Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-01-31/Disinformation report

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Great article. I've seen these advertisements, and of course knew what they were offering was not deliverable, as most if not all Signpost readers would. However the general public won't know this, at least a significant portion will take the adverts at face value. Perhaps sharing this article through the "socials" is the way to go. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 15:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC).

• An interesting read, thanks. Celeste Mergens has been a redirect to Days for Girls since 2018, but this mention has reminded me to add her book as "Further reading" in the article. PamD 16:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Rich. Yes I'd love to see this spread via social media, the mainstream press. Help save some people from being scammed, and help Wikipedia at the same time. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:08, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• This should be syndicated out to all mainstream publications rather than staying just on Signpost. – robertsky (talk) 16:15, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • It's licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. Go for it! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@Robertsky and Smallbones: I know a specific newspaper that might be very happy to report on this, given their portfolio... : ) But seriously, should we contact them? Oltrepier (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• I've occasionally started an article after a "Please make an article about me!" request at the Teahouse etc. Just because a COI-editor wants something it doesn't have to be wrong, hence the only 95% failure rate for paid articles, I guess. One requester I saw said pretty much "Hello, I'm about to release a new book, and my publisher said it would be a good idea for me to have a WP-article. I also think I'm ok per WP:N, so please put my draft in mainspace!" And after some editors looked at it (and edited it), they did. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Great reporting! It also seems worth noting that the LinkedIn page for Elite Wiki Writers (archive) claims that they have "51-200 employees" and were founded in 2011. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

You can learn some more about them at WP:PAIDLIST#Sybex Lab. Elite Wiki Writers is just one of their many fronts. MarioGom (talk) 21:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• "They were globally locked by the WMF following a sockpuppet investigation, where 41 editors were blocked and confirmed as sockpuppets of CharmenderDeol." - Afaict those locks were made by stewards, not the WMF. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 22:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
  • @Vermont: Good catch, I'll change "the WMF" to "stewards". That said, global locks and the use of stewards to make blocks, is something of a special case in blocking sockpuppets, often involving the WMF. There's a special place in the sock drawer for people who declare that they are paid editors and then work with undeclared socks. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

    Smallbones, we generally lock any UPE socks with activities on more than one project, or where associated accounts are active xwiki. This covers a lot of UPE firms' sockfarms, who often make articles on multiple projects, create Wikidata items, and upload non-free photos to Commons. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 17:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• I've actually been pinged a couple of times by people asking if someone claiming to be me really was. The answer, of course, being "Good God, no." I suppose they ducked the scam, but if they're doing things this blatantly fraudulent, wouldn't it seem that law enforcement could take some action on it? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:06, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Schemes like this, sadly, are probably not on FBI's list of priorities due to other stuff like business scams to the tune of half a billion dollars a year. And in the U.S., sub-national police and AGs really don't do much about internet crime as far as I know. My own state AG's official website for internet crime says "our efforts are limited by the office's lack of original criminal jurisdiction" and refers the reader to the FBI. Maybe things are better elsewhere. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't entirely disagree with @Bri: on the effectiveness of reporting to the authorities, but I doubt that it hurts anything either. Don't put all your trust in the government to get back your money for you. You need to take steps to protect yourself, first, last, and always.

And a word about WP:No legal threats is needed here. It doesn't do anybody any good, to spout off on how you are going to report a crime, and it could get you blocked here. But when you registered for Wikipedia, you don't park at the door your right (and sometime duty) to report crimes. In short don't talk about it, though when you think it is the right thing to do, just report the crime to the authorities.

You might think that, in the US, you should report to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission aka the FTC. From what I've seen, they take a lot of time trying to come up with the right general policies, publish these policies widely, then perhaps make a big splash with a few big cases. Which big cases? A fairly partisan group of 5(?) commissioners ultimately decides. In short, I think they'll come up with good ideas and policies most of the time, but aren't going to have speedy or effective enforcement. IMHO.

The FBI runs the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). It looks like it's fast and confidential to make a complaint. I don't know how effective it is. It may be the best you can do. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:49, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey Shaun, I think your statement concerning the low likelihood of paid editors actually influencing content is way too optimistic. Multiple sting operations have demonstrated that it is possible to get even quite absurd, or absurdly promotional, content into Wikipedia. I recall one focused on Bollywood and one on German politics that was demonstrated on German TV – the paid content was only removed after the programme aired. A former Wikimedia official in Germany (has?) had a successful paid editing firm for years ... Will look up the Signpost report later when I've got a mo. Regards, --Andreas JN466 10:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Signpost references:

• Paid promotional paragraphs in German parliamentary pages The Signpost, 26 September 2021
• Wiki-PR's extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed, The Signpost, 9 October 2014

The Bollywood sting operation was by an Indian journalist who said in 2020 that paid editing in the Wikipedia biographies of minor Indian celebs was well organised, lucrative and pervasive. I can email you details if you are interested; I don't think it was covered in the Signpost. I don't know whether his claims were accurate either, but I would imagine that because of the smaller volunteer pool paying attention to pages of Indian singers, actors, etc., capturing them would be easier than it would be for equivalent European or North American minor celebs. Andreas JN466 13:29, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Andreas, these are all good observations. My most straightforward response is that the general lack of success of the industry is why these incidents you point out are so newsworthy. More specific to this article: scams of the kind that this article describes are perpetrated by actors who don't even care about whether or not edits "stick" on Wikipedia. The only reason they can make money at scale like this is because success on Wikipedia is irrelevant to their business model. Lots of community members dedicate much of their volunteering time to rooting out UPE from marketing companies. In my role supporting them, I'm consistently impressed at how good they are at these investigations.SSpalding (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  @SSpalding (WMF) The thing is, Shaun, the Magazin Royale programme didn't report on an exceptional instance of successful content manipulation by paid editors. They approached a paid editing firm run by an ex-Wikimedia Germany board member and asked him to place specific (in this case quite nonsensical) phrases into the German Wikipedia article on a small political party. At 100 euros each. Ahead of an election. And that attempt was instantly successful. The exact phrases demanded appeared in the article. No volunteer noticed or reverted these insertions. (And the paid editor in question was also active in the English Wikipedia, reviewing and approving hundreds of articles at Articles for Creation.)

  There is another kind of (suspected) paid editing that is very hard to defend against. I think MarioGom has also had experience of this. This is a drip, drip, drip method of adding promotional content to existing articles which over time can flood and completely distort a topic area:

  • Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_92#Kazakhstan, 18 September 2015
  • Walled gardens of corruption, The Signpost, 7 October 2015

  It is true that volunteers are active and vigilant, but it is also true that it often takes volunteers years to notice and address these situations. In short, Wikipedia is imperfect (as is the media in general ...) and I am always wary of implying otherwise.

  This said, I don't doubt that there are lots of people trying their hand at paid editing who are absolutely hopeless at it and/or defraud their "clients". Regards, Andreas JN466 10:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I had a sense that the Indian promotion was well organized a few years ago when I was more active at the conflict of interest noticeboard but never saw independent investigation about it. Would love to see that link. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:32, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

For the kind of company discussed in the article (e.g. Sybex Lab, Abtach), their success rate is extremely low. Most of their articles never reach mainspace, the few that do usually do not last very long. That does not mean, however, that there is no other UPE content making it into mainspace. There is certainly a large amount of it, both from more sophisticated actors as well as the long tail of freelancers. MarioGom (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• Jared sounds like a mensch and it was good of him to talk to signpost. Jared, if you're reading this, comment on the talk page of your article "Hi Im Jared" and post the links you sent to the scammers. Somebody will find it and update eventually! Or if you have social media, you can just ask "Can someone update my Wikipedia page?" Lots of updates have been triggered that way. jengod (talk) 17:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

  There is also the Mandel-method. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

• i've talked with what i'm 99% sure is an outpost of this scam. i'll spare you the mudslinging, but here's the bullet points:
  • they claim to have "15-20 moderators", and refuse to disclose their usernames
  • they posted a list of articles which they created (they did not create them)
  • they have "packages" which cost $500, $700, $900, and $1500, offering such perks as 3 Months Maintenance with the 5 Edits
  • they specifically said they do not disclose that they are paid editors on wiki

fun stuff. ltbdl (talk) 15:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

• I think you got it! The only thing that surprises me the least bit is the $500 price point. But that really shouldn't matter to them - when you are only selling a puff of hot air, the margin is always 100%.
• There could be a contending view though, the basic format is used by other companies (or at least I think they are other companies). Lots of people know the basics of this scam. The only way to combat it may turn out to be "let everybody - including their customers - know how it works." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think most of this "market" is about 2 companies in Karachi, Pakistan (Abtach and Digitonics). Most websites of this kind are connected to one of these, just fronts. There are many other UPEs and scammers, but this particular modus operandi is particular to a very small subset. MarioGom (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

• Hah! That "Elite Wiki Writers" site claims they won the last WikiCup! Just based on that I know they are a scam :) BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Hey @BeanieFan11:, congrats on your win. It's a shame to see somebody else trying to grab a piece of the glory! I went to check on their side of the story, but they weren't answering their chat this time - rather than chasing me around their site every 10 seconds with another chat request! If they are reading this story, maybe you can count that as another victory. It's hard to chat and rip off customers if they know they've been caught in another lie. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Break

• Hacker News discussion. Good work, Smallbones, deserves to be widely read. --Andreas JN466 10:08, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  Smallbones, have you seen this one? Someone on Reddit's r/wikipedia subreddit linked to it today. It starts like this:

  • I received an email from someone who claims to be a Wikipedia "admin". The email ends with "[....@wikipediaafd.org](mailto:....@wikipediaafd.org)". It stated that a page that features my work is flagged for deletion by another admin, and unless I pay editing fees, it will be deleted and banned permanently. [...]

  Was posted about a month ago. Andreas JN466 20:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

  Sadly, wikipediaafd.org is known to those who've been dealing with VRT and such. That one is plain extortion (+ identity fraud, trademark violation...). I hope the domain is taken down soon, but they'll come back quickly under a new one. I'm planning to write more info and maybe proposals for further action, specific to AFD extortion operations. MarioGom (talk) 18:09, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Help stop paid editing! If you have ideas on how to better stop paid editing, please leave them at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure. If you have particular incidents you'd like to discuss, please note them at WP:COIN.

There's another notice near the top of User:Smallbones. Either or both of these used together could get the main point across if admins want to protect themselves from being falsely named in an extortion scheme.

While I did briefly see this case last month, it's pretty old news that scammers claim to be admins. And very few admins are or have been actual scammers. The whole thing was addressed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144#Another dumb AfD scam. I think the best way for admins as a group would be to confirm a rule that no admin can accept paid editing work (with a few crystal clear exceptions like a) work on behalf of the WMF or a chapter, b) as Wikipedian-in-residence at a bonafide GLAM). It would just make it easy for us to tell the world "Don't even think about a Wikipedia admin doing paid editing for a scammer. It will never happen (again)!" To be fair I've only seen about 4-5 cases documented over 20 some years. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Does the reverse happen? People paying to get their Wikipedia article removed (because it is mainly about something embarrassing they did in their past)? Prolete (talk) 20:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely. I've on more than one occasion seen someone stating they're someone's "official representative" or the like. They're more often trying to whitewash an article than get it deleted entirely, but when those efforts are thwarted, they sometimes then start asking how they just delete the whole article. (Of course in those cases, one must be cautious; sometimes there really are legitimate BLP problems and those shouldn't be overlooked just because they're raised clumsily.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)