Wikipedia entries manipulated in line with Iran’s propaganda

A new report has revealed that Iranian government agents or supporters are changing entries in Wikipedia to downplay the regime’s crimes and discredit dissidents.

According to a report in The Times this week, Wikipedia entries related to Iranian human rights abuses have been systematically altered in line with Tehran’s propaganda. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world.

In addition to downplaying Iranian atrocities and targeting its critics, the edits seek to present government publications as impartial sources.

Specific instances involve the removal of details about mass executions in 1988 and the fact that current senior officials in the regime were involved in ordering the hanging of thousands of political prisoners.

Another example is misinformation about human rights activist Vahid Beheshti, who has been campaigning to put pressure on the UK government to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist group. Mattie Heaven, Beheshti’s wife, said four attempts were made to set up a page on the topic because there was so much misinformation online about her husband, but the text was repeatedly removed so the page could not function. “We believed it was the Iranian cyber army,” she said.

Other deletions included references to the jailing of Iranian official Hamid Nouri, a key figure implicated in the 1988 massacre, in Sweden in 2022, and the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from Albania in 2018 due to their alleged involvement in a bomb plot against dissidents.

“Online misinformation is also a key tool for the regime," The Times wrote. The campaign is in line with Supreme Leader’s Ali Khamenei’s call on supporters to come up with recounts of the global current affairs that benefit the regime, what he has dubbed “vindication jihad.”