In response to allegations made by activists that the Saudi Arabian government “infiltrated” its team in the area, the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has refuted the story.
The assertion was made by the Washington-based Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which was formed by the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Additionally, the Beirut-based digital rights organization SMEX.
The Saudi government had the two parties claimed in a joint statement on Thursday, according to a Wikimedia probe. For their information, they cited “trusted sources and whistleblowers.”
“There are material inaccuracies in the statement included from SMEX/DAWN,” the US-based Foundation said in a statement later Thursday.
The parent organisation stated, “there was no finding in our study that the Saudi government ‘infiltrated'” Wikipedia and influenced users.
However, it said that some of the users “who may have been Saudi.” Requests for response on the allegations were not immediately answered by Saudi authorities.
Wikimedia inquiry
A Wikimedia inquiry last year resulted in life bans for 16 individuals. Individuals who were “engaging in significant conflict of interest editing and posing a threat to the safety of other users” in the Middle East, according to Wikimedia.
“A number of users with close connections to external parties were editing the platform in a coordinated fashion to advance the aim of those parties,” it announced last month.
According to DAWN and SMEX, the Foundation’s mention of “close connections” refers to Saudi citizens working as Saudi Government agents.
“While we do not know where these volunteers actually reside, the bans of any volunteers who may have been Saudi were part of a much broader action globally banning 16 editors across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region,” the Wikimedia Foundation said in its new statement.
Additionally, Wikimedia’s most recent statement made no mention of the jail terms that were reportedly announced by DAWN and SMEX. But which AFP was unable to independently confirm.
The activists claim that because the administrators refused to cooperate with Saudi Arabia’s purported infiltration operations. Saudi Arabia imprisoned one administrator for 32 years and sentenced another to eight years in prison.
“Admins” are volunteers who have special access to Wikipedia and can edit completely protected pages. Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-simultaneous Sofiani’s arrests in September 2020 “appears to be a part of a crackdown on Wikipedia admins in (Saudi Arabia)” the activists claimed, in an effort to censor content.
According to the organisations, they received sentences of five and eight years in prison.
For individuals who “were engaging in conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia projects” in the Middle East. Wikimedia imposed 16 global suspensions last year.
