The decision about Israel-related citations, made last week, means that one of the most prominent and longstanding Jewish advocacy groups in the United States — and one historically seen as the leading U.S. authority on antisemitism — is now grouped together with the National Inquirer, Newsmax, and Occupy Democrats as a source of propaganda or misinformation in the eyes of the online encyclopedia.

Moreover, in a near consensus, dozens of Wikipedia editors involved in the discussion said they believe the ADL should not be cited for factual information on antisemitism as well because it acts primarily as a pro-Israel organization and tends to label legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism.

“ADL no longer appears to adhere to a serious, mainstream and intellectually cogent definition of antisemitism, but has instead given into the shameless politicization of the very subject that it was originally esteemed for being reliable on,” wrote an editor known as Iskandar323, whose request for a discussion about the ADL ultimately led to the ban.

Wikipedia is now Hamas.

  • itappearsthat
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    hot damn this is actually cool

    huge ups to the dedicated editors who were willing to face the unbelievably tedious task of addressing every bad-faith counter-argument, which is sure to develop to a screeching crescendo as hasbara catches wind of this and smartphone warriors pile into the talk pages with no knowledge of wikipedia editor norms & customs.

  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    5 months ago

    I'm gonna be real bloomer about this shit and take this as a "maybe the tide really is turning" moment

    really really really want the last vestiges of public support for this genocide to be shamed out of existence

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      5 months ago

      I hate centrists, but the few I do appreciate are the very annoying obstinate centrists that actually comb through every source just so they can smugly debate you and not the nihilist ones

  • TemutheeChallahmet [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Just think about how much Jonathan Greenblatt, current head of the ADL, has single handedly helped skyrocket antisemitism in the US.

    He chose to lump all anti-Israel and anti-Zionism rhetoric together with genuine, oft-violent antisemitic hate crimes in the ADL's data, thereby devaluing the genuine useful tracking of hate crimes--making any real antisemitic hate crime easier to write off.

    He made a deal with Elon that did not censor antisemitism on Twitter but did censor anti-Israel accounts and auto-community note anti-Israel messages, leading to a surge of hatred toward Jews and Holocaust denial on Twitter. Many outright Nazi accounts have built their followings unchecked by riding the wave of anti-Israel sentiment, which does not matter to Greenblatt nearly as much as ensuring that pro-Palestinian accounts are deboosted

    He declines to use his platform to defend against the surging Groyper right, because they don't upset him as much as the Jewish Americans protesting in support of Palestine. Instead, he openly blasts American Jews as terrorist sympathizers.

    Jonathan Greenblatt will be the reason that the ADL's power completely collapses one day soon. He will be the reason American Jews subject to antisemitic attacks in the future get taken less seriously.

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    ·
    5 months ago

    and one historically seen as the leading U.S. authority on antisemitism

    Well they’re not wrong

  • flan [they/them]
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    edit-2
    5 months ago

    I went and looked at the original wikipedia thread and it looks like they closed it today with a 3:1 "Unreliable" decision against the ADL. Of course the user who closed it has a quote that mentions palestine in their profile so now the pro-israel users are getting all pissypants trying to appeal the 3:1 decision because the user who closed the thread has a quote that mentions palestine.

  • CthulhusIntern [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    This is actually pretty big, considering how many people use Wikipedia as their sole source of information.