Argentina’s World Cup win over Egypt prompted criticism of referee Francois Letexier which was intensified by Wikipedia hoax edits made to Letexier’s article labeling him as Jewish, furthering antisemitic memes going viral. The hoax edits occurred even as the page was locked to prevent changes by new and unregistered editors. Social media posts from people fooled by the hoax went viral with the misinformation’s removal prompting similarly viral claims of a “cover-up” at Letexier’s page. The hoax content remained on Letexier’s page for eight hours.
One edit later re-added the claim citing a reply from the Grok chatbot “confirming” Letexier as Jewish with the chatbot believed to be deriving its information from Wikipedia in an example of circular sourcing known as “citogenesis” on Wikipedia. Admins stumbled in addressing the edits, even temporarily opening the article up to unregistered editors, prompting further vandalism.
During the Round of 16 qualifiers for the World Cup quarter-finals, Argentina made an unprecedented comeback from a two-goal deficit near the end of its match against Egypt to win its place in the quarter-finals and knocking Egypt out of the tournament. A number of calls by referees during the match prompted criticism, such as a foul call on video review that disqualified an earlier Egyptian goal. Following the match, the Egyptian Football Association filed a complaint against Letexier. Egyptian coaches showed an intense reaction to the match with one appearing to spit at an Israeli flag displayed by an Argentinian fan.
Head Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan harshly criticized the officiating of the match and suggested some form of external pressure occurred, also criticizing the selection of a French referee in apparent reference to Letexier. Hassan during the match had also seemingly accused star Argentina player Lionel Messi of “racism” following an exchange between the two, though no formal complaint was filed against Messi. The tension over the match led to numerous vandalizing edits to Letexier’s Wikipedia article accusing him of rigging the match. Such edits prompted an administrator to lock the page to stop edits by new or unregistered users.
Even as the page was locked to new users, a months-old account called “Maqaumat” with hundreds of edits began editing Letexier’s page, initially to note the criticism of his officiating. Maqaumat later added an “early life” section to the page claiming Letexier was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. The cited French news article from 2017 never made any such claim. References to the “early life” section of Wikipedia biographies are a widespread antisemitic meme meant to hint that a controversial individual is Jewish as such sections often describe an individual’s ethnic and national background.
A subsequent edit by Maqaumat went even further by claiming Letexier’s grandfather was a Holocaust survivor who fled persecution by Nazi Germany and fought for the Free French forces during World War II. The edit cited an article in Qatari outlet Al-Jazeera that didn’t even mention Letexier and a piece in an Indian news outlet that only mentioned Letexier being born in France. Several categories labeling Letexier Jewish were added by pro-Palesitnian Muslim editor “Thepharoah17” following these hoax edits, that editor having tens of thousands of edits since registering on Wikipedia in 2013. People on X repeated the hoax claims to claim or insinuate Letexier was biased.
Many of these posts received thousands of shares and likes, despite being based completely on hoax Wikipedia edits. Eight hours passed since the first hoax edits before an editor with less than a hundred edits removed all claims of Jewish heritage, noting they were not backed by any of the cited sources. This removal itself prompted numerous viral social media posts that Letexier’s page was being censored due to the removal of the hoax claims:
Following the removal of the hoax claims, editor Maqaumat re-added the material claiming Letexier was Jewish and cited a post on X by Grok, the chatbot created by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s xAI subsidiary, which also owns the social media site. The Grok post was responding to a query by someone citing the Wikipedia page.
Journalist and Wikipedia critic Ashley Rindsberg, who has written extensively about anti-Israeli and antisemitic editing on the online encyclopedia, noted that Grok likely based its false confirmation of Letexier being Jewish on the Wikipedia hoax edits themselves, making the subsequent citation of Grok a case of “citogenesis” where hoax edits to Wikipedia are then repeated in other sources that are, in turn, cited to back up the original hoax claims.
Jewish media outlets subsequently wrote about the Wikipedia hoax edits with the Forward noting it “showed the ease of manipulating Wikipedia to spread false information, especially during breaking news events.” Numerous commentators on social media, including Rindsberg, highlighted the situation and how people were using Wikipedia to spread hoax claims and conspiracy theories about Jews using the site.
Editor Maqaumat was eventually banned after being warned about vandalizing Argentine President Javier Milei’s page, attacking him as a “Jewish bitch” in the introduction to the article. Milei has stated he has Jewish heritage through his great-grandmother. After another editor with over a hundred edits made several vandalizing edits to Letexier’s page and was banned for issuing death threats, Letexier’s article was locked so that only editors with accounts over a month old and with over 500 edits could edit the page. The article’s discussion page was also locked to new users after it was flooded with abusive messages.
The locking of the page soon created disarray among admins as the locking admin also enabled “pending changes” protection. While a traditional lock keeps editor from altering a page unless they meet certain criteria, pending changes allows edits by anyone so long as they are approved by a qualified editor afterwards. Although the lock of the page was set to expire in a couple weeks, the pending changes protection was set to expire in three months. Simultaneously with that admin’s lock, another admin also attempted to lock the page, but then rescinded that protection with an unclear explanation.
Subsequently, new and unregistered users began engaging in a slew of new vandalism, including repeating claims of Letexier being Jewish or stating he was born in Tel Aviv in Israel. As the pending changes protection was not removed, such vandalism would not be visible to regular readers, but could still be seen by registered users. The admin who initially protected the page, subsequently reinstated protection and removed the pending changes protection, suggesting imposing both at the same time may have prompted confusion.
Hoaxes are a common phenomenon on Wikipedia with many repeated by the news media and even academics, sometimes leading to those same sources being used as citations for the hoax claims. Breitbart itself is the subject of a hoax claim the outlet “promoted” the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which claims hidden coded messages in Podesta’s leaked e-mails proved his involvement in child sex trafficking. While Breitbart News covered the widely-reported association between former President Bill Clinton and late convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein, it has never pushed the Pizzagate theories. Despite this, long-standing grammatically incorrect material making this false claim remains on Breitbart’s Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia is widely relied on for information. Corporate media outlets praise Wikipedia as countering “fake news” online. Big Tech companies increasingly use the online encyclopedia as part of this effort, including AI developers. Earlier this year it was announced AI companies signed a deal with Wikimedia Enterprise, which the Wikimedia Foundation that owns Wikipedia established to provide easier commercial access to site content for corporate clients, allowing profits to be put toward the Foundation. Studies have found Wikipedia shapes scientific literature and tourist activity, while Breitbart has previously reported media and academia even copied off the site’s biased page on the GamerGate anti-corruption movement in gaming.
T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.
Read the full article here