AZERBEIDJANI INCURSION ON WIKIPEDIA
by Shahan Kandaharian

Aztag Daily
Aug 25 2009
Lebanon

There is a remarkable over-crowdedness on the "The history of the
truth-Armenian allegations" website on the Internet. The rings of
an unending chain of misinformation about topics related to purely
Armenian issues are being posted with a noteworthy quickness of
pace. Those who receive Armenian news through Google-Alert in their
e-mail inboxes clearly can see the extent of the matter being talked
about here in this article. This seems to be the latest means adopted
by the Turks in their information war, which should not be ignored
by the representatives of the information field on the Armenian
side. This literally is an incursion of misinformation which although
not officially announced but carries all the convincing ingredients
that it enjoys the auspices and support of the Turkish state if not
its initiative.

Yesterday evening parallel to the Turkish information incursion
the Azerbeidjani "Today Az" issued a political propaganda concern
in cyberspace. We are referring to "Today Az"’s known website which
posted an article that called the Azeri public opinion to war. The
issue is the following: The article titled "The Azerbeidjan-Armenia
war continues on Wikipedia" is protesting that the word search for
"Armenia", "Artsakh", "Gharapagh", "Artsakh Conflict" is yielding
"false" information to the person searching. The issue is clear:
Artsakh is mentioned as being part of the Armenian Republic knowing
that it had been included in the borders of ancient Armenia.

Those who visit Wikipedia know that this open version of Internet
encyclopedia also accepts inputs by visitor-readers about a certain
topic. "Today Az" is calling for the influx of the "right" information
in this open encyclopedia and for the "correction" of the "falsehood"
represented as information until now. In reality the call is for the
perversion of realities!

The close follow up is necessary to see what results would the searches
of the above mentioned terms yield. Of course just following is not
enough; if "Today Az" has called for a war following wouldn’t be enough
on the Armenian side. Armenian visitors of Wikipedia must take part in
the information-misinformation war announced on Wikipedia. Wikipedia or
any self-respecting open encyclopedia website must finally realize that
there’s the need of maintaining a certain level of credibility. And
no matter how active the Azeri information incursion would be,
information must not be replaced by mis-information.

If we cannot have an impact on the intrigues of the so called "The
History of the truth-Armenian allegations" website, we can take part
in the maintenance of the Wikipedia credibility.

This, too, is a unique version of information war waged on
cyberspace. This time, too, we are not the aggressor. We would
be guilty, though, if we stand still in the face of the unleashed
incursion. Meanwhile the authors of Wikipedia must understand that
this incursion is as much against them as against the Armenians.