Originally published September 1 2015
Wikipedia exposed as a blackmail racket that extorts small businesses while publishing corporate propaganda
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Natural News has long documented the scandal, debauchery and bogusness surrounding the "online encyclopedia" known as Wikipedia – and each time we've been proven correct that the media giant is little more than a corrupt operation that has always attempted to downplay or hide its seedy, shady side.
As reported by the UK's Independent newspaper, hundreds of small British businesses and minor celebrities have been targeted by a high-level blackmail scam that was orchestrated by "rogue editors" at Wikipedia. (Side note: We at Natural News believe if this is happening in Britain, it's a safe bet to assume it could be happening in others in other nations – just saying.)
The Independent further reported:
The victims, who range from a wedding photographer in Dorset to a high-end jewellery shop in Shoreditch, east London, faced demands for hundreds of pounds to "protect" or update Wikipedia pages about their businesses. A former Britain's Got Talent contestant was among dozens of individuals targeted.
Wikipedia officials say they have taken action against what the media entity described as the "co-ordinated group" of fraudsters by blocking 381 accounts. They also said that the accounts were controlled by Wikipedia users who had offered to change some articles about companies and private individuals in exchange for money. In some of those cases, requests for money were veiled blackmail threats, Wikipedia said.
The Independent reported that the scam worked thusly: Fraudsters targeted businesses that were struggling to get pages about their firms on Wikipedia (which suggests de facto censorship if anyone has to "struggle" to get on a site advertising itself as a comprehensive, complete encyclopedia). Often, these businesses were rejected over concerns that write-ups were too promotional, though in some cases scammers themselves may have been the ones who caused the articles to be removed.
This episode, like so many before it, is a primary reason why respectable, credible institutions of higher learning (and news media companies) do not use Wikipedia as a "source" – because it is often incorrect, scam-filled are unreliable, and its founders are of questionable character.
As Natural News has documented:
-- In addition to "problems" with accuracy and an inherent bias toward mainstream, "conventional" concepts of medicine, there are huge questions regarding Wikipedia's earliest forms of funding. As reported by Dr. Judith Reisman at WorldNetDaily (WND) in December 2012:
Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's creator, originally made his living off a website that earned revenue from pornography traffickers.
Wales demanded a retraction, but WND Editor-in-Chief and founder Joseph Farah explained that the Wikipedia page for Bomis (which rhymes with "promise"), a now-defunct company founded by Wales and his partner in 1996, states that "Bomis ran a website called Bomis Premium at premium.bomis.com until 2005, offering customers access to premium, X-rated pornographic content."
-- In an "open letter" to Wales in 2014, Dana Ullman, a top expert in homeopathy and a noted multiple-book author on the subject, took Wikipedia to task regarding misinformation about and bias against homeopathic and alternative medicine:
This strong bias is a symptom of a deeper problem at Wikipedia in select articles on topics that challenge dominant medical and scientific worldviews. ...
Evidence of the strong bias against homeopathy and against an objective encyclopedic tone is evident throughout the article.
Ullman went on to list several instances of the bias; read it here.
--There is even an entire page at TruthWiki explaining in detail the myriad of bias, error and omission "in the realms of health, environmental safety and agricultural sustainability."
There are many more instances we have documented:
-- More on Wales as a "porn king"
-- Ridiculous lawsuit against the NSA while censoring information and demonstrating an obvious bias
-- Wikipedia as a major source of propaganda and disinformation
-- Banned by universities for bias and inaccuracies
-- Even foreign governments use Wikipedia to spread propaganda
Sources:
Independent.co.uk
NaturalNews.com
TruthWiki.org
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