Look back to the earliest version of the history and information of various countries on Wikipedia. They say themselves they were from US State department or CIA histories of those countries.
I was editing a page on the US massacre of civilians in No Gun Ri, Korea with some IP at CENTCOM removing my edits. I spend my off tine trying to send in facts of what happened, my taxes from my on time pay for some propaganda arm of the US armed forces to remove it.
As the US kidnaps the president of Venezuela and his wife, blockades Cuba, bombs Iran and on and on, great to know someone else is smearing Russia to further my tax dollars funding the endless war on their borders too.
Seems to be very critical of western, and especially American, foreign policy. Reasonably well argued and factual, although a bit edgy at times. A decent read.
It's almost like both imperialist powers could be problematic and awful and we don't have to pick a side or excuse the actions of the one because the other does the same.
I think the article tried to refer to this link https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10663
As I understand from scanning the paper, the authors attempt to determine differences between the Russian wikipedia articles and the articles on the Russian fork. They show that articles on the fork that were that differ from RU wikipedia have a significantly higher number of edits on RU wikipedia. The authors suggest that these may be signs of manipulations, however, it may not have affected the quality negatively (as stated in the discussion).
I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.
Wikipedia should be more like Github, such that topics can be forked ad hoc, and we can get a truly diverse set of viewpoints on everything. Then auto-generate a summary page that highlights the agreements and disagreements.
Or someone else should do it. If you build it I will come.
Yep, the open data makes it possible. The unified UI is the key feature here, so that we can contrast and compare the various takes from one place. It doesn't work if they are spread and unlinked, across the web. Basically, take every article in the corpus and make it one leaf in a bush. The Wikipedia version can remain canonical for those who want it to.
Genuinely interesting strategy, the term “poison” should really apply more to AI that depend on Wikipedia for training
>This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.
I don't doubt this happens, but given all the wolf crying about clandestine Russian operations, it's hard to assess what the scale and influence of these are. Especially as this is based on analysis of Atlantic Council, which is essentially a NATO think tank.
This will probably read to many as me being a useful idiot for Putin or something. And maybe I am, hard to say definitely.
The Russian government is so all powerful that they control the minds of the majority of Americans and their leaders. I applaud the brave windmill fighters.
It is unfortunate that they can't think for themselves during the training process itself. The think-mode might help in training too if used correctly.
Wikipedia is full of various large disinformation campaigns. Not just Russia, but Iran, Qatar, North Korea, etc. Unless I'm looking at the history of DB-9 connectors or early Simpsons episode summaries, etc, it's not a reliable source.
Anyone that does business with China understand that VPN usage is rampant (generally Shadowsocks with V2Ray and the likes, it's plug and play, ton of local companies sell it, on every markets you can buy as well), companies and people aren't actually limited by it, the people that don't circumvent it are often the ones not talking english, there is a huge tolerance as well for businesses, gov is completely aware of the mass "VPN" usage, lot of hotels as well provide you with solutions if you just ask and so-on.
That's awfully naive. China's cyber units or state actors most likely have access to Wikipedia and are not bothered by the Great Firewall. The citizens on the other hand, I agree with you.
Citizens do/can have access to Wikipedia, that's also very naive, estimations range from 15-35% of the population using VPN but in practice, any IT business and all their staff are behind VPNs and it's completely tolerated.
Almost all street markets sell those USB/QRcode to access unrestricted internet.
If you learn to read, the fragments "not just" and "etc" clearly answer your question.
Yes, China and the US also participate in this. Everyone knows this. You are not clever or special for pointing it out, you're just being stupid and trying to distract from the conversation.
Literally whataboutism. Classic FUD and distraction technique. Go somewhere else with this nonsesne.
All of them, I dislike how people seem to perceive it, while most of the time, politician job is "damage-control" (which practically means pushing an agenda by ensuring the discourse goes the way they want).
And then, we have the international brainwashing, which is where we think we understand a nation we've never even stepped-in but we don't. Anyone that has been in Shenzhen suddenly can see for themself, most US news don't talk about all the greatness in China, literally majority it is to denigrate the country, news are just so annoying in general and people just love to parrot non-sense (or incomplete non-sense, which is the same thing as not understanding at all), politicians understand that, news understand that.
We can observe Google Trends with Ukraine as an example, when the news and politicians switch-up the topic, then most people just stop caring altogether and move-on and go to the next "big thing", all over again.
Not on Wikipedia sure, but they do with many different type of media or local ways which is then translated into the "international news" (with a big sprinkle on top of non-sense and unqualified opinion).
On the contrary, injecting your own views/propaganda in Wikipedia is a great way for your content or your version of history to be included in the outputs of LLMs since they all rely more or less on it during their training phase.
"According to lexicographer Ben Zimmer,[14] the term originated in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. Zimmer cites a 1974 letter by history teacher Sean O'Conaill which was published in The Irish Times where he complained about "the Whatabouts", people who defended the IRA by pointing out supposed wrongdoings of their enemy" (WP)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Or we could just call it by its older name, the "Tu quoque" defense. "The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.[1]"
The propagandist author is complaining about how come the Russians are using counter-propaganda measures against a book published by the fricking Atlantic Council, this has to be a joke, right?
> In a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue
From here [1]:
> Sasha is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Global Internet Forum on Counter-Terrorism, the Christchurch Call and the Global Partnership for Action against Tech Facilitated Gender Based Violence. She is a founding board member of the Forum on Information and Democracy and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition on Internet Safety.
Also from here [2]:
> European Commission (EC Horizon, DG-CNECT, DG-JUST, FPI) (...)
> US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
> US Department of Justice (DOJ)
> [A litany of US embassies from around the world]
These atlanticist ghouls still think that the world has remained stuck back in 2018, it hasn't.
I'm unsure what the controversy is that you are pointing out. I clicked on the links you provided but don't see a reference to Atlantic Council. Can you point me to a summary of what atlanticist ghouls means? What happened in 2018 that relates to her claims made in her article?
I didn’t know people still use Wikipedia for anything serious. Used to be Wikipedia, then wokepedia, now propagandapedia. All the recent wars showed that there are no good guys. Just a bunch of agendas and a bunch of “here is what we will tell the masses/retards”. It would be nice if hacker news completely stayed out of propaganda and politics.
this advice is lazy if not well intentioned IMO. There are certainly basic epistemological classifications that cut through "everything is an advert or propaganda" assertions; for example Science. It is not a matter of propaganda, the behavior of a solid fat above a certain temperature. Wikipedia is full of this kind of information. A physics colleague regularly cites Wikipedia on topics of linear algebra, rather than the thirty+ text books on the shelf. Why? because Wikipeda pages on certain topics are more useful, and more concise, than many of those books in practice.
From which didactic approach does "throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from here? Wise words from a crypto practitioner ? say more
Russia has minor influence. You, on the other hand, is a totally different story, and the amount of disinformation about Russia, China etc injected by the west is orders of magnitude more, and it is in today's lingua franca, to make matters worse.
If one Scott Aaronson permits himself to write publicly something like (as far as I recall) "it was Alan Turing who won the second world war", one can only imagine the amount of poison that goes into your heads, and of course not only through wikipedia.
1. The article looks LLM-assisted, if not LLM-generated.
2. The Western "left" have been trying to write Wikipedia articles in a way that promotes their point of view in a much subtler, but also much more persistent way. The Western "right" have been complaining about this at least since 2009.
While I'm not happy about the Russian disinformation campaign, it is a guilty pleasure seeing "Western left" taste their own medicine.
I was editing a page on the US massacre of civilians in No Gun Ri, Korea with some IP at CENTCOM removing my edits. I spend my off tine trying to send in facts of what happened, my taxes from my on time pay for some propaganda arm of the US armed forces to remove it.
As the US kidnaps the president of Venezuela and his wife, blockades Cuba, bombs Iran and on and on, great to know someone else is smearing Russia to further my tax dollars funding the endless war on their borders too.
Especially with LLMs being trained on Wikipedia (probably pretty extensively), the impact of these edits should not be dismissed.
How was this determined?
I do not find state sponsored activity on Wikipedia unlikely, but I am not convinced there is clear evidence that Russia poisoned wikipedia succesfully.
Or someone else should do it. If you build it I will come.
Reading the Talk page for any contemporary culture war stuff makes it clear Wikipedia’s not really a place for diverse thinking.
>This strategy, in a likely attempt to evade global sanctions on Russian news outlets, is now poisoning AI tools and Wikipedia. By posing as authoritative sources on Wikipedia and reliable news outlets cited by popular large language models (LLMs), Russian tropes are rewriting the story of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The direct consequence is the exposure of Western audiences to content containing pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western messaging when using AI chatbots that rely on LLMs trained on material such as Wikipedia.
Self-appointed arbiter of truth. Got it.
This will probably read to many as me being a useful idiot for Putin or something. And maybe I am, hard to say definitely.
- Russia blowing up Nordstream
- "Havana syndrome"
- The Steele dossier
Almost all street markets sell those USB/QRcode to access unrestricted internet.
Yes, China and the US also participate in this. Everyone knows this. You are not clever or special for pointing it out, you're just being stupid and trying to distract from the conversation.
Literally whataboutism. Classic FUD and distraction technique. Go somewhere else with this nonsesne.
And then, we have the international brainwashing, which is where we think we understand a nation we've never even stepped-in but we don't. Anyone that has been in Shenzhen suddenly can see for themself, most US news don't talk about all the greatness in China, literally majority it is to denigrate the country, news are just so annoying in general and people just love to parrot non-sense (or incomplete non-sense, which is the same thing as not understanding at all), politicians understand that, news understand that.
We can observe Google Trends with Ukraine as an example, when the news and politicians switch-up the topic, then most people just stop caring altogether and move-on and go to the next "big thing", all over again.
Or we could just call it by its older name, the "Tu quoque" defense. "The Oxford English Dictionary cites John Cooke's 1614 stage play The Cittie Gallant as the earliest known use of the term in the English language.[1]"
C'mon, try harder.
> In a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue
From here [1]:
> Sasha is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Global Internet Forum on Counter-Terrorism, the Christchurch Call and the Global Partnership for Action against Tech Facilitated Gender Based Violence. She is a founding board member of the Forum on Information and Democracy and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition on Internet Safety.
Also from here [2]:
> European Commission (EC Horizon, DG-CNECT, DG-JUST, FPI) (...)
> US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
> US Department of Justice (DOJ)
> [A litany of US embassies from around the world]
These atlanticist ghouls still think that the world has remained stuck back in 2018, it hasn't.
[1] https://www.isdglobal.org/team-member/sasha-havlicek/
[2] https://www.isdglobal.org/partnerships-and-funders/
From which didactic approach does "throw the baby out with the bathwater" come from here? Wise words from a crypto practitioner ? say more
If one Scott Aaronson permits himself to write publicly something like (as far as I recall) "it was Alan Turing who won the second world war", one can only imagine the amount of poison that goes into your heads, and of course not only through wikipedia.
2. The Western "left" have been trying to write Wikipedia articles in a way that promotes their point of view in a much subtler, but also much more persistent way. The Western "right" have been complaining about this at least since 2009.
While I'm not happy about the Russian disinformation campaign, it is a guilty pleasure seeing "Western left" taste their own medicine.