2000s Jimmy Wales In December 2005, it was found that Wikipedia co-founder
Jimmy Wales had edited his own Wikipedia entry. he had seven times altered information about whether
Larry Sanger was a co-founder of Wikipedia. It was also revealed that Wales had edited the Wikipedia article of his former company,
Bomis. "Bomis Babes", a section of the Bomis website, had been characterized in the article as "
soft-core pornography", but Wales revised this to "adult content section" and deleted mentions of pornography. He said he was fixing an error, and did not agree with calling Bomis Babes soft porn. Wales conceded that he had made the changes, but maintained that they were technical corrections.
MyWikiBiz In August 2006, Gregory Kohs, a market researcher from
Pennsylvania, founded MyWikiBiz, a company offering to write inexpensive Wikipedia entries for businesses. In January 2007, Kohs said that in his view Wikipedia's coverage of major corporations was deficient, stating that "It is strange that a minor Pokémon character will get a 1,200-word article, but a
Fortune 500 company will get ... maybe 100 words". A few days after issuing a press release about his business, Kohs' Wikipedia account was blocked. Kohs later recalled a phone call with Jimmy Wales who told him MyWikiBiz was "antithetical" to the mission of the encyclopedia. Kohs said it surprised him that PR agencies were discouraged from editing articles: "There are around 130 'Fortune 1,000' companies absent from Wikipedia's pages ... How could they not benefit from a little PR help?"
Microsoft In January 2007, Australian software engineer
Rick Jelliffe revealed that
Microsoft had offered to pay him to edit Wikipedia articles on two competing code standards,
OpenDocumentFormat and
Microsoft Office Open XML. said he accepted the offer because he wanted the information on technical standards to be accurate. Microsoft subsequently confirmed that it had offered to pay Jelliffe to edit the articles, stating that they were seeking "more balance" in the entries, that prior efforts to get attention from Wikipedia volunteers had failed, and that Microsoft had agreed that the company would not review Jelliffe's suggested changes. Microsoft also said they had not previously hired anyone to edit Wikipedia. He also stated "Although agencies and employees should not edit our pages, they do – but perhaps less than you would expect." In the same month that had seen conflict of interest issues raised by both Microsoft and MyWikiBiz, Wales stated that editors should not be paid to edit, and PR agencies would be banned if they persisted. Most of the edits WikiScanner found were minor or harmless, These instances received media coverage worldwide. Included among the accused were the
Vatican, the US
Democratic Party's Congressional Campaign Committee, Britain's
Labour Party,
Industry Canada, the Department of Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Defence in Australia, the
United Nations, the
US Senate, the US
Department of Homeland Security, the
Israeli government,
ExxonMobil,
Walmart,
Electronic Arts,
SCO Group,
Myspace, the
Church of Scientology,
CBS,
The Washington Post, the
National Rifle Association of America,
Bob Jones University, Wikipedia spokespersons received WikiScanner positively, noting that it helped prevent conflicts of interest from influencing articles
2010s Koch brothers In 2010,
Koch Industries began employing
New Media Strategies (NMS), an internet PR firm specializing in
word-of-mouth marketing. Shortly afterwards, it was discovered that employees of the company, editing from IPs controlled by NMS, were editing the Wikipedia articles for
Charles Koch,
David Koch,
Political activities of the Koch brothers, and
The Science of Success (a book written by Charles). Under numerous usernames, NMS employees edited Wikipedia articles "to distance the Koch family from the Tea Party movement, to provide baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding
George Soros, and to generally delete citations to liberal news outlets." These activities were exposed at Wikipedia and described in the press.
London-based "PR fixer" In June 2011,
PR Week reported on a "fixer", a known but unnamed London-based figure in the PR industry, who offered services to "cleanse" articles. Wikipedia entries this person was accused of changing included Carphone Warehouse co-founder
David Ross, Von Essen Group chairman
Andrew Davis, British property developer
David Rowland, billionaire Saudi tycoon
Maan Al-Sanea, and
Edward Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby. According to
PR Week, 42 edits were made from the same IP address, most of them removing negative or controversial information, or adding positive information.
Bell Pottinger In December 2011, blogger Tim Ireland,
The Independent, and the British
Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) discovered that
Bell Pottinger, one of the UK's largest public relations companies, had manipulated articles on behalf of its clients. Wikipedians discovered up to 19 accounts, 10 of which had over 100 edits each, which traced back to Bell Pottinger's offices; as a result of the investigation 10 of the accounts were blocked. One of the most noted accounts was registered under the name "" (an internal Wikipedia investigation resulted in several such cases). Bell Pottinger admitted that its employees had used several accounts, but said that the company had not done anything illegal. Analysis of the edits demonstrated that the changes had both added positive information and removed negative content, including the removal of information regarding the drug conviction of a businessman and Bell Pottinger client, and changing information about the arrest of a man convicted for
commercial bribery. The head of digital at Bell Pottinger blamed the incident on Wikipedia's "confusing" editing system and "the pressure put on us by clients to remove potentially defamatory or libellous statements very quickly, because Wikipedia is so authoritative." In 2016, Bell Pottinger staff were reported to have edited Wikipedia articles relating to South African individuals and companies, while the agency was working for the
Gupta family. Substantial editing of the Wikipedia page about the Guptas was also reported; a Bell Pottinger employee was said to have emailed much of the content to a Gupta account for it to be uploaded. In December 2016, South African billionaire
Johann Rupert dropped Bell Pottinger as the PR agency of
Richemont, accusing Bell Pottinger of running a social media campaign against him, to divert attention away from persistent '
state capture' allegations leveled at the Gupta family. In February 2017, Rupert alleged that Bell Pottinger had maliciously altered his Wikipedia page.
Portland Communications In January 2012, British MP
Tom Watson discovered that
Portland Communications had been removing the nickname of one of its clients' products ("Wife Beater", referring to
Anheuser-Busch InBev's
Stella Artois beer) from Wikipedia. Other edits from Portland's offices included changes to articles about another Portland client, the
Kazakhstan's
BTA Bank, and its former head
Mukhtar Ablyazov. Portland did not deny making the changes, arguing they had been done transparently and in accordance with Wikipedia's policies. Portland Communications welcomed CIPR's subsequent announcement of a collaboration with Wikipedia and invited Jimmy Wales to speak to their company, as he did at
Bell Pottinger. Tom Watson was optimistic about the collaboration: "PR professionals need clear guidelines in this new world of online-information-sharing. That's why I am delighted that interested parties are coming together to establish a clear code of conduct." In January 2026,
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism alleged that Portland Communications had continued to edit Wikipedia entries for clients since at least 2016, but used subcontractors to avoid detection. Edits included downplaying
human rights violations in Qatar before the
2022 FIFA World Cup,
Qatari links with terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra, details about the
Gates Foundation-funded
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and information on the
Libyan sovereign wealth fund. Portland said editing Wikipedia pages was not endorsed by Portland, was not a widespread practice, and that current staff did not engage in the activity. This issue brought attention to organizational conflicts of interest regarding Wikimedia Movement partners, leading to an investigation of WMUK. Bamkin stepped down as trustee following the media response. Jimmy Wales commented, "It is wildly inappropriate for a board member of a chapter, or anyone else in an official role of any kind in a charity associated with Wikipedia, to take payment from customers in exchange for securing favorable placement on the front page of Wikimedia or anywhere else."
GEO Group In February 2013, for-profit prison company
GEO Group received media coverage when a Wikipedia user under the name Abraham Cohen edited the entry on the company regarding naming rights to
Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Stadium. GEO Group's Manager of Corporate Relations at the time was named Abraham Cohen, who is an FAU alumnus, former FAU student body president, and former ex-officio member of the FAU board of trustees. Eleven edits constituting the majority of all those changes had been made in a single day under a Wikipedia account named "Abraham Cohen", the only day on which that account has ever been used.
BP In March 2013, it was reported that a member of
BP's press office had submitted drafts to rewrite the company's article, including sections dealing with its environmental record; the drafts were reviewed and added by other editors. Estimates of the size of the contributions were as high as 44 percent of the article. The BP press officer, who called himself "Arturo at BP," said he had chosen that name to make his affiliation clear, and noted that he had not directly edited the page. The development caused concern because the content was being produced by an employee, while "readers would be none the wiser."
NGO Monitor In June 2013, Arnie Draiman, online communications editor for the pro-Israel group
NGO Monitor, was indefinitely banned from editing Wikipedia articles about the
Arab–Israeli conflict due to
biased editing, concealing his place of work, and using a second account in a way Wikipedia policy forbids. Draiman was a major contributor to the articles on NGO Monitor and its founder
Gerald Steinberg, and made hundreds of inappropriate and inaccurate edits on articles about
human rights organizations and other
non-government organizations, including
B'Tselem, the
New Israel Fund,
Human Rights Watch, and many others Steinberg opposes.
WikiExperts The
KMGi Group was founded by
Alex Konanykhin in 1997. The advertisement company claimed that "WikiExperts employees do not directly edit Wikipedia", but "act as a consulting company which outsources such editing to most suitable affiliated experts."
Wiki-PR In 2012, Wikipedia volunteers launched possibly one of the largest
sockpuppet investigations in its history after editors on its website reported suspicious activity suggesting a number of accounts were used to subvert Wikipedia's policies. After almost a year of investigation, over 250 sockpuppet accounts were allegedly found, operated by two independent networks of users. Wikipedia editors traced the edits and sockpuppetry back to a firm known as Wiki-PR, leading to a
cease and desist letter by
Sue Gardner issued to the founders of the organization. The accounts were banned. On 25 October 2013, a community ban was further placed on Wiki-PR and any of its contractors.
Internet Research Agency The 11 September 2014
Columbian Chemicals Plant explosion hoax was a "massive, coordinated, and failed hoax to create panic", planted in Wikipedia by
Russian disinformation actors who were part of the
Internet Research Agency, according to
The New York Times Magazine.
Peking Duk At a December 2015
Peking Duk show in
Melbourne, a fan named David Spargo accessed the backstage area by editing the band's Wikipedia article page and inserting himself as a family member. Upon showing the article and his ID to the security guards, he was granted access to the band with whom he shared a beer. The band reacted positively to this scheme, with member
Adam Hyde stating: "He explained to us his amazing tactic to get past security to hang with us and we immediately cracked him a beer. This dude is the definition of a legend." However, Hyde did add: "It goes to show, never trust Wikipedia".
Orangemoody In 2015, the Wikipedia community blocked 381 accounts, many of them suspected
sock puppets of the same people, after a two-month investigation called Operation Orangemoody revealed that the accounts had been used to blackmail firms "struggling to get pages about their businesses on Wikipedia." These businesses had been told by Wikipedia users that articles about them had been "rejected due to concerns of excessive promotional content." In a few cases, the users asking for money were the same accounts that had earlier rejected the articles for publication.
Burger King On 12 April 2017,
Burger King released a commercial in which an employee states that he could not explain a
Whopper in 15 seconds, after which he states "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" The dialogue was designed to trigger
voice searches on
Android devices and
Google Home smart speakers configured to automatically respond to the phrase "OK Google". Furthermore, the snippet became the target of
vandals, who edited the article to claim that the sandwich contained such ingredients as "
cyanide", "a medium-sized
child", "
rat meat" and "toenail clippings", while some users reported that Google Home had relayed information from these vandalized revisions. Soon after the release of the commercial,
Google blacklisted its audio so that it would not trigger the always-on voice detection. Wikipedia also protected the Whopper article to prevent the promotional descriptions or vandalism from being re-inserted. Burger King claimed to have released a modified version of the commercial later that evening which evaded Google's block.
The North Face was one of several articles affected by a covert advertising campaign. The article's previous main image (above) was briefly replaced by one prominently featuring a man in a North Face jacket. In May 2019, marketing agency
Leo Burnett Tailor Made revealed they had been hired by outdoor clothing company
The North Face to replace images of outdoor destinations with photos containing the company's apparel, in an attempt to get its apparel to appear at the top of Google results through
search engine optimization. Following media coverage, the photos were all removed from articles and some modified by
Wikimedia Commons users to remove or obscure the branding. The Wikimedia Foundation condemned the stunt, stating in a press release: "When The North Face exploits the trust you have in Wikipedia to sell you more clothes, you should be angry. Adding content that is solely for commercial promotion goes directly against the policies, purpose and mission of Wikipedia". After Wikipedia volunteers blocked the accounts involved for breaches of Wikipedia policies on paid editing, The North Face posted a response as a reply on Twitter, stating that they had ended the campaign and that "We believe deeply in Wikipedia's mission and apologize for engaging in activity inconsistent with those principles." Leo Burnett Tailor Made stated they "found a unique way to contribute photography of adventure destinations to their respective Wikipedia articles while achieving the goal of elevating those images in search rankings" and that they had "since learned that this effort worked counter to Wikipedia's community guidelines." The campaign was described as "wildly misguided" and as having "egregiously violated just about every principle you can think about with respect to trying to maintain consumer trust" by Americus Reed, a professor of marketing at the
University of Pennsylvania in an interview to
The New York Times.
2020s Anti-Defamation League In 2020 the
Anti-Defamation League trained its staff to edit Wikipedia pages, but after conflict-of-interest criticisms from Wikipedia editors the ADL suspended the project in April 2021.
University of California, Board of Regents In January 2025, PR administrator from
University of California, Berkeley edited the University of California chancellor
Rich Lyons page.
Miscellaneous 2000s In January 2006, a change was made to the article
Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau, removing the words "and false" from the characterization "incomplete and false" of information given by the princess regarding her relationship with slain drug lord
Klaas Bruinsma. The changes were traced back to a royal palace used by the princess. In April 2008,
Phorm deleted material related to a controversy over its advertising deals.
2010s Edits involving
Daimler AG were reported in March 2012. In August that year, the communications director for
Idaho's Department of Education, Melissa McGrath, edited the article on her boss,
Tom Luna. In September, there was media attention surrounding two Wikipedia employees who were running a PR business on the side and editing Wikipedia on behalf of their clients. In addition, it was revealed that
Tory Party charmain
Grant Shapps had changed the information about his academic record as well as donor information. Also in September, writer
Philip Roth wrote a piece in
The New Yorker chronicling his difficulty changing information about one of his novels. In November 2012,
Finsbury, the firm led by
Roland Rudd, was found to have anonymously edited the article about
Alisher Usmanov, removing information about various controversies. In January 2014, the
Wikimedia Foundation announced that Sarah Stierch was "no longer an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation", after evidence was presented on a Wikimedia mailing list that she had "been editing Wikipedia on behalf of paying clients" – a practice the Wikimedia Foundation said was "frowned upon by many in the editing community and by the Wikimedia Foundation". In June 2014,
The Wall Street Journal reported that
Banc de Binary, which had been cited for unregistered options trading by US regulators, posted an advertisement on a freelancing bulletin board "offering more than $10,000 for 'crisis management'" of its Wikipedia page. In March 2015,
The Washington Post reported that The New York Police Department had confirmed that at least some edits to Wikipedia entries about people who died following confrontations with
NYPD officers were made from computers on the department's servers. In March 2019,
HuffPost reported that
Facebook,
Axios,
NBC News, and
Nextdoor have paid lawyer Ed Sussman to lobby for changes to their Wikipedia articles, as well as the articles on
Sheryl Sandberg,
Jonathan Swan,
Chuck Todd,
Andy Lack, and
Noah Oppenheim. In his October 2019 book
Catch and Kill, reporter
Ronan Farrow reported that NBC News hired a "Wikipedia whitewasher" who removed references to NBC's role in the Weinstein case from several Wikipedia articles. NBC does not dispute the allegation. In December 2019,
The Wall Street Journal reported on paid conflict-of-interest editing by the reputation management company
Status Labs regarding several of their clients, including former
Bank of America executive
Omeed Malik and the health technology corporation
Theranos.
2020s In May 2020,
Le Monde reported on the blocking of about 200 Wikipedia accounts related to French PR companies. In August and September 2021, a plant-based food company called
This replaced images on the
Bacon article with images of their own products; the edits were quickly reverted and the account blocked. In November 2021,
The Guardian reported on conflict-of-interest editing regarding billionaire
Richard Desmond. Attempts to remove the article's description of Desmond as a "pornographer" had been going on for years. Lawyers hired by Desmond have argued for removal. In May 2022,
Haaretz reported on conflict-of-interest editing, mainly regarding
Russian oligarchs. In February 2023,
The Signpost reported on conflict-of-interest editing regarding Indian billionaire industrialist
Gautam Adani. The story was picked up by several Indian news-outlets. In May 2023,
Mediaite reported that American Republican presidential candidate
Vivek Ramaswamy paid a Wikipedia editor to remove details from Vivek's biography that "could conceivably harm Ramaswamy's standing in a Republican primary". In February 2024,
The Scottish Sun and
The National reported that a number of computers from the
Scottish Parliament had been used to edit the Wikipedia articles of several
MSPs from all over the political spectrum, and especially
Alex Cole-Hamilton's page, in order to delete compromising details or emphasize positive aspects. In August 2024,
Portland, Oregon city commissioner and mayoral candidate
Rene Gonzalez spent $6,400 of city funds to spruce up the commissioner's page. The campaign used public funds to hire a consultant, WhiteHatWiki, to advise on how to get Gonzalez's page changed. Wikipedia edit requests were submitted by commissioner's policy advisor Harrison Kass. City's auditor found the use of city funds to hire a contractor to assist with editing Wikipedia and using staff time violated campaign finance regulations. In August 2025, one of the largest self-promotion campaigns in Wikipedia's history was uncovered, in which a network of around 200
sock puppet accounts created or edited articles in 335 languages to promote composer
David Woodard. This had been active for over a decade. It was suggested that the accounts were likely to have been operated by Woodard or people close to him. Following an investigation by a user that later wrote about their findings in the English Wikipedia's newsletter,
The Signpost, Wikipedia stewards and local communities deleted over 300 articles and banned associated accounts. In September 2025, a
Law.com article covered conflict-of-interest editing by law firms, including
Latham & Watkins and
Milbank. In November 2025,
The Verge reported on potential conflict-of-interest editing regarding Wikipedia content about
Jeffrey Epstein, from 2010 and onward. Further, in early 2026, a report from
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism informs Peter Mandelson’s Wikipedia page was edited repeatedly by an anonymous user who was later banned for making paid edits. The edits to Mandelson’s page downplayed his support of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The user, who claimed to be a “news junkie”, also tried to remove the fact that Mandelson was one of the UK's shortest-serving ambassadors. ==Reception==