Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-04-25/Disinformation report

If you believe the mainstream press, former US President Donald J. Trump has spread misinformation across the internet and in news outlets on a massive scale. According to The Washington Post he has "accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day." He has been banned from social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Has Trump also spread misinformation or disinformation on Wikipedia? We don’t think that the former president himself has edited Wikipedia since it is much more difficult to edit Wikipedia than it is to tweet. This Signpost article examines whether Trump’s business empire, the Trump Organization, has employed paid editors to edit Wikipedia.

They apparently have. Editor Mmartinnyc disclosed his identity twice in 2011 on-Wiki, as Michael Martin, the Trump Organization’s Director of Digital Marketing.

According to his obituary published in December 2020, Martin started working at the Trump Organization in 1987 and later became Director of Digital Marketing, serving in that position until 2014 when he left the company. ^[1]

The Signpost notes that evidence of paid editing using only Wikipedia edit histories can not actually “prove” an editor’s identity, even in cases where they disclose many personal details. Sometimes editors have tried to embarrass a targeted individual or company, a tactic known as a Joe jobbing. This caveat applies even when an editor directly declares that they are paid.