In 2008, the pro-Israel group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) organized an e-mail campaign to encourage reers to correct perceived Israel-related biases and inconsistencies in Wikipedia. CAMERA argued the excerpts were unrepresentative and that it h explicitly campaigned merely "toward encouraging people to l about and edit the online encyclopedia for accuracy". Defenders of CAMERA and the competing group, Electronic Intifa, went into mediation. Israeli diplomat David Saranga said Wikipedia is generally fair in regard to Israel. When it was pointed out that the entry on Israel mentioned the word "occupation" nine times, was the entry on the Palestinian People mentioned "terror" once, he responded, "It means one thing: Israelis should be more active on Wikipedia. Inste of blaming it, they should go on the site much more, and try and chang
e it." Political commentator Haviv Rettig Gur, revieg widespre perceptions in Israel of systemic bias in Wikipedia articles, has argued that t are deeper structural s creating this bias: anonymous editing favors biased results, especially if the editors organize concerted campaigns of defamation as has been done in articles ing with Arab-Israeli issues, and current Wikipedia policies, while well-meant, have proven ineffective in handling this. On August 31, 2008, The New York Times ran an article detailing the edits me to the biography of Alaska governor Sarah Palin in the wake of her nomination as the running mate of Arizona Senator John McCain. During the 24 hours before the McCain campaign announcement, 30 edits, many of them ding flattering details, were me to the article by the user "Young_Trigg". This person later ackledged working on the McCain campaign, and having several other user accounts. In November 2007, libelous accusations were me against two politicia
ns from southwestern France, Jean-Pierre Grand and Hélène Mandroux-Colas, on their Wikipedia biographies. Grand asked the president of the French National Assembly and Prime Minister to reinforce the legislation on the penal responsibility of Internet sites and of authors who peddle false ination in to cause harm. Senator Jean Louis Masson then requested the Minister of Justice to tell him whether it would be possible to increase the criminal responsibilities of hosting providers, site operators, and authors of libelous content; the minister declined to do so, reing the existing rules in the LCEN law (see Internet censorship in France). On August 25, 2010, the Toronto Star reported that the Canian "government is conducting two investigations into federal employees who have taken to Wikipedia to express their opinion on federal policies and bitter political debates." In 2010, Al Jazeera's Teymoor Nabili suggested that the article Cyrus Cylinder h been edit
ed for political purposes by "an apparent tussle of opinions in the showy world of hard drives and 'independent' editors that comprise the Wikipedia industry." He suggested that, after the Iranian presidential election of 2009 and ensuing "anti-Iranian activities", a "strenuous attempt to portray the cylinder as nothing more than the propaganda tool of an aggressive inver" was visible. The edits follog his analysis of the edits during 2009 and 2010, represented "a complete dismissal of the suggestion that the cylinder, or Cyrus' actions, represent concern for human rights or any kind of enlightened intent," in stark contrast to Cyrus' own reputation as documented in the Old Testament and the people of Babylon. Commandeering or sanitizing articles Articles of particular interest to an editor or group of editors are sometimes modified based on these editors' respective points of views. Some companies and organizations—s
uch as Sony, Diebold, Nintendo, Dell, the CIA, and the Church of Scientology—as well as individuals, such as United States Congressional staffers, were all shown to have modified the Wikipedia pages about themselves in to present a point of view that describes them positively; these organizations may have editors who revert negative changes as soon as these changes are submitted. The Chinese Wikipedia article on Tiananmen Square massacre was rewritten to describe it as necessary to "quell the counterrevolutionary riots" and Taiwan was described as "a province in the People’s Republic of China". According to the BBC, "t are indications that [such edits] are not all necessarily organic, nor random" and were in fact orchestrated by the Chinese Communist Party. Quality of the presentation Quality of articles on U.S. history
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