A Bored Chinese Housewife Spent Years Falsifying Russian History On Wikipedia (vice.com) 106
An anonymous reader writes: Posing as a scholar, a Chinese woman spent years writing alternative accounts of medieval Russian history on Chinese Wikipedia, conjuring imaginary states, battles, and aristocrats in one of the largest hoaxes on the open-source platform. The scam was exposed last month by Chinese novelist Yifan, who was researching for a book when he came upon an article on the Kashin silver mine. Discovered by Russian peasants in 1344, the Wikipedia entry goes, the mine engaged more than 40,000 slaves and freedmen, providing a remarkable source of wealth for the Russian principality of Tver in the 14th and 15th centuries as well as subsequent regimes. The geological composition of the soil, the structure of the mine, and even the refining process were fleshed out in detail in the entry.
Yifan thought he'd found interesting material for a novel. Little did he know he'd stumbled upon an entire fictitious world constructed by a user known as Zhemao. It was one of 206 articles she has written on Chinese Wikipedia since 2019, weaving facts into fiction in an elaborate scheme that went uncaught for years and tested the limits of crowdsourced platforms' ability to verify information and fend off bad actors. "The content she wrote is of high quality and the entries were interconnected, creating a system that can exist on its own," veteran Chinese Wikipedian John Yip told VICE World News. "Zhemao single-handedly invented a new way to undermine Wikipedia."
Yifan was tipped off when he ran the silver mine story by Russian speakers and fact-checked Zhemao's references, only to find that the pages or versions of the books she cited did not exist. People he consulted also called out her lengthy entries on ancient conflicts between Slavic states, which could not be found in Russian historical records. "They were so rich in details they put English and Russian Wikipedia to shame," Yifan wrote on Zhihu, a Chinese site similar to Quora, where he shared his discovery last month and caused a stir. The scale of the scam came to light after a group of volunteer editors and other Wikipedians, such as Yip, combed through her past contributions to nearly 300 articles. "As a punishment, Zhemao and her affiliated accounts were suspended permanently," adds VICE World News. "Most of her articles were deleted based on community consensus. Some Wikipedians even wrote to experts, seeking help to separate the wheat from the chaff." A spokesperson of the Wikimedia Foundation told VICE World News in an email that volunteers are still "continuing to review additional articles that may have been affected."
The report goes on to say that Zhemao speaks neither English nor Russian and is a housewife with only a high school degree. She came clean in an apology letter issued on her Wikipedia account last month. "The hoax started with an innocuous intention," reports VICE. "Unable to comprehend scholarly articles in their original language, she pieced sentences together with a translation tool and filled in the blanks with her own imagination. [...] Before long, they had accumulated into tens of thousands of characters, which she was reluctant to delete."
"The alternative accounts were imaginary friends she 'cosplayed' as she was bored and alone, given her husband was away most of the time and she didn't have any friends. She also apologized to actual experts on Russia, whom she had attempted to cozy up to and later impersonated."
Yifan thought he'd found interesting material for a novel. Little did he know he'd stumbled upon an entire fictitious world constructed by a user known as Zhemao. It was one of 206 articles she has written on Chinese Wikipedia since 2019, weaving facts into fiction in an elaborate scheme that went uncaught for years and tested the limits of crowdsourced platforms' ability to verify information and fend off bad actors. "The content she wrote is of high quality and the entries were interconnected, creating a system that can exist on its own," veteran Chinese Wikipedian John Yip told VICE World News. "Zhemao single-handedly invented a new way to undermine Wikipedia."
Yifan was tipped off when he ran the silver mine story by Russian speakers and fact-checked Zhemao's references, only to find that the pages or versions of the books she cited did not exist. People he consulted also called out her lengthy entries on ancient conflicts between Slavic states, which could not be found in Russian historical records. "They were so rich in details they put English and Russian Wikipedia to shame," Yifan wrote on Zhihu, a Chinese site similar to Quora, where he shared his discovery last month and caused a stir. The scale of the scam came to light after a group of volunteer editors and other Wikipedians, such as Yip, combed through her past contributions to nearly 300 articles. "As a punishment, Zhemao and her affiliated accounts were suspended permanently," adds VICE World News. "Most of her articles were deleted based on community consensus. Some Wikipedians even wrote to experts, seeking help to separate the wheat from the chaff." A spokesperson of the Wikimedia Foundation told VICE World News in an email that volunteers are still "continuing to review additional articles that may have been affected."
The report goes on to say that Zhemao speaks neither English nor Russian and is a housewife with only a high school degree. She came clean in an apology letter issued on her Wikipedia account last month. "The hoax started with an innocuous intention," reports VICE. "Unable to comprehend scholarly articles in their original language, she pieced sentences together with a translation tool and filled in the blanks with her own imagination. [...] Before long, they had accumulated into tens of thousands of characters, which she was reluctant to delete."
"The alternative accounts were imaginary friends she 'cosplayed' as she was bored and alone, given her husband was away most of the time and she didn't have any friends. She also apologized to actual experts on Russia, whom she had attempted to cozy up to and later impersonated."
Don't see the problem (Score:5, Funny)
All she did was have alternative facts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Don't see the problem (Score:2)
Wikipedia is excellent because of goodwill (Score:2)
Surprisingly there is more good will than bad, and that is what the Wikipedia experiment shows.
That said, in China I suspect a lot of it is fabricated by the CCP, so it may not be as true there.
But hacking it is not a fund game, it is vandalism, pure and simple.
Re: (Score:2)
Wikipedia is not a garbage website.
It isn't for neutral, scientific data with no political implications. It's pretty decent for that sort of thing!
But for anything with a political implication, it's absolute garbage. Look at their article on "Project Veritas", a conservative investigative journalist organization with a stunning track record of important scoops and exposes. The overtly hostile POV with which Wikipedian culture regards conservative anything makes it an awful source for information about any s
Re: (Score:3)
Funny how this is marked as flamebait. I guess the Wikipedia editors frequent here. Lol Anyhow, good on her for having fun and using Wikipedia to show that it's a garbage website for authoritative data sources.
I think you missed the point. It was a comment on politics and the tendency of some politicians to create/use "alternative" facts, and to argue that that's fine.
Re: Don't see the problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I think you missed the point. It was a comment on politics and the tendency of ALL politicians to create/use alternative facts, and to argue that thats fine. - FTFY
No. Your "fix" is wrong.
Sure, all politicians have a tendency to apply spin, often to a degree that is arguably deceitful, but that's a completely different thing from simply ignoring reality in favor of "alternative facts". And while alternative facts aren't solely a thing of the left or the right, today 95% of the worst offenders are on the right -- and those offenders have gone far, far further than ever before, all the way into full-on Big Lies.
The real punchline... (Score:2, Insightful)
...is the fact that there are hundreds of Zhemao on all wikis. This is what happens when you let any asshole edit your pages without providing a shred of actual evidence for anything they write. Never, ever rely on a Wikipedia for anything. Always go to primary sources.
Re:The real punchline... (Score:5, Funny)
...there are hundreds of Zhemao on all wikis.
[Citation required]
Wikipedia is the starting point, (Score:5, Insightful)
not the ending point for basic research. It's a great place to get some important keywords and a summary of what you're looking into.
Names, places, dates, etc. can be researched further.
It also often links to other more prominent sources for you.
Anyone who tells you not to use Wikipedia has no idea how the internet works.
Re: (Score:2)
Good thing I didn't say that then. What I did say was...
Re: (Score:2)
not the ending point for basic research. It's a great place to get some important keywords and a summary of what you're looking into.
Names, places, dates, etc. can be researched further.
It also often links to other more prominent sources for you.
Anyone who tells you not to use Wikipedia has no idea how the internet works.
Anyone who tells you that most people use Wikipedia by following citations to original material, doesn't know how the world (let alone the Internet) works.
Wikipedia is used and relied upon as an authoritative primary source in itself, by the public, by all the news organizations of record, the government, and even researchers.
Practically nobody looks at the original sources cited by Wikipedia. Because people who would do that already know what the article says (or should say) because they already read the o
People don't look at sources (Score:2)
Because in practice Wikipedia is very reliable. Far more reliable than most other sources, such as mainstream media.
And many of those that have expertise work to correct their favorite articles if garbage is added.
Re: (Score:2)
Historically at least, it's about as good as professional encyclopedias with far more topics.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech... [cnet.com]
Re: (Score:2)
What if wikipedia completely censors certain material, along with the links to primary sources?
Wikipedia editors are often biased, and will completely censor information that does not support their chosen narrative.
Also, few people check the primary sources.
Re: (Score:1)
Wikipedia is the starting point, not the ending point for basic research. [...] Anyone who tells you not to use Wikipedia has no idea how the internet works.
most people use wikipedia as the ending point.
you can either change how people research topics, or tell them not to use wikipedia.
one is easier than the other.
Re:The real punchline... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Some publishers do at least have a reputation for vetting what they print though. On Wikipedia the moment you click save whatever you wrote is live, and someone may or may not be along to check it later at some point.
Re:The real punchline... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why else would The Secret be such a best seller? Why would holocaust denialism still get published?
When has any book been traced to the level of edit history, traceable by name and IP address? Wikipedia is amazing for being able to let that happen. No traditional publisher can boast the same, and they'll have financial incentive to not cooperate. Hell, even the papers published by the predatory journal cartel is harder to trace than this.
Re:The real punchline... (Score:5, Insightful)
actually, wikipedia's policy states that everything in it has to be referenced, and that this reference has to be public and available on the net.
so if you read an article without references, or trace the references and find out they are inexistent or dubious then no, don't rely on it. ideally you would also flag it for revision.
otherwise wikipedia is the best thing that has happened to human knowledge since gutenberg.
Re: The real punchline... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Just because some random political site is full of biased trash doesn't mean Wikipedia is any better or ok or less trashy. This is not about "well those evil conservatives blah blah blah!" whataboutism. This is about wiki in general and Wikipedia in particular being unreliable sites for facts.
It's like using Facebook and Twitter as your only news sources.
Re: (Score:2)
Wikipedia is actually still pretty decent.
You only think it's a "leftist scientist hoax" because it doesn't always agree with your views, as though facts care about your political leanings.
I bring up Conservapedia because that is what you ACTUALLY get if Wikipedia were some "leftist scientist hoax". The fact that Wikipedia DEMONSTRABLY ISN'T debunks that idea.
Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
Publishers are missing out by not offering her a contract.
Re: (Score:2)
And many publishers have an office junior put all unsolicited manuscripts directly into the shredder - it reduces their legal fees for fighting allegations of plagiarism.
A publisher might take a chance on her, because of this publicity. But very likely it'd be on a "30,000 words delivered, before you get a penny" basis. The big problem for publishers with new authors is that very many of them miss deadlines - whi
Re: (Score:2)
--All she needs is a co-author and she could be cranking out alternate-history novels like the "1632 Ring of Fire" series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
--She could make some bank and maybe divorce her absent husband
American Monarchist Party (Score:4, Informative)
I did this on wikipedia back in about 2006, was linked/crosslinked to about six other articles at the time. The article was called "American Monarchist Party" and was removed, but then un-deleted in about 2009 by someone who thought it was legit, before finally being deleted forever. It was briefly on deletionpedia, but I can no longer find the link. Mildly concerned that my deleted article was deleted by deletionpedia, but I guess that's about par for the course. The article was a five or six paragraph page about the fictional history, meeting places and current activities of said party, who wanted to elect a hereditary monarch who was unswayed by short term political cycle. Crosslinking your bogus article with a bunch of legitimate articles makes it a lot harder to unwind, as the article notes.
Re: American Monarchist Party (Score:2)
Oh actually I was able to find some version of it. Looks like it was on Wikipedia for 1227 days: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.c... [dbatley.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I did this on wikipedia back in about 2006, was linked/crosslinked to about six other articles at the time.
Which proves exactly what right now? That only proves that it was easier to edit Wikipedia back then. A lot has changed, for good or for worse.
So here's my own anecdotal "evidence", I remember editing the Wikipedia article on The Matrix some time before the sequels came out because the article claimed that the movie's graphic effects people invented "bullet time". Well, they're likely right about inventing the term, but not the concept or the principles behind it, which was already a well known effect in sc
In some alternative universe (Score:3)
All she wrote is true... ;) as Robert Heinlein's 'Number of the Beast' argues.
Re: (Score:3)
Ugh... my first Heinlein novel. Was in a random bookstore many years ago. Me: "Hey, I've heard of Heinlein! Let's check that out." WTF... Could never bring myself to pick up another of his books.
Re: (Score:3)
Your loss.
Re: (Score:3)
Not really. Heinlein is way overrated and had a weird obsession with sex and slide rules.
Re: (Score:3)
Rules for sliding in an out ? Never heard of them. Could you elaborate ?
Re: (Score:3)
Not really. Heinlein is way overrated and had a weird obsession with sex and slide rules.
Heinlein is a complicated and very deep writer. His favourite tactic is to write something that makes you think that's what he personally believes and then subtly undermine it.
However, he was obsessed with sex. Which is fine by me.
Re:In some alternative universe (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the day, many decades ago, I have read a shitload of SF (I still do, but I've become much more selective with age) and I never found anything specifically deep or complicated about Heinlein's books and consider them badly aged pulp science fiction, not that different from E. E. Smith or Edmond Hamilton. Never had the urge to re-read that stuff, not one of their novels made me skip the night's sleep like, for example "the mote in the god's eye" did. Many stories of Harry Harrison or Stanislaw Lem, on the other hand, haven't aged any better but they are deep enough to still be interesting after a dozen of re-reads. So yep, in my opinion, Heinlein is way overrated.
Re: (Score:2)
And it must be an universal truth, because you said it. /joke
I don't think he's the best SF writer out there, and he's not even in my top 20 SF writers, still I believe his books should be consumed. Furthermore, I couldn't care less what kind of human being the writer is, whether he has weaknesses or weird fetishes or whatever his flaws might be. I am reading the book(s), decide whether and how much I like them, and remember the author name to look for more books written by said writer.
Evaluate the book, no
There's a reason he got a LOT of awards (Score:3)
Stick just to those and you'll begin to be impressed. Hint: you don't get retro-Hugos - i.e. awards for material that predates the Hugos - unless it is pretty universally admired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
maybe a novel? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Seems all the lady lacked was a good agent.
She may have created a Russian Game of Thrones, but did not market it at all.
Re: maybe a novel? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Pollute? She seems to have improved the overall quality of Wikipedia.
Re: (Score:1)
Now do any scientific text (Score:2)
Anyways, when you consider that something like half of scientific papers can't be reproduced and that there are endless crappy citations going in loops it's hard not to be discouraged. Recommendation on flossing had to be withdrawn [apnews.com] when it turned out there was no evidence to support it. I read a reddit thread where someone tried to find the original source for something very basic ab
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed on everything.
Also "Dental care: The best, worst and unproven tools to care for your teeth" https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
I'm surprised anybody in China cared (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The truth would most likely cause a revolution, so it must be suppressed. Mao was a flawless leader, right?
Re: I'm surprised anybody in China cared (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you know many people on the Chinese mainland? Do you regularly talk to them. I personally don't discuss this with party members but have regularly discussed it with average Chinese citizens.
They seem to accept that Mao was both a genius and a monster. In fact their grounded sense of this historical feels far greater than any sense I have as an American for historical American figures. They realize he did terrible things that hurt lots of people but because his vision was to modernize China which has been
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that worldview assumes that executing the largest genocide the world has ever known was the one and only way to "modernize China". I am calling massive BS on that...
The Chinese people take the easy choice - rationalize the horror. Same as the Russians with Stalin. Stalin decimated the officer corp before the war, decimated the peasantry and when that resulted in low crops he did the huger genocide in Ukraine. And then he singed a pact with Germany to divide the world between them! On top of that he d
Re: I'm surprised anybody in China cared (Score:2)
I once heard an American say that Christopher Columbus discovered America and that was all I needed to know about what passes for history in America.
By the way, talking about blunders and genocide. How about the country that celebrates a dude who thought he arrived on the other side of the world and to sell his point, started calling them Indians when any sense of education would of revealed the absolute truth they are nothing a like. Then to further this conquest was part of plans to completely decimate th
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There were two estimates for the circumference of the Earth at the time, Columbus believed that Ptolemy's smaller estimate was correct. He had a map of unknown origin (possibly Chinese) which showed islands at a reachable distance, at some point a cartographer had put labels corresponding to the various archipelagos of southeast Asia. He sailed the correct distance, found islands at the right place, with people that looked like what expected Indonesians and Filipinos to look like, found cinnamon (although
Re: (Score:2)
Also, while Colombus had a good estimate of how far he sailed, he would have no good estimate of how far Marco Polo et. al. had traveled the other way to China.
Re: (Score:2)
The modernization of China could only happen after Mao's death. It was Deng Xiaoping that is the real hero of China.
However, I think it is Mao's photo that is proudly displayed in the forbidden city. Because while he might have been a disaster for China, he was a blessing for the Communist party.
This is a rare case where we can see the alternative history, if the Nationalists had won, because they moved to Taiwan. They were initially very nasty but Taiwan is today a much happier place than China.
Re: (Score:1)
Certainly that reality is more complex and nuanced than "everyone in china is brainwashed and ignorant about their own history". With such a massive population, like any other country, there are all sorts of people, some fanatical about their government, some ambivalent, some realist, some critical, etc.
There is some truth to more people being ignorant about Mao due to the extensive propaganda that exists. But that doesn't mean everyone is ignorant about it.
I have to say though that Mao's contribution was m
Re: (Score:2)
Chinese Wikipedia is blocked in China (unless you use some kind of VPN), although you can access various other language versions of Wikipedia, including English, without issues.
Either:
Anyway, manufacturing heroes isn't unique to China. For exampl
Re: (Score:2)
Chinese Wikipedia is blocked in China (unless you use some kind of VPN), although you can access various other language versions of Wikipedia, including English, without issues
Maybe you should have Checked Wikipedia... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: (Score:2)
I've enjoyed a sci-fi series called The Lost Fleet, about a space warship commander who suffered a surprise enemy attack, got out in a damaged escape pod, and was woken after a century of cryo sleep when he was found after earlier being presumed lost in the battle.
But his government had subsequently turned him into a near mythological hero to help boost morale at home and in the fleet, and now everyone turned to this "hero" returned from the past to help save the day in that same war that had lasted for a c
Re: (Score:2)
Then you have other revisionists who claim slavery wasn't a bad thing, to slavery was okay because the Africans also did it.
And of course, Japanese textbooks barely address the role of Japanese aggression in WWII. Just like the Russians are doing now with Ukraine, they deny any atrocitie
Re: I'm surprised anybody in China cared (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Try filing a complaint ! (Score:2, Insightful)
The major reason why none of us contribute to Wikipedia in the first place.
Grumpy old white men who think they own Wikipedia and will drive you into giving up with an everlasting discussion.
Or they are simply hired by PR firms to keep the dirty laundry from the wikipedia pages, reverting every change on the page.
Re: Try filing a complaint ! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, you'll get the occasional "big fish small pond" asshole power-tripper, like someone who throws their authority around in some pissant Homeowners Associate. And yes, occasionally, there are hoaxes put out there that stick for a time. [wikipedia.org] But in general, I've found it to be an incredibly valuable resource. It's great for finding relatively obscure information, or even technical programming issues (how do I implement A* algorithm, or what is a fast and high quality RNG).
It works because there are plenty o
A good use for AI. (Score:2)
One particularly helpful use of AI would be to have it validate edits on Wikipedia by analyzing the text from the citations.
It's hard to unwind bullshit... unless you're a machine.
Forunately, Russian history is four words long. (Score:2)
Chinese history is slightly more interesting. There's pretty writing, kung fu, and hot chicks involved between the disembowelment orgies.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, you don't know anything about Russian history, then. Life was so bad under the czars that Stalin was still preferable for the commoners. The same with China, Cuba and Vietnam, there are reasons why the communist revolutions were never overthrown in those countries, it's because life there before them was so miserable for the majority that almost no one wanted to go back to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, then you miss the reasons for most of the history of Europe. The Huns, Mongols and Vikings invaded from there, it was the principle route for most of the trade in furs and slaves from Europe (the two largest exports for most of a thousand years) to the civilized world, many of the routes of the Silk Road passed through there, major crops were domesticated there and exported westward, horses and sheep originated in Central Asia, even the Greek civilization got most of their grain from Crimea and south
Re: (Score:2)
As history, it's devoid of profitable context or credible narrative progress.
Re: (Score:3)
Certainly, where Russia interacted with China, Persia, Mesopotamia, or Constantinople there was more historical import.
a monotonous ooze of human decay, hate, and meaningless horror going as far back as the written record.
I take it you're referring to Western Europe after the fall of Rome? When the Forbidden City was inaugurated ambassadors came from as far away as Zimbabwe, but Europe was such a primitive backwater that it didn't even hear about the event for most of two decades.
Re: (Score:1)
Certainly, where Russia interacted with China, Persia, Mesopotamia, or Constantinople there was more historical import.
Indeed, but it doesn't work both ways, does it? China, Persia, and Mesopotamia have interesting internal relics, stories, thoughts, and spiritual viewpoints even without the added spice of Compare & Contrast moments in history. There was a "there" there, in and of itself.
I take it you're referring to Western Europe after the fall of Rome? When the Forbidden City was inaugurated ambassadors came from as far away as Zimbabwe, but Europe was such a primitive backwater that it didn't even hear about the event for most of two decades.
The thing about the Dark Ages is that there was a reason for them, and book-ended by much more constructive eras that defined them in the first place. There's no Russian Dark Age (that anyone else would care about) because such a t
Re: (Score:2)
I pity people who deliberately choose to stay ignorant, there's so much to learn in the world and you miss the fun parts on purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
I ain't even mad. (Score:2)
History Repeating (Score:2)
That's nothing! Before Wikipedia existed, people made up historical stories about an ordinary guy called Jesus, passing them off as factual.
Curses! (Score:1)
And she would have gotten away with it if not for those pesky kids and their dog Lika.
"a new way to undermine Wikipedia"? (Score:2)
This is exactly how you undermine WP, and always has been. It's a variation in gaming PageRank by building pages that refer to each other.
The idea that WP is reliable on any topic is just non-sense.
Wikipedia design (Score:2)
sorry conrad (Score:2)
sorry, but Russia does not need any help falsifying their history.
Borges (Score:1)
J L Borges wrote the story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" describing just such a creation of alternate history, and its effect on the world.
https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-Tl%C3%B6n-Uqbar-Orbius-Tertius.pdf
Hang on a sec... (Score:2)
This phrase caught my eye: "which could not be found in Russian historical records" Didn't post-revolutionary Russian government put a great deal of effort into "revising" their own history so as to make communism sound like a good idea? Coverups and deletion of actual Russian history by Soviet agencies are legion and legendary.
Useless Wikipedia (Score:2)
Actually, wikipedia is useful if you want to find out what happened on a particular episode of "Happy Days."
But when it comes to history and/or politics, and the like, especially anything controversial, wikipedia is entirely useless.
A "new" way to undermine Wikipedia (Score:2)
Wikipedia constantly undermines itself without any external help.
Too bad for Trump (Score:1)