Wikipedia : Wikipedia Signpost/2025-01-15/In the media
An exclusive report by investigative journalist Arno Rosenfeld for The Forward, published January 7, 2025, reveals that the Heritage Foundation has elaborated a plan to "identify and target" Wikipedia editors who the group says are "abusing their position" by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, although it's not exactly clear what kind of antisemitism this effort is intended to address. According to the report, which was later also quoted by Gizmodo, the plan includes using facial recognition software and information from database breaches (including usernames and passwords), applying natural language processing to find "style, repeated phrases, and content patterns", creating fake accounts to trick other editors into divulging personal details, and other means to detect coordinated editing.
Although it's not possible to determine whether the Heritage Foundation has already started the scheme, the slide deck shared by The Forward, titled "Wikipedia Editor Targeting", is still worth examining in detail. Under the heading "Technical Fingerprinting (Controlled Domain Redirects)", it states that the group will use "Controlled Links: Use redirects to capture IP addresses, browser fingerprints, and device data through a combination of in-browser fingerprinting scripts and HTML5 canvas techniques." They also will use "Technical Data Collection: Track geolocation, ISP, and network details from clicked links."
