Nora Bussigny, a journalist for the conservative French magazine Le Point, published an expose on Jan. 17 on an anti-Israel club providing training to French Wikipedia editors; the co-founder of the group denied any intent to manipulate the encyclopedia.
There are more than 300 different language Wikipedias, all with their own unique article content and some differences in site policy. But according to Bussigny, offsite coordination on specific edits is prohibited on French Wikipedia, just as it is on English Wikipedia.
Bussigny, who has been investigating French Wikipedia for nearly two years, learned that an announcement was shared on the site’s internal channels to “join the Palestine contributors club” and “apply the ethical principles of Wikipedia and those of the Palestinian resistance for an encyclopedia where justice triumphs.” According to Bussigny’s story, the announcement originated from, and was organized by, the Urgence Palestine (Palestine Emergency) collective; the club’s co-founder, an activist at the collective, has claimed that the club is independent from any political group––including Urgence Palestine––and that Urgence Palestine promoted it at his request.
Bussigny registered under an alias of an anti-Zionist history student, where she observed and recorded a training session that featured a researcher at The French National Centre for Scientific Research and a member of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The leader, who went by the name “Bader,” instructed everyone to create a French Wikipedia account and to hide their identities.
During the session, Bussigny asked Bader, who identified himself as a “Palestine Emergency activist,” “if all media can be reliable sources.” He reportedly said no and instructed session members to deride the credibility of journalistic sources that went against the Palestinian narrative by claiming that they are unreliable or biased, per Le Point. “You can use this argument to blow up information, even when it is neutral,” Bader told session attendees. Bader’s view of a reliable media outlet is L’Humanite, which Bussigny described in her report as being a “communist” publication “that is historically and unfailingly pro-Palestinian.”
He also told members of the session to “police your speech” on French Wikipedia in order to follow the site’s rules and declared that “by being neutral, we’re on the Palestinian side.” Bader told session attendees that in order to gain credibility as editors, they should start with benign topics in order to nail down the basics of editing and to avoid being viewed on the site as an activist. “You do a bit of Palestine … you take a little break, you make an edit or two … and you come back to Palestine after,” Bader reportedly told session attendees.
For his part, Bader told Le Point he is only leading an “informal group of citizens for mutual aid, education and training in the principles and editing of Wikipedia” independent from “any political or associative organization.” He also denounced pro-Israel offsite Wikipedia organizing; to support that point, Bader referred Le Point to a 2008 Electronic Intifada post about the pro-Israel group CAMERA’s campaign at the time to recruit editors to counteract anti-Israel bias on the site. Bussigny noted the irony of Bader viewing Electronic Intifada as a reliable source when the site published a post earlier in the month that Israel still hasn’t found any rape victims from the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.
During the session, Bader warned that the pro-Israel side is “organized” on French Wikipedia and that the anti-Israel editors on English Wikipedia “are successful” despite being “targeted.” But Bussigny noted in her report that “no organized pro-Israeli group of editors has been denounced for the moment” and that in December, editors on English Wikipedia were sanctioned over their reported involvement in a Tech for Palestine (TFP) Discord channel where offsite coordination took place.
Interestingly, screenshots I have obtained from the TFP channel purportedly show someone named “baderdean” participating in the channel. In one message, baderdean announces that “we have a French Wikipedia team. We’re currently working on UNRWA in French.” Baderdean asks the channel what they have worked with and then says “we use a free tool called WikiAdvisor.io to review changes made by the team by a more senior Wikipedian before publishing them.”
Other messages purportedly show baderdean discussing with leaders of the channel the possibility of having a meeting.
Another screenshot purportedly from the channel shows baderdean informing the channel that that “we just updated ‘Red triangle’ ‘rouge triangle’ in french [sic] because enhance the resistance point of view.” A look at the edit history of the “Triangle rouge” article on French Wikipedia shows an editor named “ChottGuebli” repeatedly inserting material referring to the red triangle commonly associated with support of Hamas as “a symbol of Palestinian resistance” adopted by “pro-Palestinian activists.” Typing in baderdean’s username on the French Wikipedia search engine redirects to ChottGuebli’s userpage.
As of press time, the article states that the triangle has “appeared in videos by the military wing of Hamas in which Israeli military targets were identified. It has since been used in numerous pro-Palestinian publications on social networks, in caricatures, on placards, graffiti and during demonstrations, taken up as a symbol of Palestinian resistance, particularly on university campuses. This red triangle recalls other historical symbols of the Palestinian cause: that of the Palestinian flag– where it represents the role of the Hashemite dynasty during the Arab revolt of 1916 and symbolizes the blood of the martyrs of the Palestinian cause – or the V of the slingshot used by young Palestinians to counter the Israeli army during the first Intifada.” It goes onto say that after an essayist referred to the triangle as support for Hamas, “several commentators underlined the long-standing anti-fascist significance of the red triangle, although the symbol had been taken up as a mark of support for Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip.”
Baderdean also wrote in the channel that “in english [sic] Wikipedia, it would be nice if someone work on promoting this narrative among others: Red triangle as a global anti-fascist anti-colonial pro-resistance symbol.” That narrative does not currently appear in the English Wikipedia article on the red triangle.
ChottGuebli also made an edit to the French Wikipedia UNRWA page in February.
Could baderdean be the Bader that Bussigny refers to in her Le Point article?
Bussigny thinks so. “In fact, this activist replied on a blog, claiming that I had an Israeli bias,” she told me. Indeed, a blog post at independent French website Mediapart written under the name “baderdean” accused Bussigny’s piece of being “full of biases, factual errors and dubious methods.” In his post, baderdean admitted “yes, I co-founded a Wikipedia training club on the theme of Palestine by proposing to counter the pro-Israeli offensive on Wikipedia led by Zionist lobbies including former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett … Contrary to this pseudo-investigation, this is a perfectly documented fact. Shouldn’t the fact raised by the journalist herself that ‘no organized pro-Israeli group of editors has yet been denounced’ rather encourage her to investigate thisproven manipulation?”
Baderdean went on to claim that the purpose of his club is to train “people to contribute to Wikipedia according to the principles of the encyclopedia, one of the most important of which is neutrality of point of view, which is not the absence of ‘bias of certain contributors’ as the pseudo-investigator writes, but the representation of different points of view supported by quality sources.” He added that “an extremist pro-Israeli opinion denying the genocide of the Palestinians based solely on a far-right fascist ‘reinformation’ site that has no place in an encyclopedia… Obviously, an assertion taken from a media outlet, like L’Humanité (but it could have been a media outlet from another political side), has its place.” He also denied encouraging “removal of opinions from Wikipedia that were not mine, and even less the censorship of those citing Le Point, but on the contrary to contribute more to the pages of the Palestine project for which we have quality sources.”
Regarding Bussigny’s reporting that he instructed users on how to gain credibility on the site, baderdean wrote that he simply “encouraged people to contribute on multiple themes, first and foremost because in life as in Wikipedia, we all have plural knowledge that it is good to share” and that he encouraged anonymity as a means to protect editors from “trolls, harassers and personal attacks.”
Baderdean also claimed that the club is not associated with any organization, including Urgence Palestine, but he acknowledged being an activist for the organization and that Urgence Palestine “kindly relayed its launch announcement at my request as it relays many initiatives that are external to it.”
He went on to claim that “the entire article is based on Nora Bussigny’s ‘infiltration’ during a single meeting … Her ‘method’ is summed up in amalgams and trials of intentions. Moreover, she confuses Ismail Haniyeh, diplomatic leader, with Yahya Sinwar, military leader of Hamas. An error revealing her bias.” In her article Bussigny stated that the session members targeted the “Death of Yahya Sinwar” article.
“Nora Bussigny specializes in infiltrating so-called ‘woke’ citizen movements with the aim of discrediting them: feminists, climate activists,” baderdean wrote. “Today, she is tackling the movement in support of Palestine. A second journalist from Le Point, Erwan Seznec, contacted me to collect more information. I am sharing with you our edifying exchange on the choice of statements reported, all with a single intention: to initiate a prosecution against Wikipedia and activists for Palestine.”
“Of course, I discreetly recorded the entire group I infiltrated, so he can accuse me of making false statements, but the evidence is there,” Bussigny told me. “However, I’m still convinced that this pseudonym is his ‘official’ profile, but that he must certainly have other Wikipedia accounts, the history of which must be very interesting to consult, as this account has only been modified a few times, which doesn’t fit in with what he said during the course.”
Bussigny was not convinced at the claim that Urgence Palestine, which she described as a “highly controversial” organization because of their “apology for terrorism and so on,” is not involved in the Wikipedia group. “Bader explained to us at the outset of his presentation that he was an activist with this collective, and the collective had also relayed the link directly to their social networks so that their subscribers could sign up for Bader’s training,” she told me. “It’s hard to believe that a collective, and one of its members, would share this invitation to join the course on their social networks without any interest. Especially as Bader had specified that [there] were several trainers if I’m not mistaken, even if I don’t have the identity or number of his acolytes.”
Regarding other claims baderdean made his post, Bussigny told me that Bader “did give us some work on the page for Yahya Sinwar … This is perfectly audible in the recording I’ve kept of our training session. Finally, neither my colleague nor I work exclusively on pro-Palestinian activism; we work on French societal issues. However, in France there has been a staggering rise in antisemitism since 7 October 2023, and the radical nature of ‘anti-Zionist’ activism has led to some very serious cases of assault, threats, rape, attempted attack on a synagogue and so on. We are working on this militant extremism, but we are neither Middle East specialists nor war reporters.”
I sent a series of questions to an email address purportedly belonging to Bader; my requests for comment were not returned by press time.
This is not the first piece that Bussigny has written about Wikipedia. “I had heard of militant anti-Zionist co-ordinations organized in the United Kingdom,” Bussigny told me. “In France, after 7 October, I was able to investigate the changes made by certain contributors to French Wikipedia entries relating to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.” She pointed me to a May 2024 Le Point piece she authored, “When the Israel-Hamas war comes to Wikipedia contributors.” For example, she told me that “the word ‘Hamas’ caused tension among the encyclopedia’s editors because some of them were doing their utmost to remove the reference to the organization as a ‘terrorist,’ despite the fact that it was a recognized fact. The same applies to our MEP [Member of the European Parliament] Rima Hassan, who belongs to the ultra-left party La France Insoumise. Known for her highly controversial stance against Israel, journalists at Le Point investigated her and (uncovered a €10,000 grant obtained through the foundation of a Swiss-Tunisian businessman). However, this was immediately censored by contributors to her Wikipedia page, who were fiercely vigilant in ensuring that her page remained ‘smooth.’ There are many examples of this.”
“The word ‘Hamas’ caused tension among the encyclopedia’s editors because some of them were doing their utmost to remove the reference to the
A separate investigation by her colleague Erwan Seznec, who Bussigny collaborates with, details how Le Point’s page on French Wikipedia is tarnished with claims that the publication is “Islamophobic,” on the “extreme right” and that it has published defamatory articles against Le Monde. That is an “on the left, the ultra-progressive tendency,” Seznec wrote. “And anyone who dares to critically analyze wokeness – and in particular the excesses of trans activists – or who holds an intransigent line against Islamism or the dogmas of radical ecology will be struck by their wrath. Wokeness, Islamism, radical ecology: this is the winning trio of sensitive subjects that expose one to reprisals on Wikipedia. Le Point ticks all the boxes.”
“Today, a real conflict divides French contributors, in the image of society,” Bussigny told me. “The problem is the denial of reality and proven information in favor of a militant bias, like the attempts to (edit out any reference to) Hamas as a terrorist organization. However, I was keen to reveal and prove through this immersion that fiercely anti-Zionist organized networks are targeting the online encyclopedia, which is extremely popular in France, especially among pupils and students who may be unknowingly influenced.”
Additionally, the French Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees Wikipedia, “seems to deny the existence of certain manipulations by contributors with very militant profiles. Moreover, it did not respond to my requests for information for this survey. In any case, such coordination is not authorized within the French Wikipedia. Some political parties have already been denounced for trying to influence Wikipedia pages in an organized way for electoral purposes.”
