Talk:Center for Countering Digital Hate

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NPOV[edit]

This article seems to be the subject of some dodgy editing (see [1]), and seems to have quite a lot of loaded language in it. It needs review by multiple non-involved editors to ensure that it meets the WP:NPOV criteria. Among other things, I've had a go at cleaning up citations, and fixed a wrong creation date that didn't match the cited source. -- The Anome (talk) 05:58, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One example of loaded language seems to be the word "censorship" which appears again and again. I do not know much about the subject, but is it not about deplatforming rather than censorship? Deplatforming is not even mentioned in the article on censorship, which may or may not mean it is not an example of censorship. And the cries of "censorship" come from the direction of the people being deplatformed, like this: [2]. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This organization's openly stated purpose is to have certain people be denied any place or means to publicly discuss their ideas. That is the very definition of censorship. Whether you support or oppose their mission there's no ambiguity about it, and the method (deplatforming) is irrelevant. If anything referring to it only as "removing from discussion", "deplatforming", "excluding from public discourse", etc is the loaded language in this article (ie; pointed adherence to euphemisms). Any entity restricting or otherwise silencing another's speech is censorship, period. It doesn't become something else just because it's accomplished via method X instead of method Y, or because it's a company or group instead of a government, or by one side of the political spectrum or the other. It simply is what it is. How is this a contentious issue?--2607:FEA8:2E20:3770:3CA5:F1AB:5066:E3E9 (talk) 10:41, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That is just your opinion, and it is wrong. Icke, for example, can still sell his books in other ways. He is not censored, he is deplatformed. If deplatforming were generally agreed to be censorship, you would be able to give reliable sources that say so. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:44, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hob Gadling, agreed - this is deplatforming, not censorship. I've boldly removed the 'Internet censorship by country' template, which doesn't seem relevant - this company has no role in monitoring or controlling who can access and use the internet in Britain or anywhere else. GirthSummit (blether) 15:56, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Hob Gadling and Girth Summit. Better to use accurate NPOV language rather than misleading POV language. Support removal of that template. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:51, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
" this company has no role in monitoring or controlling who can access and use the internet in Britain or anywhere else." Good grief! Does no one here know how to look up the meaning of a word, censorship in this case. The organization is all about removing voices from the internet. Check their "About" page. And that is pure and unadulterated censorship of viewpoints and content. Marbux (talk) 22:46, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Censorship does not cease to be what it is just because one method is used vs another; nor because it was only accomplished in some places rather than everywhere; nor because it is done by a privately owned service vs a government. Arguing that it isn't censorship because the people in question are still able to speak elsewhere is similarly absurd. By that logic anything short of being literally placed in 24/7 solitary confinement would not rise to censorship -- for otherwise one could still conceivably communicate one's ideas to someone, somewhere, even if banned from every technological form of communication in existence.
Euphemistic phrases like "removal from the service" etc are patently obvious circumlocutions describing the literal act of censoring. With all respect, this appears willfully obtuse: Justifying with "he's not censored, he's just deplatformed", is like saying "he hasn't been knifed, just stabbed". Or, "he's not writing, he's just using a pen to inscribe meaningful symbols on paper". See: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring ("2. To suppress or delete as objectionable"). Pick your dictionary of choice, they're all similar enough. I cannot find any source, period, that specifies censorship as solely government-related. Quite the opposite. See https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship ("Censorship [...] happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups"). Nor can I find any source that states a person must be completely silenced in all possible ways, at all possible places, in order to meet some nonexistent, arbitrary threshold.
My honest take is that this is strong reluctance to use the proper term because the word and act are negative, or at least perceived that way. If I didn't know better I would say the aim of this effort to go to any illogical absurdity in avoiding the correct word was being done to protect the image of the deplatforming tactic in general and perhaps this group in particular. We may not agree with the kind of nonsense that disinformation peddlers air, but we shouldn't shy from calling censorship what it is. Besides being ridiculous, trying to worm our way around saying "censored" only weakens the side of objective truth and fact by using the very tactics we decry. 2607:FEA8:2E20:3770:BC61:D869:F94C:8489 (talk) 23:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You need reliable sources that say the CCDH is doing censorship. Your own conclusions from dictionary definitions count for nothing here. See WP:OR. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@The Anome: There seems to be a fair few improvements to the article such that it is in a more improved state since you placed the tag in June. It seems to me as if the {{NPOV}} tag could probably be removed. Wondering if you wouldn't mind taking a look and removing it if you think likewise, or suggest any further changes that need to be made here. If not, I'm tempted to remove it. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:09, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Formation date[edit]

I'm currently citing the Companies House formation date; however, reading the incorporation document, this seems to have been a pre-existing "off-the-shelf company" that was put into use to create this organization; what's the best convention for noting this? -- The Anome (talk) 07:41, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Anome, without WP:OR it's hard. If I were writing anywhere else I would go from the date of change of directors - see [3] and the directors list, but in this context I would simply omit it unless there are secondary sources. Guy (help!) 10:23, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: you can easily deduce from that that the "real" organization was created at that time, particularly since the original creator of the company was a company formations company, as shown in the incorporation document. But as you say, that's WP:OR.

To add to the confusion, their site says that they were founded in December 2017, which is before even the initial incorporation of the company. -- The Anome (talk) 11:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Funding[edit]

Any information? Shtove (talk) 23:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Times of Israel is not an independent source[edit]

I removed a Times of Israel article reference here that backstopped a The Guardian reference which it substantially plagiarized [4]. I didn't see any outright invention, only theft, but be cautious about citing it as a source. Yappy2bhere (talk) 23:01, 25 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Whole article copied word for word. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Word-for-word copying can sometimes simply be syndication, not plagiarism. But yes, I agree, two copies of the same article are not independent sources. -- The Anome (talk) 13:08, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Campaign against David Icke[edit]

ItsKesha removed this entire subsection, and reverted my revert of their removal; I've now re-restored it (diff), as the cites given seem to support the text. @ItsKesha: can you please justify this removal? What exactly do you object to in the section? -- The Anome (talk) 10:56, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The section is well-sourced and the edit summary for the removal was therefore inaccurate. I support its inclusion. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:31, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Funding[edit]

Shtove (talk · contribs) asked about funding five months ago but no information was forthcoming. I haven't found any information about its funding on the web. Its website contains the vacuous statement: "The Center for Countering Digital Hate is a not-for-profit non governmental organisation (NGO) that is funded by philanthropic trusts and members of the public". It has lodged some accounts this year but they only give an asset figure and provide no information about its income.Burrobert (talk) 15:11, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

Article has a neutrality disputed template since June (added by The Anome. Is it still disputed? Seems OK to me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The article has been extensively edited since I tagged it, and seems OK now. I've removed the tag. -- The Anome (talk) 12:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Citing tweets[edit]

There are quite a few tweets cited here: {{cite tweet}} should be used when citing Twitter. -- The Anome (talk) 12:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cites too many tweets - would be good to trim this content if there is no secondary source for it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

COI tag (July 2021)[edit]

The primary authors of this article seem to have very few edits outside of it (this diff, for example, shows a user with 8 prior contributions turning a redirect into a 28,000-byte fully wikified page in a single edit). jp×g 09:39, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from that, I added a {{advert}} tag because there seems to be WP:UNDUE detail on their publications, and repeats their claims uncritically. As far as I can tell from skimming one, they seem to be self-published materials (I saw nothing indicating they went through anything resembling a peer review process). There are also weird things like, for example, right now the article gives shout-outs to the inventors of hashtags(?!) which doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me. jp×g 09:49, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Much needs removal or rewriting from better references. Currently, the article is being used as a soapbox to promote them. --Hipal (talk) 15:29, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Hello, I would like to participate in the COI-discussion: Some time ago I decided to add some criticism to this page. I had the impression that the wikipedia article was one sided in the sense of representing the view of the CCDH in this social discourse and not the one of the people the CCDH accuses. So I wrote a short paragraph expressing the other point of view in this matter:

"criticism The Center of Countering Digital Hate gets accused by many people of censorship due to their attempt to deplatform people and therefore effectively driving them out of a large parts of the public discourse and of harming the reputation of the people and organizations targeted by the CCDH's campaigns[104]. Some people also defend the targeted people by stating their own positive experiences with them[105]. The criticism happens mainly on the organization's own twitter website[106] and on the private websites of the people who try to defend their reputation[107]."

First my neutral formulation of "many people" was changed into "anti-vaxxers and their supporter" which replaced my neutral term by a term with negative connotations that makes those people seem less credible and is also factually false. Later my whole addition got removed, officially due to unreliable sources. Well, I don't see were people defending themselves against a media organization should do that if not on their own private websites or on social media. If this is truely the point of view of wikipedia, we have a structural issue here that any company with media influence can create a social discourse (which is essentially what the CCDH does) and have any opposing views and reactions removed from wikipedia, since they can just exclude their source. The resulting wikipedia article will be onesided and not neutral by default...

2 days ago I added relevant information to the disinformation dozen section - that the central claim of one of their campaign is false and that facebook responded. Facebooks statistical information is also relevant, since it revails that their campaign was based on faulty statistics that are so obviously wrong and not valid as every first semester student in any subject that includes statistics would know. Therefore I'm 99% certain that what the CCDH did was blant lying. "Facebook responded to the letter and calls the disinformation dozen report a "faulty narrative" and the statistics used in the report are not representative of the millions of posts people shared on facebook. According to facebook these 12 people are only responsible for about 0.05% of all views of vaccine-related content shared on facebook. [75]" source: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/08/taking-action-against-vaccine-misinformation-superspreaders/

This got removed as well and I would find it very unreasonable if an official facebook statement about facebook and internal statistics can not be taken as source in this particular case.

To sum it up: I find it important that the information I wanted to include gets included into the wikipedia article to make it less biased. Currently my impression of this article is that it has been written to paint the CCDH in a positive light and criticism and negative statements will get removed by the people who are acting in the interest of the companies public image.

Greetings Allaion

What do you mean by [104] to [107]? Unless you actually link those sources, or your contribution Some time ago, we cannot know if the sources are reliable. Are we all supposed to look through the article history to search for your revision?
The Facebook source is self-published and unusable. See WP:SPS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:57, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]


I think your statement regarding facebook as source is wrong. To quote the current wikipedia guidline: "Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves". Also you ignored my arguments and in the case wikipedia would disallow these kind of sources in cases like this, my question would be how can the same information be included here in the article, since it's relevant?

PS: I added the links as you requestet, to both the sources and the historical version of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Center_for_Countering_Digital_Hate&oldid=1026376368 https://twitter.com/CCDHate/status/1367172135295324164?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1367172135295324164%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenmedinfo.com%2Fblog%2Fcenter-countering-digital-hate-publishes-digital-hitlist-including-greenmedinfo-f3 and https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/center-countering-digital-hate-publishes-digital-hitlist-including-greenmedinfo-f3

Greetings Allaion

LOL! You want to use Twitter as a source in Wikipedia article!
No. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Publications list[edit]

I intend to reduce the Publications section – which seems to detail each and every leaflet the company has produced – to a bulleted list of publications; and that will still be generous on my part. It will be rather a BOLD edit. If you disagree, I will appreciate it if you specify the rationale instead of only hitting the revert button. Cheers, — kashmīrī TALK 20:39, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — kashmīrī TALK 21:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed it completely. Without independent sources, it's just promotion and soapboxing, WP:SOAP. --Hipal (talk) 22:14, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, fine with me. Although I will note that we don't need secondary sources for uncontroversial information about the subject, per WP:ABOUTSELF. — kashmīrī TALK 11:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see this on the talk page, but I have restored a shortened list version of the bullet list for those publications that had secondary sources in the earlier long text. Secondary sources clearly indicate noteworthiness, and the bullet point version means there is no problem of undue weight and am now confident is not promotion and soapboxing. I have not, however, checked all of the sources; some may be weaker but if so they should be addressed on a case by case basis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:18, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let's pull all the poor sources and make sure the descriptions are neutral, from the independent sources we have left. --Hipal (talk) 15:47, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hipal which ones do you think are "poor"? Inf-in MD (talk) 23:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
WP:RSP and WP:RSN are helpful when it's not obvious. --Hipal (talk) 16:05, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but your recent edits removed many sources which are reliable - Times of Israel, or HuffPo for example. You also removed several which are not discussed at RSN (https://macemagazine.com/) .Inf-in MD (talk) 21:16, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See the RSP entry for HuffPo.
Please point out specific refs and their use. Just because something is verified, doesn't entail it is suitable for an encyclopedia article. --Hipal (talk) 23:04, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That is a different argument than "poor sources". If you want to argue "undue", do so, but don't move the goal posts. Let's start with this one - [5], used to support "CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition." It's in the lead, but you removed the same statement (with the same source) from the body. Why? You've now created a lead which does not properly summarize the article content, as it has a statement not mentioned in the article Inf-in MD (talk) 00:45, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No one is moving goal posts. If a reference isn't good enough to support the inclusion of the cited information, it is a poor source for that information. --Hipal (talk) 01:02, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You are moving the goalposts. You first claimed "poor sources", and when challenged, you claimed "undue weight" - "Just because something is verified, doesn't entail it is suitable for an encyclopedia". Don't do it, and don't take me for an idiot. Now, please explain why you removed the sentence I mentioned above and it's source, from the article. Inf-in MD (talk)
WP:FOC --Hipal (talk) 01:12, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re the "Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist". Still it might be used, with caution.
I'm not finding where I removed what you are claiming. Diff? --Hipal (talk) 01:18, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I misread the diffs. You removed that source from the "CEO" section, which you completely removed. While most of the stuff there was undue fluff, the current head of a organization should be named. Inf-in MD (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hipal can you explain this edit? What is "iffy" about this? HuffPo is a good enough source isn't it? BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:20, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See the discussion above.
I believe the RSP HuffPost (politics) entry applies.
The author is a "trends reporter".
The article only mentions the specific report once, with a long quote, and was published just a week after the report. --Hipal (talk) 16:26, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Company"[edit]

Re this edit, this edit, this edit: I think it is unnecessary and misleading to describe it as a "company" rather than "organisation". In the UK, most "organisations" register as "companies" without therefore being usually described as such. For example, Jewish Voice for Labour[6] and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign[7] are strictly speaking "companies" but our articles on them call them "organisations" in the lead and we don't use the company infobox for them. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:47, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it wasn't clear from the organisation's website that they are not a company limited by shares (the most common type) but limited by guarantee, which is indeed often used by nonprofits (or, was, prior to the recent reforms that introduced the CIO model). I later changed the description in the lead section back to "organisation". — kashmīrī TALK 17:05, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge of Stop Funding Fake News into Center for Countering Digital Hate[edit]

The campaign, even though noted by the media, does not seem to enjoy notability independent from the organisation that runs it. — kashmīrī TALK 14:54, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's sensible. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:19, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I could support that. Inf-in MD (talk) 18:15, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merged. — kashmīrī TALK 20:35, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Basic info isn't WP:SOAP[edit]

I agree with Inf-in MD that this edit is excessive, removing basic info about the organisation (legitimately sourced via WP:ABOUTSELF) alongside some puffery. While secondary sources are better, primary sources are OK for stuff like who the CEO is. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:24, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

dl User:Inf-in MD post, deny socks. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 27 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

X[edit]

Although the article correctly cites a 2023 ccdh source about the 99%, ccdh came out with this in 2021, as reported in https://greenmedinfo.com/content/debunking-ccdhs-disinformation-dozen-report-how-flawed-methodology-and-mislead, which has a link to a ccdh site with a 2021 date. So, the article should be corrected to include the earlier date. 136.36.180.215 (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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