An egregious example of the broken public culture evidenced on the web, in general, and in regard to Marc Gafni in particular is Wikipedia.
Much research demonstrates that Wikipedia’s personal profiles, particularly those of living persons, are often hijacked by a group of “editors”, who then turn the page into a forum for unsubstantiated slander. That which is written on Wikipedia is not that which has been demonstrated to be true, but any information that appears in published form on virtually any media source.
Virtually none of those sources do any substantive fact-checking. It thus becomes very easy for biased “volunteer Wiki-editors” to use Wiki as a platform for particularly vicious versions of cancel culture. Often biased parties in a conflict insinuate themselves into Wiki’s volunteer editing structure, in order to directly or indirectly hijack a Wiki page.
Claire Molinard, a prominent Integral Coach, has written three short articles on Wikipedia’s slander
The first article ‘How Wikipedia is used for internet abuse – part 1″ is on the general context of the phenomena of Wikipedia’s slander.
The second article “How Wikipedia is used for internet abuse – part 2” written in 2016, concerns particularly this phenomena of slander on Marc Gafni’s Wikipedia page.
The third article “How Wikipedia is used for internet abuse – part 3”, really an addendum to the second article, updates the reader into 2021, pointing out the additional false or distorted claims made on Wiki until 2021.
Wikipedia itself is aware of the problem, but significantly understates it in the following paragraph:
“Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia. Because it can be edited by anyone at any time, any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong. Biographies of living persons, subjects that happen to be in the news, and politically or culturally contentious topics are especially vulnerable to these issues. Edits on Wikipedia that are in error are usually fixed after some time. However, because Wikipedia is a volunteer-run project, it cannot constantly monitor every contribution. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself.”
(Source: Wikipedia. Retrieved June 3, 2021)
