Heritage Foundation Presentation Details Plans To Doxx And Target Wikipeda Editors It Claims Are ‘Abusing Their Position’
Every day Donald Trump seems to implement yet another of the key schemes of Project 2025, despite claiming last summer that “I know nothing about Project 2025.” According to the Project 2025 Web site, it is organized by the Heritage Foundation, which is also working on what it calls its “Oversight Project”:
The Oversight Project works for government that is responsible and accountable to its citizens. We use Freedom of Information Act requests and other means to make government more transparent to the public and to allow Congress to use its oversight authorities with maximum effectiveness. The requests and analysis of information are informed by Heritage’s deep policy expertise. By its nature, the Oversight Project primarily engages in disseminating information to the public.
The site Forward.com has obtained a presentation put together by the Heritage Foundation as part of that Oversight Project, with the title “Wikipedia Editor Targeting” (pdf). According to the deck, its aim is to:
Identify and target Wikipedia editors abusing their position by analyzing text patterns, usernames, and technical data through data breach analysis, fingerprinting, HUMINT, and technical targeting.
That’s doxxing, something “considered unacceptable within the Wikimedia movement,” and subject to sanctions. Forward.com explains:
The Heritage Foundation sent the pitch deck outlining the Wikipedia initiative to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, its roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Among the doxxing techniques listed on the presentation are “Fingerprinting”:
Text Analysis: Use NLP to identify writing style, repeated phrases, and content patterns.
Cross-Article Comparison: Detect similarities in multiple articles, focusing on propagandist themes.
“Username Analysis and Dataset Correlation”:
Reuse in Breached Data: Search breached datasets for reused names, emails, and online identities.
Cross-Platform Analysis: Identify connections between usernames and other online activities.
“Technical Fingerprinting (Controlled Domain Redirects)”:
Controlled Links: Use redirects to capture IP addresses, browser fingerprints, and device data through a combination of in browser fingerprinting scripts and HTML5 canvas techniques
Technical Data Collection: Track geolocation, ISP, and network details from clicked links
and “Online Human Intelligence (HUMINT)”:
Persona Engagement: Engage curated sock puppet accounts to reveal patterns and provoke reactions, information disclosure
Behavioral Manipulation: Push specific topics to expose more identity related details
Cross-Community Targeting: Interact across platforms to gather intelligence from other sources.
It’s an extremely comprehensive set that suggests this could be a major program, although there’s no indication yet whether it has managed to doxx anyone or has even begun to operate. Forward.com writes:
A Heritage Foundation spokesperson said she was not able to answer questions about the organization’s work related to Wikipedia, which editors it was seeking to identify or how it sought to “target” them. The Wikimedia Foundation, which provides the infrastructure for Wikipedia, declined to comment.
The methods outlined are potentially a serious threat to the freedom of speech of Wikipedia editors. Doxxing them would clearly open them up to the kind of online attacks that have become all-too common since Elon Musk bought Twitter. It would be quite understandable if doxxed editors stopped working on Wikipedia, for fear of real-world consequences for them and their families.
The Heritage Foundation claims that the aim of its Oversight Project is “to make government more transparent to the public and to allow Congress to use its oversight authorities with maximum effectiveness.” But doxxing and targeting volunteer editors on Wikipedia has nothing to do government transparency, and just looks like bullying to stifle viewpoints the Heritage Foundation disagrees with. That’s bad enough, but the worry has to be that if editors are successfully doxxed and stop writing as a result, others will adopt the same methodology to chill freedom of speech on Wikipedia more widely.