据报道，两名享有特权的在线百科全书维基百科的管理员被沙特阿拉伯官员逮捕。两人因编辑批评政府的冲突文章分别被判处32年和8年监禁。在这些监禁判决之前，维基百科公司内部发生了一场更大规模的间谍活动，最终导致维基百科终止了在该国运营的每一位管理员。
这些禁令是由已故沙特记者贾马尔·哈苏吉(Jamal Khashoggi)创立的倡导组织“阿拉伯世界民主”(DAWN)披露的维基媒体内部调查结果。DAWN说，他们从维基百科的知情人士和被监禁的管理员本人那里了解到逮捕和禁止维基百科的消息。维基媒体没有回应Gizmodo的置评请求。
维基媒体管理员，有时也被称为编辑，在该网站上并不是拿薪水的员工。相反，他们是志愿者，被授予访问网站的特权，包括完全编辑有时受保护的网页的能力。此外，据报道，在某些情况下，管理员还可以删除页面，屏蔽或取消屏蔽某些用户。DAWN的报告称，与沙特政府关系密切的所谓管理员成为管理员，并利用这些特权“控制有关该国的信息”。
另一方面，据报道，被监禁的管理人员早在2020年9月就被逮捕了，据称他们被指控“动摇舆论”和“违反公共道德”。黎明运动称，逮捕这些人是出于政治动机，是对该网站管理员提供被认为对沙特政府至关重要的信息的回应。
DAWN宣传主任Raed Jarrar在一份声明中说:“沙特政府仅仅因为发布政府侵犯人权的内容就起诉沙特人，这是卑鄙的，但完全可以预见。”“但维基媒体也需要为其授权编辑如今因在维基百科页面上所做的工作而在监狱中遭受折磨这一事实负责。”
《黎明报》称，维基媒体在2022年12月的一份公开声明中披露了被禁止的16名用户，其中包括沙特管理员。维基媒体当时没有提供被禁管理员的详细信息，称这些用户因“在中东和北非地区的维基百科项目中从事利益冲突编辑”而受到处罚。这些移除是在2022年1月开始的内部调查之后进行的。
维基媒体写道:“随着维基媒体项目在世界各地的知名度上升，它吸引了那些出于政治或其他原因想要控制发布在上面的信息的人的越来越多的关注。”“社区成员多年来一直在解决这类问题，但有时干预这类案件的志愿者自己可能会因为自己的行为而面临报复。”
维基媒体在DAWN报告发表后发表的一份声明中对报告的几个方面提出了质疑。该公司表示，“不太可能”所有16个被禁账户都位于沙特阿拉伯，尽管一名发言人告诉Gizmodo，他们无法确切说出每个被禁账户的管理员来自哪个国家。
该公司还不同意DAWN在谈到被禁用户的行为时使用“渗透”一词，他们说这是一种错误的描述。维基媒体说:“这些组织没有与基金会分享声明，他们发布中引用的‘知识来源’可能会出错。”“此外，我们在被点名的国家没有工作人员，也从来没有，这与这些组织在社交媒体上发布的信息相反。”该发言人补充说，他们的目标是“在基本保护政策范围内尽可能透明，这就是为什么我们没有秘密禁止，而是公开受影响的账户，(当涉及大量账户时)已经披露了理由。”
在发表报告后，DAWN呼吁维基媒体公开披露有关其调查的更多细节，披露与沙特结盟的管理员编辑的维基百科页面的完整列表，并将其提交给新的审查。此外，该组织还表示，维基媒体应该对这些被编辑的页面进行内部审查，并附上包装标签，说明这些页面是由沙特间谍编辑的。
DAWN执行董事莎拉·利亚·惠特森在一份声明中说:“沙特政府利用政府特工担任维基百科的独立编辑，并监禁不合规的编辑，这不仅表明沙特政府在国际组织内部持续使用间谍，而且表明试图在该国制作独立内容的危险。”“国际组织和企业认为，它们的附属机构可以独立于沙特政府的控制之外或安全地运营，这是极不负责任的。”
【更新】2023年1月6日下午6:25：
维基媒体的发言人在Gizmodo发表后联系了Gizmodo，并表示对黎明报道的多个内容提出了质疑。《黎明报》声称被禁的16名管理员都在沙特阿拉伯，该公司对此表示质疑。当被要求澄清时，发言人告诉Gizmodo，他们不能具体说出管理员来自哪些国家，只能确认他们位于中东和北非地区。维基媒体也不同意Dawn使用“渗透”一词来归类被禁管理员的行为。
【更正】2023年1月6日下午6:25：
这个故事的前一个版本说维基媒体解雇了中东地区的管理员。这些管理员实际上是被禁止的，因为他们不是该公司的员工。
原文：
Two privileged administrators of online encyclopedia Wikipedia were reportedly arrested by Saudi Arabian officials. The pair have been sentenced to 32 and eight years in prison for editing conflict critical of the government. The prison sentences predated a larger alleged Saudi espionage operation within the company which ultimately led Wikipedia to terminate each and every one of its administrators operating in the country.
The bans were the result of an internal Wikimedia investigation revealed by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) an advocacy group founded by deceased Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. DAWN says it learned of the arrests and Wikipedia bans from sources close to Wikipedia and the jailed administrators themselves. Wikimedia did not respond to Gizmodo’s requests for comment.
Wikimedia administrators, sometimes referred to as editors, aren’t paid employees at the site. Instead, they are volunteers who are granted privileged access to the website which can include the ability to fully edit sometimes protected web pages. Additionally, in some cases, administrators can also reportedly delete pages and block or unblock certain users. DAWN’s report claims the alleged administrators close to the Saudi government became administrators and used those privileges to “control information about the country.”
The imprisoned administrators, on the other hand, were reportedly arrested back in September 2020 and allegedly charged with “swaying public opinion” and “violating public morals.” The DAWN alleges those arrests were politically motivated and came in response to the administrators contributing information on the site viewed as critical to the Saudi government.
“It’s despicable but entirely predictable that the Saudi government has prosecuted Saudis merely for posting content about the government’s human rights abuses,” DAWN Advocacy Director Raed Jarrar said in a statement. “But Wikimedia also needs to take responsibility for the fact that its authorized editors are today languishing in prison for work they did on Wikipedia pages.”
DAWN claims Saudi administrators were the 16 users Wikimedia revealed it banned in a public December 2022 announcement. Wikimedia, which didn’t provide details about the banned administrators at the time, said the users were penalized for “engaging in conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia projects in the MENA region.” Those removals followed an internal investigation started in January 2022.
“As Wikimedia projects have risen in prominence across the world, it has attracted increasing attention of those who would like to control the information published on it, for political or other reasons,” Wikimedia wrote. “Community members have addressed concerns of this sort for many years, but sometimes volunteers who intervene in such cases may themselves face retaliation for their actions.”
Wikimedia disputed several aspects of the DAWN report in a statement released after publication. The company said it was “unlikely” all 16 of the banned accounts were located in Saudi Arabia, though a spokesperson told Gizmodo they were unable to say definitely what country each banned administrator was based out of.
The company also disagreed with DAWN’s use of the word “infiltrate” in regards to the banned users’ actions, which they said was a mischaracterization. “These organizations did not share the statement with the Foundation, and ‘sources of knowledge’ as cited in their release can get things wrong,” Wikimedia said. “In addition, we do not have staff in the country named and never have, contrary to a message put out by the same groups on social media.” The spokesperson added that it’s their goal to be as transparent as possible “within essential protection policies, which is why we do not ban in secret, but instead disclose accounts impacted and (when large numbers are involved) have disclosed the rationale.”
Following its report, DAWN called on Wikimedia to publicly reveal more details about its investigation, disclose a full list of the Wikipedia pages the Saudi aligned administrators edited and subject them to new review. Additionally, the group said Wikimedia should conduct an internal review of those edited pages and attach wrapping labels stating they were edited by a Saudi spy.
“The Saudi government’s infiltration of Wikipedia with government agents acting as independent editors, and imprisonment of non-compliant editors, demonstrates not only its persistent use of spies inside international organizations but the dangers of attempting to produce independent content in the country,” DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement. “It’s wildly irresponsible for international organizations and businesses to assume their affiliates can ever operate independently of, or safely from, Saudi government control.”
Update: 1/6/2023 6:25 p.m: A spokesperson for Wikimedia reached out to Gizmodo after publication and said it disputed multiple elements of the Dawn report. The company questioned Dawn’s claim that all 16 of the banned administrators were based in Saudi Arabia. When asked to clarify, the spokesperson told Gizmodo they could not say specifically which counties the administrators were based out of and could only confirm they were based in the MENA region. Wikimeida also disagreed with Dawn’s use of the word “infiltrate” to categorize the banned administrator’ actions.
Correction: 1/6/2023 6:25 p.m: A previous version of this story said Wikimedia fired the MENA-based administrators. The administrators were actually banned as they are not employees of the company.
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