Wikipedia Censors Israel News Agency - Fourth Time

By Israel News Agency Staff

Jerusalem----June 2......The Israel News Agency, which has been a favorite target of several Islamic terror organizations and totalitarian regimes for over ten years, has again been censored by Wikipedia for a fourth time by Wikipedia management.

"It's beyond apparent that the management of Wikipedia cannot tolerate criticism in the press," said one Wikipedia user. "Wikipedia has implemented stringent measures for adding and deleting articles on its Website, but all of these rules and policies are blatantly ignored, the "process" has been corrupted by Wikipedia's two executives who spit in the face of all those who claim that it is a 'citizen's media.' Censorship at Wikipedia is no different than what one would find in Iran, Syria or China today."

The Israel News Agency, Israel's first on-line Government Press Office accredited news organization since 1995, has had it article removed four times on Wikipedia. The Israel News Agency, which directly disseminates news from the Israel Government Press Office, in addition to local, international news, features and editorials, has a reach of over 60 million people worldwide.

Danny Wool, Wikipedia's number two executive after founder Jimbo Wales, arrogantly breached all of Wikipedia's procedures in unilaterally censoring the Israel News Agency stating: "more of the same nonsense" as an excuse for censoring the INA. Articles at Wikipedia, a non-profit foundation, can only be removed by a community consensus.

Wikipedia had also censored an article about Joel Leyden, the publisher of the Israel News Agency, shortly after the INA documented censorship at Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia article on the Israel News Agency in a Wikipedia community vote to delete was approved with a "keep" by a wide consensus of Wikipedians in January.

Three weeks ago, Danny Wool, unilaterally wiped the Israel News Agency off the Wikipedia map stating that the news agency was a "vanity page."

After much protest, the article on the Israel News Agency was again reinstated only to again be placed in a vote for delete.

The last debate to censor the Israel News Agency article closed on May 29, with the closing Wikipedia administrator stating: The result of the debate was that it is broken beyond repair. This means that the article will remain until the next AfD or article for deletion vote. What is interesting is that the closing administrator noted that someone at Wikipedia attempted to stop the voting process stating that: advice on the main AfD page (for people) to not take part when consensus appears to have formed. For this reason this debate is closed. Someone attempted to censor the vote and the Wikipedia administrator responsible for it.

The Israel News Agency has recently joined dozens of global newspapers and broadcast media including the New York Times, the BBC, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe and the Guardian in criticizing Wikipedia for its blatant censorship of articles and allowing hundreds of cases of libel and slander to go unnoticed by many of its administrators.

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