Risk class | Country | Bank | Total blocked or banned |
COI, UPE, or checkuser blocked editors |
Other blocked socks | Selected socks | Selected sock farms |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4 | US | JP Morgan Chase | 84 | 11 | 20 | Anandmoorti Cyberfan195 Kkm010 LivinRealGüd |
JayJasper MP1440 Rock5410 VentureKit |
3 | US | Bank of America | 125 | 21 | 28 | Anandmoorti Coffeedrinker115 Cyberfan195 LivinRealGüd WikiDon |
JayJasper MP1440 VentureKit Wikiwriter700 Yoodaba |
3 | US | Citigroup | 88 | 12 | 28 | Anandmoorti Coffeedrinker115 Cyberfan195 Kkm010 Pig de Wig |
JayJasper MP1440 Rock5410 VentureKit Wikiwriter700 |
3 | UK | HSBC | 72 | 12 | 21 | Anandmoorti Coffeedrinker115 Kkm010 WikiDon |
GoldDragon JayJasper VentureKit Yoodaba |
2 | CHN | Bank of China | 32 | 2 | 11 | Kkm010 Russavia |
Yoodaba |
2 | UK | Barclays | 63 | 7 | 9 | Coffeedrinker115 Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
Rock5410 |
2 | FRA | BNP Paribas | 38 | 8 | 9 | Avaya1 Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
JayJasper Yoodaba |
2 | DEU | Deutsche Bank | 65 | 21 | 17 | Cyberfan195 CLCStudent Kkm010 LivinRealGüd |
Excel23 MP1440 VentureKit Wikiwriter700 Yoodaba |
2 | US | Goldman Sachs | 108 | 28 | 27 | Cyberfan195 CLCStudent Glaewnis Kkm010 LivinRealGüd Russavia |
AlexLevyOne JayJasper MP1440 VentureKit Wikiwriter700 Yoodaba |
2 | CHN | Industrial and Commercial Bank of China | 27 | 3 | 10 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 Russavia |
Yoodaba |
2 | JPN | Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group | 16 | 1 | 2 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
|
1 | CHN | Agricultural Bank of China | 26 | 1 | 11 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 Russavia |
|
1 | US | BNY Mellon | 20 | 5 | 3 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
JayJasper |
1 | CHN | China Construction Bank | 19 | 0 | 6 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
JayJasper |
1 | CH | Credit Suisse | 30 | 6 | 5 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 LivinRealGüd |
MP1440 |
1 | FRA | Groupe BPCE | 3 | 0 | 1 | Bitholov | |
1 | FRA | Crédit Agricole | 13 | 0 | 2 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
|
1 | NLD | ING | 38 | 4 | 22 | Anandmoorti Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
Rock5410 VentureKit |
1 | JPN | Mizuho Financial Group | 17 | 2 | 4 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
|
1 | US | Morgan Stanley | 44 | 8 | 12 | CLCStudent Cyberfan195 Kkm010 LivinRealGüd |
MP1440 VentureKit Wikiwriter700 Yoodaba |
1 | CAN | Royal Bank of Canada | 28 | 6 | 9 | Cyberfan195 Eostrix Torontopedia |
GoldDragon Yoodaba |
1 | ESP | Banco Santander | 36 | 7 | 10 | CLCStudent Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
VentureKit |
1 | FRA | Société Générale | 32 | 6 | 8 | Cyberfan195 Glaewnis Kkm010 |
MP1440 |
1 | UK | Standard Chartered | 31 | 5 | 5 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 |
Rock5410 VentureKit |
1 | US | State Street | 20 | 3 | 2 | Cyberfan195 LivinRealGüd Pig de Wig |
VentureKit Yoodaba |
1 | JPN | Sumitomo Mitsui | 12 | 3 | 1 | Cyberfan195 | |
1 | CAN | Toronto-Dominion Bank | 32 | 8 | 4 | Cyberfan195 | Excel23 MP1440 |
1 | CH | UBS | 51 | 9 | 10 | Cyberfan195 Kkm010 LivinRealGüd |
JayJasper John254 |
1 | ITA | UniCredit | 14 | 0 | 3 | Cyberfan195 | |
1 | US | Wells Fargo | 76 | 11 | 26 | CLCStudent Cyberfan195 Kkm010 LivinRealGüd Pig de Wig |
Excel23 JayJasper MP1440 Rock5410 Yoodaba |
Conclusions
The table shows a range of sock puppet editing among these articles on systemically important banks. Some banks such as the French banks Groupe BPCE and Crédit Agricole, Italy's UniCredit, and the China Construction Bank show no sock puppeting by the most likely paid editing socks. On the other hand, three banks, America's Goldman Sachs, the Bank of America, and Germany's Deutsche Bank, have had over 20 socks of this type editing their articles. In general, with some exceptions, American banks have had the most edits by the most likely paid editing socks. Chinese and Japanese banks, along with the above French and Italian banks have the fewest socks of this type editing the articles about them. The two Swiss banks in the news, Credit Suisse and UBS, are in the broad middle ground with only six and nine socks of this type editing the articles about them.
The articles on banks in the highest two risk classes tend to have higher indications of socking than other classes and the articles about the lowest risk class have the lowest indications of socking, with the possible exception of Wells Fargo.
The seventh column shows a selected group of editors who have edited the articles and been blocked for socking. Glaewnis – whose block summary reads "UPE – appeal is only to the Arbitration Committee" has edited two of these articles. Kkm010 who edited several articles on the Adani group, edited at least 23 of these articles. Several other now blocked socks edited multiple articles in this list.
Perhaps the most interesting column in the table is the final one showing the sock farms who edited multiple articles. The Yoodaba sock farm edited at least 11 of these articles. They are known for editing business articles, especially finance articles, as well as political articles. The JayJasper and VentureKit sock farms edited almost as many.
We remind our readers that no examination based purely on Wikipedia's edit history can prove or disprove whether an editor has been paid to edit articles. Nevertheless, we can say that we have little or no reason to suspect those twelve banks which have fewer than five editors listed in column 5 of paying for Wikipedia editing. Similarly, we might say that the three banks with more than twenty editors listed in column 5 are the most likely among these thirty banks to have paid for Wikipedia editing.
None of this evidence can be taken as final proof of any rules being broken, but there certainly is some interesting evidence.
Discuss this story
An eye-opening article! Wikipedia is being diddled by big banks -- and likely other big other things. In one sense it's a compliment to the importance of Wikipedia that big banks would go to such trouble to burnish their articles. Smallchief (talk)