources like Daily Mail. (See the list here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)
lkrubner 1y ago
[flagged]
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  Genocide definition includes more than exterminating all the people. UN, pretty much all humanitarian organisations, including Israeli ones, has concluded that its a genocide. Hamas offered hostage exchange 2 years ago.
  - almogo 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case_against_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case... Except the one that matters.
    - spwa4 1y ago
      According to UN law the one that matters is the security council. But of course, the ICC has already change the rules of genocide twice and still hasn't managed to convict Israel. That could be an indication that it's just not reasonable. Wait, sorry, what am I saying, CHANGE THE RULES AGAIN! We just KNOW the Jew did it!
      - immibis 1y ago
        UN law isn't really a thing. I see this misconception a lot, that people think the UN is some kind of international law. The reality is that the UN is a debating forum, subordinate to everything else that exists. Countries used to bomb each other a lot. The hope with the UN is that, instead of countries bombing each other, sometimes they will merely yell at each other, agree on who would be able to outbomb the other, not actually bomb anyone, and then lives will be saved. Actual violence is replaced by words and consensus. The Security Council permanent members are countries that you cannot possibly hope to outbomb, because they have nukes (well, the list is somewhat outdated), which is why they have veto power. A veto is the verbal replacement for launching a nuke. You (as a leader of a country) are free to defy a veto - the UN won't come after you, since it's not the law. But you should expect the vetoing country to nuke you or something equivalent, for real. You can also expect no other country to help you - they basically already agreed to that, by agreeing to the rule that lets nuke countries issue vetos.
braiamp 1y ago
Wikipedia is not meant to appear neutral, it's meant to "mirror the current consensus of mainstream scholarship [... aka] 'accepted knowledge'". Basically, if the accepted knowledge of an event is that it is not a genocide, Wikipedia has to reflect _that_. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It doesn't have an stance. It just copies and transmit as accurately as possible, the current understanding from qualified sources. You can literally see it in the "balance" section of this article.
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  > Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Well, clearly they're failing at that.
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - DaSHacka 1y ago
      Flagging exists for a reason, chap. I'll leave it up to a vote of the greater user base to decide whether a comment fits the context or not. Feel free to moralize elsewhere, preferably straight into /dev/null
      - immibis 1y ago
        Beware, if you don't flag all political sides equally, you get your flagging rights disabled (the button still exists and is recorded but has no effect on the thing you flag)
        DaSHacka 1y ago
        What happens when someone doesn't flag any political posts?
        immibis 1y ago
lyu07282 1y ago
The discussions that led to the renaming to Genocide were interesting, the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors but in the end there was just nothing they could do, the facts just weren't on their side. They wrote books worth of text, used every procedural trick they could, violated every rule like editing comments of other users in talk pages or spamming so much text it would break the backend, they organized to coordinate editing of thousands of Wikipedia pages to push pro-zionist messages. In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that. Many more users were banned, many were perma banned from wikipedia entirely. It was an incredible display of the resiliency of wikipedia when faced with a hostile attack by a state-actor putting hundreds of millions $ into spreading their propaganda. Most Governments, universities and news media are much less capable than that. It was such a failure that they now are pushing the us government itself to gain direct control over wikipedia and to cut the funding from the researchers and universities that produced the facts in the first place, going to the "root of the problem" basically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detailed_Indices/Talk:Gaza_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detail... https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforces-sweeping-ban-on-pro-hamas-edit-gang https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforc... https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-boosts-propaganda-funding-150-million-sway-global-opinion-against https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...
- dlubarov 1y ago
  > the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors Where are you getting this idea? While you can find examples of coordination on both sides, the most significant instance of coordinated editing and recruiting for agenda-based editing was by Tech for Palestine. > In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that If you're referring to PIA5, wasn't BilledMammal the only pro-Israel editor banned as a result? Quite a few were banned the pro-Palestinian side, like Iskandar323 (who seemed to lead Tech for Palestine's coordinated editing), Levivich, Nableezy, and several others. > They wrote books worth of text By far the worst WP:BLUDGEONING was actually from editors in favor of a "Gaza genocide" title. BilledMammal actually ran the numbers on it. > the facts just weren't on their side Actually the closing decision was largely based on !votes, and the admin seemed to just blatantly miscount them. By the actual !vote count it was almost exactly 50/50, a very clear no-consensus result, but sometimes closers make strange decisions. It was only a matter of time though - Wikipedia is a numbers game and anti-Israeli editors are just far more numerous nowadays.

throw83949448 1y ago

This is not a "bias". There is precise legal definition for "genocide", and it was recognized as such. Israel goverment offials were very specific on record, what they will do to population in Gaza. They also do not allow civilians to evacuate or to surrender!!! All exits from Gaza are blocked by Israel or their allies!

blueflow 1y ago
Which does not matter, because for Wikipedia, Journalists are a reputable source regardless of their bias. If the WaPo writes tomorrow that Hannah Arendt was a far-right extremist, that would be a valid source by Wikipedia standards.

lnrd 1y ago

I believe what Wikipedia tries to do (simplifying here) is reporting the "opinion" of reputable sources which should have an informed view on the matter. If reputable sources believe it's a genocide, then they will report it, if not they will not. Calling these sources biased because they do not corroborate your view of the situation is your subjective opinion and doesn't mean they actually do have a bias. The whole point of considering them reputable sources is that they should be as unbiased as possible (even though 100% neutrality is impossible), if they had "significant bias" as you claim they would not be considered as reliable sources to begin with.

constantius 1y ago
Circular reasoning that is completely ignorant of the last 2 years of analysis of media reporting on Gaza. The evidence of media bias is extensive and extremely blatant: it spans framing ("[horrible event, war crimes, etc.] happened, according to Hamas" vs no such qualification for Israeli claims, "20 people killed in Gaza" without mentioning who or what killed them), dehumanisation ("2 people killed" when reporting on children deaths in Gaza vs "2 teenagers in hospital" when talking about IDF soldiers), selective reporting (remember the pogroms in Amsterdam that got debunked on social media while every chief of state was sending their condolences?), constant repeat of Israeli "right to self-defence" while Palestinian context is not mentioned, etc., etc., etc. One of many, many, many reports/investigations on this: https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/ https://cfmm.org.uk/cfmm-report-media-bias-gaza-2023-24/ If you need something more visual/real-time, Newscord has been been reporting on this consistently: https://newscord.org/editorials https://newscord.org/editorials The media might be largely a reputable source, when it doesn't contradict the preferred narrative, and the Gaza genocide was probably the strongest example we could have had of this. I'm not sure why I even wrote this out, because 2 years in calling it "subjective opinion" is obviously not a position that is based on facts or reason.
dlubarov 1y ago
Actually there's a Wikipedia guideline (WP:BIASED) along the lines of "bias doesn't necessarily make a source unreliable", which in practice is taken to mean that bias doesn't matter. Of course in practice, editors have their own biases and decisions come down popularity contests. Wikipedia's own biases seem to get worse over time, as more neutral editors give up, so we end up with some weird things like - Almost all conservative news sources having low reliability ratings. - Daily Mail for example is deprecated, the lowest possible rating outside of literal spam. - Al Jazeera, which seems largely controlled by the Qatari monarchy, has the highest reliability rating and is the most-used source in Israel-Palestine. Even their blog is the top source on many articles, despite news blogs being against policy. - Al-Manar, the Hezbollah mouthpiece which is very unashamedly biased (e.g. refering to their terrorists as "men of god"), has a somewhat low reliability rating, but still higher than several conservative sources like Daily Mail. (See the list here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...)

lkrubner 1y ago

[flagged]

Hikikomori 1y ago
Genocide definition includes more than exterminating all the people. UN, pretty much all humanitarian organisations, including Israeli ones, has concluded that its a genocide. Hamas offered hostage exchange 2 years ago.
- almogo 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case_against_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa%27s_genocide_case... Except the one that matters.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    According to UN law the one that matters is the security council. But of course, the ICC has already change the rules of genocide twice and still hasn't managed to convict Israel. That could be an indication that it's just not reasonable. Wait, sorry, what am I saying, CHANGE THE RULES AGAIN! We just KNOW the Jew did it!
    - immibis 1y ago
      UN law isn't really a thing. I see this misconception a lot, that people think the UN is some kind of international law. The reality is that the UN is a debating forum, subordinate to everything else that exists. Countries used to bomb each other a lot. The hope with the UN is that, instead of countries bombing each other, sometimes they will merely yell at each other, agree on who would be able to outbomb the other, not actually bomb anyone, and then lives will be saved. Actual violence is replaced by words and consensus. The Security Council permanent members are countries that you cannot possibly hope to outbomb, because they have nukes (well, the list is somewhat outdated), which is why they have veto power. A veto is the verbal replacement for launching a nuke. You (as a leader of a country) are free to defy a veto - the UN won't come after you, since it's not the law. But you should expect the vetoing country to nuke you or something equivalent, for real. You can also expect no other country to help you - they basically already agreed to that, by agreeing to the rule that lets nuke countries issue vetos.

braiamp 1y ago

Wikipedia is not meant to appear neutral, it's meant to "mirror the current consensus of mainstream scholarship [... aka] 'accepted knowledge'". Basically, if the accepted knowledge of an event is that it is not a genocide, Wikipedia has to reflect _that_. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. It doesn't have an stance. It just copies and transmit as accurately as possible, the current understanding from qualified sources. You can literally see it in the "balance" section of this article.

DaSHacka 1y ago
> Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Well, clearly they're failing at that.
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Flagging exists for a reason, chap. I'll leave it up to a vote of the greater user base to decide whether a comment fits the context or not. Feel free to moralize elsewhere, preferably straight into /dev/null
    - immibis 1y ago
      Beware, if you don't flag all political sides equally, you get your flagging rights disabled (the button still exists and is recorded but has no effect on the thing you flag)
      - DaSHacka 1y ago
        What happens when someone doesn't flag any political posts?
        immibis 1y ago

lyu07282 1y ago

The discussions that led to the renaming to Genocide were interesting, the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors but in the end there was just nothing they could do, the facts just weren't on their side. They wrote books worth of text, used every procedural trick they could, violated every rule like editing comments of other users in talk pages or spamming so much text it would break the backend, they organized to coordinate editing of thousands of Wikipedia pages to push pro-zionist messages. In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that. Many more users were banned, many were perma banned from wikipedia entirely. It was an incredible display of the resiliency of wikipedia when faced with a hostile attack by a state-actor putting hundreds of millions $ into spreading their propaganda. Most Governments, universities and news media are much less capable than that. It was such a failure that they now are pushing the us government itself to gain direct control over wikipedia and to cut the funding from the researchers and universities that produced the facts in the first place, going to the "root of the problem" basically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detailed_Indices/Talk:Gaza_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot_III/Master_Detail... https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforces-sweeping-ban-on-pro-hamas-edit-gang https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-supreme-court-enforc... https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/israel-boosts-propaganda-funding-150-million-sway-global-opinion-against https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/isr...

dlubarov 1y ago
> the opposition was very well coordinated hostile actors Where are you getting this idea? While you can find examples of coordination on both sides, the most significant instance of coordinated editing and recruiting for agenda-based editing was by Tech for Palestine. > In the end it was so much that wikipedia topic-banned 8 super-editors over that If you're referring to PIA5, wasn't BilledMammal the only pro-Israel editor banned as a result? Quite a few were banned the pro-Palestinian side, like Iskandar323 (who seemed to lead Tech for Palestine's coordinated editing), Levivich, Nableezy, and several others. > They wrote books worth of text By far the worst WP:BLUDGEONING was actually from editors in favor of a "Gaza genocide" title. BilledMammal actually ran the numbers on it. > the facts just weren't on their side Actually the closing decision was largely based on !votes, and the admin seemed to just blatantly miscount them. By the actual !vote count it was almost exactly 50/50, a very clear no-consensus result, but sometimes closers make strange decisions. It was only a matter of time though - Wikipedia is a numbers game and anti-Israeli editors are just far more numerous nowadays.