Wikipedia: The free online encyclopedia is used by billions, but serious topics like Israel-Palestine aren't easy to moderate

5/13/21 8:00PM

As the tragic images of the escalating Israel-Palestine conflict have circulated around the world thousands of people have turned to Wikipedia to read up on the history of the violence. We found, using data from Pageviews, that 6 of the 10 most-visited pages on the online encyclopedia yesterday related to the conflict, with each one racking up hundreds of thousands of visits.

‍Wikipedia's weakness

‍The sensitivity around such a serious topic such as Israel-Palestine emphasises Wikipedia's greatest weakness — that anyone can theoretically edit its content. For relatively low-stakes topics like sports, movies or culture that isn't so much of a problem. Errors are usually caught, and there's little motivation or agenda for Wikipedia's army of volunteer editors to deliberately spread misinformation.

For issues such as Israel-Palestine, the stakes couldn't be higher and bad actors on both sides have strong reasons to misrepresent, change or misreport events — particularly when they are changing so quickly. Wikipedia does a good job of foregrounding when situations are particularly fluid, the top of the page "2021 Israel-Palestine crisis" page reads a disclaimer that says "this article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable.". That particular page has had 210 edits in the last day alone, made by 55 different editors.

‍10 or 15 years ago, students would be lambasted for using Wikipedia to help them with homework. Today, Wikipedia's status as a non-profit organization with decent transparency over who is editing what (and why) has helped it shake some of that early reputation, but for topics like Israel-Palestine, its process is tested to the limit. Often daily.

Tom Jones7h

The UAE’s OPEC exit will hit the group in the barrels

After just shy of 60 years in OPEC, its membership even predating its status as a nation-state, the United Arab Emirates yesterday announced its shocking departure from the oil production group, effective May 1, as the knock-on effects of the Iran war continue to play out across the Middle East and the energy landscape.

For context, the UAE produces the third-highest amount of oil in the group, per April data and OPEC’s latest set of annual statistics.

According to the cartel’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin, the OPEC group was collectively exporting some 19 million barrels of crude oil a day last year, with the United Arab Emirates accounting for some 14% of that daily output.

UAExit means UAExit

The nation, whose energy minister told Reuters yesterday that the decision was taken “after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production” and wasn’t made following discussions with any other country, made up a healthy share of the group’s total confirmed crude oil reserves, as well.

Of the 12 nations in the core group, which was founded by just five oil superpowers back in September 1960, only two (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) exported more barrels of crude oil daily, pumping out 3.36 million and 6.05 million barrels, respectively, each day to nations around the world.

For its part, the UAE said it will “continue its responsible role by gradually and thoughtfully increasing production, in line with demand and market conditions,” per the official state news agency. Clearly, the nation now wants a little more control of just how much oil it can pump around the world, with the UAE having to eat a large proportion of lost revenues due to its healthy abundance and OPEC restrictions.