Orangemoody editing of Wikipedia

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For more information on Wikipedia's response to this situation, see Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Orangemoody.

On August 31, 2015, 381 sockpuppet accounts on the English Wikipedia were discovered operating a secret paid editing ring. Its participants extorted money from mid-sized businesses who had articles about themselves rejected. Nicknamed "Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered, it was Wikipedia's biggest conflict-of-interest scandal at the time,[1] exceeding the scope of the Wiki-PR editing of Wikipedia incident in which approximately 250 sockpuppets were found and blocked in 2013.

The story was reported by hundreds of English and non-English language news sources, including Komsomolskaya Pravda, Le Monde and Die Zeit.[2][3][4] The editing was described by various media as "black hat" editors (Tech Crunch),[5] "dishonest editing" (PC World),[6] "extortion" (Wired),[7] a "blackmail scam" (The Independent),[8] and "extensive cybercrime syndicate" (ThinkProgress).[9]

History

In 2015, the English Wikipedia blocked 381 accounts, many of them suspected of being sockpuppets of the same people, after a two-month investigation launched by Wikipedia editors.[10] More than 200 Wikipedia articles created from the accounts were deleted.[11]

Wikipedia's resulting investigation, named "Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered, found that sockpuppets had searched the site for deleted or rejected articles about businesses.[12] Many of the articles had been deleted for excessively promotional content. The editors, some posing as Wikipedia administrators, would then extort[13] payment from the businesses to publish and protect the articles. More than 200 articles were deleted. Besides businesses, individual people were targeted, including Cuban musician Dayramir Gonzalez.[13][14] The scammers themselves may have been involved in the deletion of some articles.[8] Wikimedia Foundation members Ed Erhart and Juliet Barbara declared that "undisclosed paid advocacy editing may represent a serious conflict of interest and could compromise the quality of content on Wikipedia".[13]

References

Citations

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  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Additional references

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External links

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