FIRST ON FOX: ADL says Wikipedia's lead-article protections have failed to correct antisemitic content.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, says 91% of biased edits by Wikipedia editors on the Israel, Hamas, and October 7 pages remain live and unreviewed.
ADL report reveals anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias on Wikipedia
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, says Wikipedia has lost public trust.
In its 2025 report, "Editing for Hate," the ADL raised several issues, including a "coordinated campaign" to manipulate Wikipedia content related to Israel, Palestine, and similar topics. In addition, the organization said it found pro-Hamas views informing Arabic-language content on the same topics. According to the ADL, the group of 30 editors were "at least twice as active" as similar groups.
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The Wikipedia community banned some editors from the topic or site entirely after the 2025 report. However, the ADL contends that the issues it flagged were not resolved by the restrictions outlined in its previous report.
In its 2026 report, "The Damage is Done: Wikipedia Fails to Check Biased Edits Despite Editor Bans," the ADL stated that "no banned editor's body of work has been systematically reviewed to determine which edits should be corrected." It found that in the seven articles reviewed for its 2026 report, six of which were "flagship pages," 91 percent of edits by a banned editor were still alive.
An account called Iskandar323, which was part of the group of 30 editors documented in the 2025 report, serves as a case study of what has happened in the time since then. The ADL found that the account had a long editing history, which showed a significant increase after the October 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel.
According to the ADL, the account made 485 edits to six articles, 225 of which were made after the Hamas killings, including 85 in October 2023. The pages were "Israel", "Gaza War", "October 7 attacks", "Hamas", "Zionism" and "Jews".
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The ADL found that edits by a problematic editor persisted on the Wikipedia website despite the account being banned. (Anti-Defamation League)
The ArbCom of Wikipedia discussed the behavior of Iskandar323 in the public hearing. ArbCom found that Iskandar323 "engaged in disruptive behavior in the subject area of the PIA, including persistent non-neutral editing." According to the ADL, the account was banned after it continued to edit topics related to Israel and Palestine despite previously being subject to a topic ban.
Just days after the October 7th attacks, Iskandar323 removed much of the content of the "Hamas" Wikipedia article, including material detailing anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, the use of human shields and child fighters, human rights abuses, and more, to become "a far less read companion." An article entitled "Critique of Hamas."
ADL said that Alexander323 only passed a "brief general reference". The organization noted that while nothing was removed, the transfer of information meant that readers viewing the "Hamas" page would no longer see the content unless they went to the next page.
An account known as Iskandar323 still has edits on Wikipedia despite being found to be "engaging in malicious behavior". (Anti-Defamation League)
According to the ADL, on November 21, 2023, the same account deleted about 17,000 characters of text and quotes from the "Gaza War" Wikipedia page. The account removed part of the page that showed forensic evidence of violence committed in the October 7 attacks, including beheadings, torture and sexual assault.
Two days later, Iskandar323 deleted about 7,400 characters of what remained on the page, including eyewitness accounts from Israeli soldiers and ZAKA, a first responder organization.
"These are not harmless edits," Greenblatt said. “These are deliberate changes designed to drive a narrative, one that demonizes the Jewish state number one. "This, number two, removes all context from terrorist incidents in general, and in particular, what happened on October 7th, the worst and most brutal attack on the Jews since the Holocaust.
The ADL said the ramifications of biased edits go beyond Wikipedia itself, calling the platform "essential infrastructure for the broader online ecosystem." Wikipedia is often favored by search engines, and according to the ADL it can be "at or near the top of search results for most basic queries".
Greenblatt said that "Wikipedia has lost trust" at a critical time, as many large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and AI features embedded in other products rely on Wikipedia.
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Pressure from congressional scrutiny, federal investigations, and Wikipedia's own enforcement after the 2025 report appears to have led to a significant decline in coordinated activity among the group of 30 editors, according to the ADL. However, the organization acknowledges that while "visible signs of coordination" have decreased, that does not necessarily mean it has stopped. The 2026 report states that problematic edits are still being made, but through "quieter and more subtle techniques".
A July 2026 review identified 19 active accounts editing articles about Israel and Palestine, according to the ADL. Eight editors avoided sanctions despite being part of the top 30 identified in the 2025 report, the organization said. These editors apparently use subtle techniques such as undoing other editors' changes, covering up factual claims, and subtly reconstructing articles to avoid detection.
Another 11 editors have a Wikipedia history, despite being new to ADL documentation. Like the editors in the group identified by the ADL more than a year ago, the backgrounds of these editors — some of whom have edited the site for years — are mostly in articles related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Among the 229 articles with 19 overlapping accounts, the ADL found that 11 newly identified editors were "recently much more active" and made the last edit on roughly six out of 10 pages.
Finally, ADL provided a set of recommendations aimed at the Wikimedia Foundation, policymakers, search engines and AI developers, as well as the press and the public.
ADL called on the Wikimedia Foundation to strengthen accountability on sensitive pages by privately verifying the identity of editors, ending anonymous IP address editing, and requiring verified editors to resolve disputes. It also called on the Wikimedia Foundation to create a task force on anti-Semitism modeled after the foundation's 2021 intervention against Holocaust revisionism.
For search engines and AI developers, the ADL calls for greater transparency when relying on Wikipedia as a source for answers, especially on sensitive topics. It also encouraged them to consider subject-specific editorial warnings, update information, and develop bias detection criteria.
When it comes to policymakers, the ADL would like to see ongoing monitoring sessions on bigotry and antisemitism on Wikipedia, and create a task force to oversee the coordinated manipulation of content and the development of policy options by academics, technologists, Wikipedians, and civil society leaders.
ADL also wants the press and public to be aware that chatbots and AI search summaries may rely on Wikipedia's framing, even without disclosing it. It also requires individuals and media outlets to verify quotes and citations in AI-generated responses.
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