Adani vs Hindenburg: Wikipedia editors blame billionaire’s team for manipulating entries

NEW DELHI: Nearly a month after New York-based Hindenburg Research hurled serious allegations against billionaire Gautam Adani, Wikipedia editors now said employees of the Adani Group have "almost certainly" manipulated Wikipedia entries with non-neutral PR versions.

"Over 40 later banned or blocked sock puppets or undeclared paid editors created or revised nine related articles on the Adani family and family businesses. Many of them edited several of the articles and added non-neutral material or puffery. A declared paid editor, using a company IP address, completely rewrote the Adani Group article," read an article on The Signpost run by Wikipedia.

The community-written article in the online newspaper said warnings about conflict-of-interest editing were removed and articles were created by unusual methods that avoided Wikipedia's quality control systems.

"Perhaps the most concerning finding is that Hatchens, a reviewer, was banned for abusing his position and possibly corruptly approving several Adani articles. He edited seven of the nine articles examined here," the report said.

Short-seller Nate Anderson, founder of the Hindenburg Research, said the Signpost article shows how Adani systematically manipulated its Wikipedia entries using sock puppet accounts, undisclosed paid editors and removing evidence of conflicts of interest.

https://twitter.com/ClarityToast/status/1627752137168982036
Other strong evidence revealed by The Signpost's investigation shows that over 40 editors who have edited Adani articles have later been blocked for undeclared paid editing or sockpuppeting, or were blocked by check users, whose blocks are typically related to sockpuppeting or UPE.

The article on Gautam Adani is said to have been edited by 25 socks or fake accounts. On the other hand, the Wiki article on Adani Group is said to have been manipulated by 22 socks.

Adani stocks, which have lost around Rs 11 lakh crore in market value since the release of the Hindenburg report, today continued to remain under selling pressure. During the day, 3 Adani stocks were locked in a 5% lower circuit limit. Only 3 out of 10 stocks in the pack managed to end higher.

In a 106-page long report on January 25, Hindenburg had alleged that Adani was pulling the largest con in corporate history with a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme. Adani Group, in its defence, has described all allegations as "a calculated attack on India".