Japanese Wikipedia

[Lyallpuri]

I, too, think a similar problem is probably happening on other language Wikipedias... Japanese are isolated not only geographically but also culturally. Most Japanese don't speak English (even though we have to study English in school), so it's hard for Japanese readers to use English Wikipedia. Korea is similar to Japan in terms of culture, etc, but many Koreans speak English, which makes them less "isolated" perhaps.

But I wonder why Wikipedia doesn't respond to this? Is there some conspiracy or some regrettable truth about it behind the scenes?

Maybe admins (and other high-ranking Wikipedians) use their power to block new users who try to respond to it. Just a theory.

[Vigilant]

I, too, think a similar problem is probably happening on other language Wikipedias... Japanese are isolated not only geographically but also culturally. Most Japanese don't speak English (even though we have to study English in school), so it's hard for Japanese readers to use English Wikipedia. Korea is similar to Japan in terms of culture, etc, but many Koreans speak English, which makes them less "isolated" perhaps.

But I wonder why Wikipedia doesn't respond to this? Is there some conspiracy or some regrettable truth about it behind the scenes?

Is there any money in it?

Is there any threat to the money they're already getting if they do nothing?

[Anonyanonymous]

Is there any money in it?

Is there any threat to the money they're already getting if they do nothing?

Nah, I don't that, that's just my assumption.

[Bezdomni]

Well done. I particularly enjoyed:

[....] Katherine Maher [....] said, “the fact that we only have one page, it’s the same page that’s viewed by absolutely everyone across the globe, is really important.”

But Wikipedia exists in 302 languages...

The Wikimedia Foundation likes to emphasize that "there is only one page for each topic."

But I've found more than one page for a similar topic on Japanese Wikipedia.

Thanks to both you and Smiley for bringing this up here. The multiple pages on the same subject is perhaps a little easier to make happen on *.wp where there are no barriers to page creation, but it's not that infrequent on en.wp either.

I remember feeling like throwing up my hands for a second when Maher said this during the Al Jazeera interview. Frankly, I hope she'll stop that sort of thing when she is no longer paid to communicate for the Company.

Most Japanese don't speak English (even though we have to study English in school), so it's hard for Japanese readers to use English Wikipedia.

Yes. This. ^^^ Using ja.wp is really hard for me.

Wikipedia pages are offered to Googlers based on their Google language preferences (which some may not even realize they can change). This is why I found Maher repeating this "only one page" mantra so frustrating. While monolingual people have an excuse, she studied abroad and knows better. Perhaps it is because she is also comfortable reading English that she doesn't seem to consider it that important.

(That said, I sort of remember that she did make the caveat (quickly, in passing) during the interview that her statements were about en.wp... she just didn't emphasize how important that particular caveat was.)

[Poetlister]

I, too, think a similar problem is probably happening on other language Wikipedias... Japanese are isolated not only geographically but also culturally. Most Japanese don't speak English (even though we have to study English in school), so it's hard for Japanese readers to use English Wikipedia. Korea is similar to Japan in terms of culture, etc, but many Koreans speak English, which makes them less "isolated" perhaps.

But I wonder why Wikipedia doesn't respond to this? Is there some conspiracy or some regrettable truth about it behind the scenes?

Wikipedia as such doesn't do anything. If you mean the WMF, I expect that it neither knows nor cares what happens on the Japanese site. Its primary motivation is to ensure a steady stream of donations. Its secondary objectives are anything likely to maintain or increase donations. How would trying to make the Japanese Wikipedia more NPOV achieve that? Only if there were a big scandal in the English-language media that threatened to reflect badly on the English and main European sites.

[Yumiko]

I've received many comments on Twitter and Facebook that this is not unique to Japanese Wikipedia, and that English Wikipedia has a similar problem. What do you think of that?

[Beeblebrox]

EN.WP has problems with POV pushing, to be sure, and also with some attempts at historical revisionism, but the community is more diverse and it would be very difficult for a wholesale distortion across the whole project to take hold. That's not to say there re not topic areas that suffer from this, in particular areas that people from majority English-speaking countries are not very familiar with. You'll get a user or group of users who are familiar with it coming in and pushing their perspective, and the broader community simply not being aware of preexisting contention around the subject.

[Hemiauchenia]

To folllow on from Beeblebrox's point, the area with the most successful POV-pushing against truth I've seen is the Syrian Civil War topic area. Editors like Burrobert (T-C-L) Kashmiri (T-C-L) and Huldra (T-C-L) consistently push a pro-Assad line, legitimizing Russian disinformation. A classic example is their tag team attempt to whitewash the Vanessa Beeley (T-H-L) article back in November. The Douma chemical attack (T-H-L) article arguably lends undue weight to the unconfirmed allegations of the supposed whistleblower "Alex" that were amplified by pro-Russian sources.

[Ryuichi]

I've received many comments on Twitter and Facebook that this is not unique to Japanese Wikipedia, and that English Wikipedia has a similar problem. What do you think of that?

I think the problem is not unique to Japanese Wikipedia. I think the problem is inherent in the system.

EN.WP has problems with POV pushing, to be sure, and also with some attempts at historical revisionism, but the community is more diverse and it would be very difficult for a wholesale distortion across the whole project to take hold. That's not to say there re not topic areas that suffer from this, in particular areas that people from majority English-speaking countries are not very familiar with. You'll get a user or group of users who are familiar with it coming in and pushing their perspective, and the broader community simply not being aware of preexisting contention around the subject.

Sympathetic to this point of view, particularly "difficult for a wholesale distortion across the whole project to take hold". On English WIkipedia the problem is more localised than global. But certainly there are topic areas with a POV skew across the topic.

Suggest looking at WP:DSTOPICS (link) for some example topics where there has been conflict. Some are likely familiar: 竹島 & 尖閣諸島.

While there is conflict there's likely to be some degree of neutrality possible. But if one side of the conflict gains an advantage, then the system reinforces that advantage. A numerical advantage turns into a bigger numerical advantage, turns into a POV advantage.

Ideally, the system should be able to rely on neutral, disinterested editors, but disinterested editors are often also uninterested editors. There aren't that many of us who want to wade through the muck on a topic that we don't personally care much about.

[Yumiko]

This is really helpful. So what do you think needs to happen to solve this problem? If you can change something about Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation, what would you change?

[Midsize Jake]

This is really helpful. So what do you think needs to happen to solve this problem? If you can change something about Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation, what would you change?

I don't think it's a question of "change" — to solve a problem like this, you'd have to set up (i.e., hire, maybe even pay) some sort of of International Content Review Board, consisting of at least a dozen or more multilingual generalists who don't subscribe to any specific nationalistic, ideological, or even personal agenda. That, or wait until Artificial Intelligence becomes sophisticated enough to do the job, assuming Skynet hasn't simply killed us all in the meantime.

It might be more realistic to consider what they're going to do with the individual cases like this one that people do find and report, though if we're talking about the WMF, their answer is likely to be the same either way: Nothing.

[Hemiauchenia]

The Southern Poverty Law Center gave a great breakdown of the problem in their article "Wikipedia wars: inside the fight against far-right editors, vandals and sock puppets" link

The far-right’s activity on Wikipedia is relatively easy to manage when it clearly violates one of the site’s policies, such as vandalism, harassment, ad hominem attacks or edit-warring, which refers to dueling edits by one or more factions outside of the normal dialogue mechanism. But it’s much harder to keep editors in check when they dance on the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior — this is known as “civil POV.” Civil POV is when an editor or a group of editors tries to tilt an article to a particular point of view but remains polite and abides by site-wide norms of behavior.

Admins generally only issue sanctions for conduct issues, which means that editors who are blatantly pushing fringe perspectives that are unfamiliar to admins are often brushed aside as "content disputes". I think that the fact that war crime denialism is mainstream within Japanese society, including being endorsed by its government, goes a long way to explaining its entrenched position on jawiki.

[Poetlister]

To folllow on from Beeblebrox's point, the area with the most successful POV-pushing against truth I've seen is the Syrian Civil War topic area. Editors like Burrobert (T-C-L) Kashmiri (T-C-L) and Huldra (T-C-L) consistently push a pro-Assad line, legitimizing Russian disinformation. A classic example is their tag team attempt to whitewash the Vanessa Beeley (T-H-L) article back in November. The Douma chemical attack (T-H-L) article arguably lends undue weight to the unconfirmed allegations of the supposed whistleblower "Alex" that were amplified by pro-Russian sources.

Middle East topics in general are a huge battle ground for POV pushers and no doubt COI editors. It's inevitable that some topics in that area would become enormously unbalanced because only editors with one particular viewpoint can be bothered with those parts. It would be interesting to compare how the Syrian Civil War is covered on for example the Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Armenian, Farsi and Russian sites. No doubt there would be very different biases.

[Yumiko]

I like the idea of "International Content Review Board."

I understand that other language versions have a similar problem with POV. But what we're seeing on Japanese Wiki is extreme. Imagine someone writing in English Wiki "There is a theory that the Holocaust happened." No one would think that this is a neutral "point of view." Yet, that's exactly what's we're seeing on Japanese Wiki. I don't think denying a war crime and having a different opinion on recent events or politicians are the same.

As for the administrators on Japanese Wiki, I don't think all of them are historical revisionists, but some of them are at least sympathetic to nationalist/revisionist users. Is there anything that can be done about such administrators? Japanese Wiki doesn't have an Arbitration Committee. If we have one, would that help?

[Bezdomni]

As I understand it the only way to desysop an admin in WMF-run mediawiki (i.e. physically remove permissions) is through the bureaucrat role (at least internally). How many bureaucrats does Japanese Wikipedia have? Are they approachable? Do you have the equivalent of Wikipedia:Bureaucrat's Noticeboard (T-H-L)? (It doesn't look like it based on the WikiData page (§), but there are lots of duplicate pages at WikiData...) Otherwise (iff there are no bureaucrats), I think you have to contact stewards on meta.wm, or WMF legal, if you want "external" review.

uCoC suggests Trust & Safety (which I think is part of community resilience / legal) may be available for behavioral abuse.

[el84]

As I understand it the only way to desysop an admin in WMF-run mediawiki (i.e. physically remove permissions) is through the bureaucrat role (at least internally). How many bureaucrats does Japanese Wikipedia have? Are they approachable? Do you have the equivalent of Wikipedia:Bureaucrat's Noticeboard (T-H-L)? (It doesn't look like it based on the WikiData page (§), but there are lots of duplicate pages at WikiData...) Otherwise (iff there are no bureaucrats), I think you have to contact stewards on meta.wm, or WMF legal, if you want "external" review.

uCoC suggests Trust & Safety (which I think is part of community resilience / legal) may be available for behavioral abuse.

There appears to be 5 bureaucrats on the Japanese Uikipedia: link

[Poetlister]

Japanese Wiki doesn't have an Arbitration Committee. If we have one, would that help?

Would bureaucrats, even if they are not revisionists, be willing to desysop admins over content issues, even extreme ones such as we are discussing? I expect there would be an uproar.

ArbCom isn't a magic wand. It can't be better than its members, who would almost certainly all be admins. If it is dominated by admins who are revisionists or not unsympathetic to them, that would give them even more power.

[Bezdomni]

There appears to be 5 bureaucrats on the Japanese Uikipedia: link

All of whom appear to be relatively active, fwiw.

• Infinite0694 appears to specialize in blocking people (about 6700 mainspace contribs for 3831 blocks: §)
• Two others are in the top-25 contributor list (bellcricket (#24) has made 6723 blocks §, Penn Station (#12) has created a lot of pages and has deleted the most of the five)
• Jkr2255 spends between 5 and 15 minutes on the site per day each month §, and
• W.CC has piled up 2500 contributions to mainspace and has made only 522 blocks. §
• They all have pseudos with Latin letters.

[Ryuichi]

I understand that other language versions have a similar problem with POV. But what we're seeing on Japanese Wiki is extreme. Imagine someone writing in English Wiki "There is a theory that the Holocaust happened." No one would think that this is a neutral "point of view." Yet, that's exactly what's we're seeing on Japanese Wiki. I don't think denying a war crime and having a different opinion on recent events or politicians are the same.

I do agree that there's a qualitative difference between "denying a war crime" and "having a different opinion". But the mechanism for introducing & reinforcing content bias is the same. And Japanese Wikipedia isn't unique in having this issue; not even if we consider the extremeness. I think Croatian Wikipedia is probably the exemplar, but there's probably enough volunteers to slant some of the other Eastern European wikipedias.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... 30/Opinion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_ ... -wing_bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism ... n_coverage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideologic ... ms_of_bias

A nice mention of your article on Japanese Wikipedia in the last link.

[Yumiko]

Thank you all for your comments. So it sounds like having an Arbitration Committee will not help resolve this issue. What about Stewards? What do they do exactly? The last time I heard that there was only one Steward who was a native Japanese speaker.

I also want to share that someone sent me an example of the whitewashing of war crimes on Ukranian Wikipedia. Take a look at the page on the Volyn Massacre on English Wikipedia: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia.

It says, "The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia were carried out in German-occupied Poland by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army." It has a picture and the number of deaths.

Now look at the same page on Ukrainian Wikipedia (link).

The massacre is described as “mutual ethnic cleansing” (translation). The title of the page is "Volyn tragedy" (translation). It doesn’t have any picture of the massacre or the number of death.

Don't you think this is very similar to the page on "The Nanjing Massacre" on Japanese Wikipedia? It's also missing the number of casualties and a picture. The title has been changed from "Massacre" to "Incident" (For more info, click here).

[Poetlister]

Thank you all for your comments. So it sounds like having an Arbitration Committee will not help resolve this issue. What about Stewards? What do they do exactly? The last time I heard that there was only one Steward who was a native Japanese speaker.

Stewards have immense power. They can go to any WMF site and act as admins, bureaucrats, checkusers, whatever. They can give or withdraw checkuser or any other status. However, they wouldn't normally act on their own initiative, only on request from the community on the site or from the WMF. Still, if you can get that Japanese-speaking steward on your side, the WMF would probably listen to him.

[Midsize Jake]

Don't you think this is very similar to the page on "The Nanjing Massacre" on Japanese Wikipedia? It's also missing the number of casualties and a picture. The title has been changed from "Massacre" to "Incident" (For more info, click here).

It's similar enough, but I'd assume the most significant difference is that the vast majority of Chinese people (whether or not they're fluent in Japanese) are behind the Great Firewall of China, and therefore have no access to the Japanese WP in order to carry on this fight. That's clearly not the case with Ukraine and Poland, as we've often been directly reminded on this very forum.

Then again, I've already mentioned how small the Japanese diaspora is — by contrast, China's is huge, with about 10 million first-generation emigrants alone, and probably another 35 million or so if you include everybody who would identify as primarily Chinese. So even if just 0.5 percent of them are sufficiently fluent in Japanese to try it, maybe you'd think there would be enough of them to keep the Japanese Wikipedians honest.

As it happens though, heavy-handed administrator nationalism can easily negate all of that. We now know there's extensive admin nationalism on the Japanese WP, and I'm pretty sure I recall some complaints about that on the Ukrainian WP not so long ago. (It would be easier there too, if only because it's so much smaller.)

Also, I'll probably get raked over the coals (by one side or the other) if I don't mention that the term "mutual ethnic cleansing" was used on the English WP version as recently as April 2016, and possibly more recently than that — I just haven't taken the time to analyze it. So it's possible the Ukrainian version was actually some sort of copy-paste-translate procedure, and then they just left it the way they copied it.

[Yumiko]

Stewards have immense power. They can go to any WMF site and act as admins, bureaucrats, checkusers, whatever. They can give or withdraw checkuser or any other status. However, they wouldn't normally act on their own initiative, only on request from the community on the site or from the WMF. Still, if you can get that Japanese-speaking steward on your side, the WMF would probably listen to him.

I see. I wonder why there aren't more Japanese (speaking) Stewards.

[Yumiko]

Also, I'll probably get raked over the coals (by one side or the other) if I don't mention that the term "mutual ethnic cleansing" was used on the English WP version as recently as April 2016, and possibly more recently than that — I just haven't taken the time to analyze it. So it's possible the Ukrainian version was actually some sort of copy-paste-translate procedure, and then they just left it the way they copied it.

Thanks for sharing this!

I saw one Chinese-speaking user tried to add pictures on the Nanjing Massacre page on Japanese Wikipedia. After it was rejected, he/she wrote the reason for adding the pictures in the talk page in English and was immediately attacked by nationalist users.

Now, many of you said that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't do anything to solve issues. What's your experience with them?

[Poetlister]

There are two stewards who claim some knowledge of Japanese: Sakretsu (who is Italian) and Sotiale (who is Korean). It is probably better to have a non-Japanese person investigating, as he or she is unlikely to share the viewpoints being complained about. Another person who might be helpful is Aphaia. She is a native Japanese speaker but is blocked on that site. Not speaking Japanese, I don't know the reason.

この利用者は現在ブロックされています。 参考のために最新のブロック記録項目を以下に示します:

2007年9月9日 (日) 04:18 Co.kyoto 会話 投稿記録 が Aphaia 会話 投稿記録 を無期限ブロックしました (アカウント作成も禁止) (Wikipedia:投稿ブロック依頼/Aphaia 09022007より、3ヶ月＋無期限)

[el84]

Stewards have immense power. They can go to any WMF site and act as admins, bureaucrats, checkusers, whatever. They can give or withdraw checkuser or any other status. However, they wouldn't normally act on their own initiative, only on request from the community on the site or from the WMF. Still, if you can get that Japanese-speaking steward on your side, the WMF would probably listen to him.

I see. I wonder why there aren't more Japanese (speaking) Stewards.

There was a Japanese-native steward up until the start of this year. I dunno the politics behind what has happened here, as I can't read much of the writing there, but something happened and they weren't reconfirmed this last January. They also appear on the "ex-bureaucrat" list I posted earlier.

There are two stewards who claim some knowledge of Japanese: Sakretsu (who is Italian) and Sotiale (who is Korean). It is probably better to have a non-Japanese person investigating, as he or she is unlikely to share the viewpoints being complained about. Another person who might be helpful is Aphaia. She is a native Japanese speaker but is blocked on that site. Not speaking Japanese, I don't know the reason.

この利用者は現在ブロックされています。 参考のために最新のブロック記録項目を以下に示します:

2007年9月9日 (日) 04:18 Co.kyoto 会話 投稿記録 が Aphaia 会話 投稿記録 を無期限ブロックしました (アカウント作成も禁止) (Wikipedia:投稿ブロック依頼/Aphaia 09022007より、3ヶ月＋無期限)

Google-TL seems to suggest it may have had something to do with outing, and not taking responsibility for it? link to first block request | link to second block request

EDIT: combined posts.

[GlwnDwr]

One might wonder what goes on in smaller Wikipedias that were created with the purpose of preserving a language (e.g. Catalan). They are run almost exclusively by nationalists and there aren't any stewards fluent enough to understand their contents.

[Poetlister]

One might wonder what goes on in smaller Wikipedias that were created with the purpose of preserving a language (e.g. Catalan). They are run almost exclusively by nationalists and there aren't any stewards fluent enough to understand their contents.

It's a safe bet that their articles would reflect their world view. I can guess how the Catalan site covers the recent attempts to have a referendum on independence and the imprisonment of some of their senior politicians.

[Yumiko]

Hi everyone

I spoke to the Wikimedia Foundation about the problem with Japanese Wikipedia I detailed in the Slate article (link).

Here is what I've learned:

1. The foundation has tried to reach out to the Japanese Wikipedia community over the years, but it has been challenging. The community doesn't want to be bothered by them.

2. The foundation doesn't have anyone on staff who speaks Japanese.

As a result, they didn't realize the extent of the problem with the Japanese Wikipedia community or its contents. This community has gone unchecked for many years and become something quite different from what Wikipedia is supposed to be.

Given that Japanese Wikipedia is the most visited edition of Wikipedia after English and receives 1 billion page views per month, it has a major impact. I've suggested to the foundation that they hire someone who speaks Japanese and understands its culture in order to solve this problem.

[Vigilant]

Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently.

General Tagge: But that's impossible.

Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories.

[Hemiauchenia]

Another strange incident on the Japanese Wikipedia:

For context: On April the 19th 2019, 89 year old former Japanese bureaucrat Kozo Iizuka (T-H-L) crashed his car, killing a woman and her child and injuring nine others. He was initially not arrested, but public pressure caused him to be indicted in February 2020. The incident was widely reported in the Japanese media, however
his Japanese Wikipedia article makes no mention of the incident, and his article is extended-confirmed protected to enforce this. The ostensible justification for this is BLP policy. This has received coverage in one of Japan's major newspapers, The Asahi Shimbun Exchange of additions and deletions on Wikipedia Ikebukuro runaway accident tour (paywalled), and other media outlets, which has led to related edit warring on Kozo Iizuka's English Wikipedia article.

From the perspective of EnWiki BLP, this seems somewhat absurd. The case obviously isn't under a gag order, and his involvement in the crash has been widely reported by reliable sources, which seems to trump any sort of BLP concerns. The fact that this weird consensus can be enforced likely stems from the fact that as far as I understand that the proportion of anonymous editors on JaWiki is much higher than EnWiki and that the number of registered users is relatively tiny.

[Yumiko]

Yes, this case is well known in Japan. For whatever reason, power editors/users on Japanese Wikipedia don't want that information on the page.

[Bezdomni]

Do we have a special procedure for reporting sightings of WPO rayonnement in the mediaz?

One of the best titles of Wikimania 2021 was surely K. Sae's "Come on, It’s Wikipedia, not Westeros: A Brief Introduction to the Wikipedia Conspiracy Theory in Japan". It was also the one which had "Wikipediocracy" feature on the screen for the longest. Seeing our very own disembodied cat-head grinning back at me through the screen in her screenshot of this thread was worth the price of admission.

You can find the video in S. Yumiko's (more recent thread) here.

Q: How many administrators did you say there are in jpn wiki?
A: 40. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... 6%E8%80%85

source

and I think I remember there are 5 bureaucrats from up-thread...

[Smiley]

Seeing our very own disembodied cat-head grinning back at me through the screen in her screenshot of this thread was worth the price of admission.

[Bezdomni]

Nobody dares tell Бегемот he is Unclear Being.

loosely unrelated radiance

There's been a leek in personnel. May the RTG / BFG be well. :\

[Yumiko]

Is anyone attending the WikiConference North America? I'm speaking about a disinformation problem on Japanese Wikipedia on Oct 9. I hope to see you virtually.

[tarantino]

Is anyone attending the WikiConference North America? I'm speaking about a disinformation problem on Japanese Wikipedia on Oct 9. I hope to see you virtually.

Hi Yumiko. There are a few questions on the talk page of your submission. The organizer wonders if you could focus on any North American aspect.

https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submiss ... on_Problem

[Zoloft]

Is anyone attending the WikiConference North America? I'm speaking about a disinformation problem on Japanese Wikipedia on Oct 9. I hope to see you virtually.

Hi Yumiko. There are a few questions on the talk page of your submission. The organizer wonders if you could focus on any North American aspect.

https://wikiconference.org/wiki/Submiss ... on_Problem

They need your Wikimedia name too.

[Yumiko]

This is an interesting article about the Chinese Wikipedia (link). I'm glad that the Wikimedia Foundation has acknowledged the problem and taken actions.

As for the Japanese Wikipedia, it continues to have a problem with ultranationalist editors & administrators abusing the platform. None of them has been banned since I reported this problem earlier this year and spoke with the Wikimedia Foundation representatives. Other Japanese editors have also contacted the foundation and reported abuse & harassment, but they didn't get a satisfactory answer.

[Zoloft]

Yumiko Sato's Presentation at Wikiconference North America can be found here: link

I found it quite interesting and horrifying. WMF apparently knows not about how to properly focus a camera though.

[Yumiko]

Yumiko Sato's Presentation at Wikiconference North America can be found here: link

Thanks for sharing!

[Yumiko]

The Wikimedia Foundation finally hired a Japanese speaking staff.

Yumiko Shibata
Community Facilitator, Movement Strategy and Governance, Wikimedia Foundation

[Yumiko]

I followed up with the Wikimedia Foundation about the issue with Japanese Wikipedia. Here is the article that includes their statement:

https://time.com/6210117/hate-speech-so ... chi-japan/

[Smultronstället]

I followed up with the Wikimedia Foundation about the issue with Japanese Wikipedia. Here is the article that includes their statement:

https://time.com/6210117/hate-speech-so ... chi-japan/

Great article. The WMF denies the problem.

Meanwhile, with one billion monthly page views, Japanese Wikipedia is the most visited edition of Wikipedia after English. It has played a crucial role in whitewashing war crimes committed by Imperial Japan in China and Korea. The Zainichi Korean page contains many misleading claims and reinforces a stereotype of Zainichi Koreans as criminals. One of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors said in an email to TIME that “Japanese Wikipedia has been hijacked by netto-uyoku.”

The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, dismisses the claim. It said in a statement to TIME that it had investigated historical revisionism on Japanese Wikipedia and found “some presence of right-wing users who have possibly attempted to control the content on certain pages” but the abuse didn’t seem frequent or sufficient enough to enforce a ban. The foundation subsequently added that its “volunteers have included more relevant, verified historical context in [disputed] articles,” although much disinformation remains.

[Yumiko]

This is interesting research that examined historical revisionism on Japanese Wikipedia. Findings were presented at Wiki Workshop a few months ago.

Findings

"Articles related to WWII exhibited significantly greater controversy than general historical articles. Among the top 20 most controversial articles, eleven were largely related to Japanese war crimes and right-wing ideology. Over time, the number of contributing editors and the level of controversy increased. Furthermore, editors involved in edit wars were more likely to contribute to a higher number of controversial articles, particularly those related to right-wing ideology. These findings suggest the possible presence of groups of editors seeking to disseminate revisionist narratives."