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FIONA HAMILTON\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 THE TIMES\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 JANUARY 8, 2024<\/p>\n

Wikipedia entries have been changed to downgrade Iranian human rights atrocities and other abuses, The Times has learnt.<\/p>\n

The alterations raise concerns that the site is being used to \u00admanipulate information about the hardline Islamic regime. Details have been changed to discredit dissident groups, and government publications have been presented as impartial sources on the free online encyclopaedia.<\/p>\n

In one case key details about mass executions by the regime were removed. The involvement of senior officials in the 1988 death commissions, in which thousands of political prisoners were killed, was also deleted. In a separate ruling, supporters of Vahid Beheshti, an Iranian human rights activist who went on hunger strike in the UK, were thwarted when they tried to set up a Wikipedia page.<\/p>\n

Mattie Heaven, Mr Beheshti\u2019s wife, said four attempts were made to set up a page because there was so much online misinformation about her husband, who continues to put pressure on the British government to designate Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation. Ms Heaven said the text was repeatedly \u00adremoved so the page could not function. \u201cWe believed it was the Iranian cyber army,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit group that operates Wikipedia, said all content was \u00addetermined by its global community of volunteers. A spokeswoman said all information was required to be neutral and verified by \u00adreliable sources. Serial offenders could be banned, she added.<\/p>\n

The online encyclopaedia also deleted references to the jailing of an Iranian official in Sweden in 2022 for human rights abuses, and the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from Albania in 2018 over their alleged involvement in a bomb plot against dissidents. The changes were made anonymously so it is impossible to question the motives.<\/p>\n

Ms Heaven, an adviser to the International Organisation to Preserve Human Rights, said online disinformation was a key tool of the Iranian regime. She said it was important for it to have legitimacy in the eyes of the world. \u201cThey care what the world thinks about them,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the regime can add confusion and misinformation then they will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

British security officials have increasingly called out Iranian tactics. MI5 and police said they had disrupted at least 15 plots to kidnap or kill Iranian dissidents in Britain since the start of 2022.<\/p>\n

Online misinformation is a key tool for the regime. In 2019 the news website Open Democracy revealed key differences in the \u00adreporting of Iranian affairs on \u00adPersian Wikipedia compared with its English counterpart.<\/p>\n

It reported that the Persian page on Iranian involvement in the Syrian civil war was based mostly on unchallenged statements by Iranian officials.<\/p>\n

Manipulation now appears to have been carried out on the \u00adEnglish-language Wikipedia. Many of the Iran edits concerned a page for the People\u2019s Mujahidin of Iran, also known as the Mujahidin-e-Khalq, an exiled opposition group. Over the summer reports on human rights abuses by Iranian officials on the MEK\u2019s page was deleted. The anonymous users who changed the content cited the need for \u201ctrimming\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last June details were removed from a section on the 1988 death commissions, including that many of the political prisoners were jailed for peaceful activities such as handing out leaflets. A reference to the executions being carried out by \u201cseveral high-ranking members of Iran\u2019s current government\u201d was also deleted. A month earlier the same anonymous user removed references to the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from Albania due to alleged involvement in a bomb plot against the MEK in 2018. In April 2022 a reference to about 3500 MEK prisoners being killed in the early 1980s in Iran was removed.<\/p>\n

Analysis showed some edits were replaced but many deletions remained intact at the time of publication. Marco, a Wikipedia \u00adeditor, reported the changes to site administrators and alerted The Times because he believed insufficient action was taken.<\/p>\n

He also noted that material on Iran\u2019s mass internal protest movement appeared to be manipulated.<\/p>\n

A Wikimedia spokeswoman said the foundation took misinformation \u201cvery seriously\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a user account or IP \u00adaddress repeatedly violates policies, Wikipedia administrators can take disciplinary action and block or ban a user or IP address,\u201d she said. \u201cThe foundation has a trust and safety function that flags such issues to the volunteer community when it is reported.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/world\/the-times\/iranian-cyber-army-blamed-as-wikipedia-deletes-atrocities\/news-story\/3947931532816bc4f1a9c5eca7df5f71<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"