Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-20/Disinformation report
The "largest con in corporate history"?
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31 January 2024
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4 December 2023
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30 January 2022
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29 November 2021
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Paid editing by a former head of state's business enterprise
25 April 2021
Indian industrialist Gautam Adani has lost a lot of money over the last month. His net worth is about $67 billion less (as of 2/15/23) than it was on January 24 when Bloomberg estimated it at $119 billion and the publicly traded companies he controls have lost over $100 billion in market value. He was ranked as the third richest person in the world in late January and is now only ranked as the 24th with a net worth of $52.4 billion (as of 2/15/23). Please note that all these numbers are in billions, not millions.
What happened? On January 24 short-seller Hindenburg Research released a report titled Adani Group: How the World's 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling the Largest Con In Corporate History. The text of the report modified the claim slightly to "one of, if not the most egregious example of corporate fraud in history". It accused Adani's companies of "brazen accounting fraud, stock manipulation and money laundering ... taking place over the course of decades." The market value of the publicly-traded companies Adani controls plunged to about half of their previous levels within a few days and has mostly stayed at that level or decreased since.
Billionaires have a history of apparent undeclared paid editing on Wikipedia, including Kenneth C. Griffin (paywall), Robert T. Brockman, Robert F. Smith and several Russian oligarchs. A few near- or former billionaires including Elizabeth Holmes, Greg Lindberg, Jeffrey Epstein, and Peter Nygard have also appeared to hire people for undeclared paid editing.
This report examines Adani and his companies in much the same way we examined those other billionaires: have they used paid editing on Wikipedia to push their points of view or as an aid in their pursuit of wealth?
We remind our readers that no entirely on-Wiki investigation of a user's edits can completely identify an editor's name or employer. Even if the editor identifies themself as an employee of a company, they may be simply trying to embarrass the company, a practice known as Joe jobbing. We can, however, examine the nearly complete record of edits made to Wikipedia and identify editors that are likely to be sockpuppets, or that appear to be working together with other accounts.
The Adani group of companies
In 1988 Gautam Adani founded the Adani Group trading commodities such as coal. He branched out into transportation such as seaport management and later airport management, mining, the generation and transmission of electric power, cement production, and in general, energy and infrastructure. A company report from this January gives a good overview of the group's product markets in a graphic on page 3.
G. Adani is reportedly close to India's current prime minister, Narendra Modi, and has benefited from government contracts as India's economy has grown and liberalized. Over the last decade the companies in the group have grown rapidly and Adani has acquired existing companies quickly, financed largely by debt.
Professor Aswath Damodaran of New York University, who wrote the book on stock valuation, addresses whether Adami stocks are overvalued in a February 4 post at his blog Musings on Markets. He disagrees with Hindenburg Research's conclusion that the Adani Group is a "big con", but writes that the company's close ties to political power may make the stock overvalued. "Those risks increase, if the family group companies are built around political connections, where you are one political election loss away [from] your biggest competitive advantage." But note that this sentence was omitted from his 38-minute video presentation of the blog.
Adani edits to Wikipedia
So did Adani or his employees improperly edit Wikipedia? Almost certainly yes.
Due to Wikipedia's account name regulations, administrators blocked User:Adanigrouponline in May 2013, and User:Adani Group in September 2014. These were single-purpose accounts (SPAs) editing Adani related articles, including a complete rewrite of the Adani Group article which removed a conflict-of-interest notice from the top of the article. They also added a detailed list of business units, and – the paid editors' favorite section – a list of awards. But they kept a section which an unregistered user – an admitted Adani employee – had added earlier.
Adani Vision
Our vision is to be the globally admired leader in integrated infrastructure businesses with a deep commitment to nation building. We shall be known for our scale of ambition, speed of execution and quality of operation.
Adani Values
Courage
We shall embrace new ideas and businesses
Trust
We shall believe in our employees and other stakeholders
Commitment
We shall stand by our promises and adhere to high standards of business
The use of "our" and "we" in an encyclopedia article is a particular problem considering Wikipedia's policy of no ownership of articles.
The unregistered user left an edit comment of "(Revisited & updated all the content, Changes by Satyam Trivedi (Corporate Communication, Adani))" and the IP address is identified by Whois as Adani Enterprise Limited. A conflict-of-interest notice was added to the top of the article three minutes after this edit, but was soon removed by Adanigrouponline.
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 (UPE) or sockpuppeting, or were blocked by checkusers, whose blocks are typically related to sockpuppeting or UPE. We'll start by reviewing the sockpuppets who edited articles on Adani family members.
Gautam Adani
The article on Gautam Adani was started in 2007 in a straightforward style by a respected editor. But by 2012 three editors who were later blocked or banned as sockpuppets or undeclared paid editors had edited the article, including User:Kkm010, who has edited three other Adani-related articles together with three other socks from the same sockfarm.
User:Similar2me is one of the leading editors of the article. They edited the article 18 times from 2018 through 2020 when they were blocked for socking. This included two large early edits that rewrote much of the article. After that they concentrated a bit on the philanthropy section, made a few reverts, removed a warning tag, and generally just updated the article. User:Liberosist666, who is suspected to be from the same sockfarm, also made an edit. Similar2me and their sockfarm also edited the articles on Pranav Adani, Gautam's nephew, and on the Adani Group, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Ports & SEZ.
User:Hatchens who only made three edits to Gautam Adani also edited the articles on Pranav Adani and Karan Adani, Gautam's son, as well as Adani Group, Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Transmission, until he was blocked in 2022 for a "general pattern (that) seems to have been to accept AfC (Articles for Creation) drafts written by other UPEs. Maybe also some direct paid edits to articles" according to Joe Roe, a widely respected editor.
User:UncleScrooze, another blocked editor who edited this article, also edited Adani Group, Adani Ports & SEZ, and Karan Adani. Other socks who edited this and other Adani-related articles include User:Bernice2019 (2 other articles) and User:Blazin777 (3 other articles).
In total 25 socks edited this article.
Priti Adani
The article on Priti Adani, the wife of Gautam and the chairperson of the Adani Foundation, was created as a draft article on March 8, 2021, and moved to mainspace as a regular article 30 minutes later by User:Sallauddin786. They are not a blocked sockpuppet, but are a single-purpose account specializing in the Adani Foundation and Priti Adani and related articles such as Adani Transmission (which they created).
Last September a warning tag for UPE and COI editing was added to the top of the article resulting in a testy exchange on the talk page. User:Mainakchatterjee.tech was accused of UPE for adding a photo which they had uploaded to Commons to the article. Mainakchatterjee.tech owns a digital marketing service according to their user page. Both the warning tag and the accused editor remain on Wikipedia.
The only blocked socks to have edited the article are Bernice2019 and Blazin777.
Karan Adani
The article for Karan Adani, the son of Priti and Gautam Adani, was created by an unusual roundabout process. User:Floyd1965 submitted two drafts to Articles for Creation but they were rejected in June and September 2018. User:VishalSuryavanshi89, an inexperienced editor who was suspected of paid editing, created the article as a redirect to Adani Group in the same month. User:Dirooz, another inexperienced editor, changed the redirect into a short stub article in October 2019. UncleScrooze then created it as a readable article with about 40 edits on November 29, 2019.
Last September the same warning tag was added to the top of the article resulting in the same testy exchange on the talk page as happened at the Priti Adani article after Mainakchatterjee.tech was accused of UPE for adding a photo to the article.
A total of six blocked sockpuppets including UncleScrooze, Hatchens, and Blazin777 edited the article.
The article about Pranav Adani, Gautam's nephew, was created in November 2018 by Similar2me. Two weeks later another sock, User:Venomous Sniper, who didn't seem to be representing the Adani family or firms, added a "multiple issues" tag at the top of the article, warning readers of a possible autobiography, BLP violations, and a non-encyclopedic essay-style format.
Similar2me and one of their sockpuppets, User:Danceofdeath666, made seven more edits over the following seven months. Then Hatchens, the user who was banned for abusing his position as an AFC reviewer, made a dozen edits the following year.
In 2021 a UPE warning tag was added to the top of the article with an explanation posted on the talk page by a sockpuppet investigations clerk. Similar2me and their sockfarm had been blocked. Since then the only blocked socks to have edited the article are Bernice2019 and Blazin777.
Only those six socks appear to have edited this article.
Adani Group
The article about Adani Group was created by a respected editor in 2006 and only had a few problems with sockpuppets before September 2010 when User:Kkm010 made five edits, followed by four edits in February 2012. But over two days in April 2013 Adanigrouponline, and the unregistered editor who claimed to work for Adani, made 19 nearly consecutive edits, rewriting the article, removing warning notices, and adding a statement of the corporate vision. In 2014 five socks edited the article, including Adanigroup.
In total about 22 socks edited this article, including Similar2me, UncleScrooze, Hatchens, User:Krishnavilasom Bhageerathan Pilla, and User:Candleabracadabra.
Adani Enterprises
Krishnavilasom Bhageerathan Pilla created the article on Adani Enterprises in 2021 from a redirect by using the Articles for Creation process. They dominated the editing of the article in the amount of text contributed and the number of edits.
Four blocked socks edited this article, including a sock of Khaliwarriors, Hatchens, and Krishnavilasom Bhageerathan Pilla.
Adani Transmission
The article Adani Transmission was created by Sallaudinn786 (who is not blocked) on November 27, 2020, with four edits from the blocked sock User:Amkgp and two edits from Hatchens following on the 27th. The article was seldom edited and stayed essentially the same length, until January 26, 2023.
The only blocked socks who edited this article were Amkgp and Hatchens.
Adani Green Energy
User:Globaltrends.LK created the Adani Green Energy article in March 2020. They were soon asked if they were a paid editor, and were soft-blocked for a violation of user name regulations.
Four blocked socks – User:Mirror1010, a sock of Similar2me, Hatchens, Amkgp, and User:Cyberfan195 – worked on this seldom edited article.
Adani Ports & SEZ
This article was created in 2006 and was dominated by unblocked SPA User:Vineethxavier from 2009 through 2012 with their 161 edits.
Six blocked socks – User:Lancelot1818, a sock of Similar2me, Hatchens, Amkgp, Kaliwarriors, UncleScrooze, and Cyberfan195 – edited this article.
Conclusion
Gautam Adani and the Adani Group of companies were recently accused by a short-seller of a very serious "con", involving accounting fraud, stock price manipulation and money laundering. As a result G. Adani has lost about $67 billion in net worth. Did he and his employees also try to "con" Wikipedia readers with non-neutral PR versions of related Wikipedia articles?
Almost certainly they did. Over 40 later banned or blocked sockpuppets 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. Others removed warnings about conflict-of-interest editing. Some created articles by unusual methods that circumvented Wikipedia's quality control systems.
Perhaps the most concerning finding is that Hatchens, an Articles for Creation reviewer, was banned for abusing his position and possibly corruptly approving several Adani articles. He edited seven of the nine articles examined here.
Discuss this story
Great reporting. Also interesting in this context is this recent Wired article titled "India’s Government Wants Total Control of the Internet":
Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:32, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You might even say that this incident is notable. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And in video.
There are now 2 videos on this article. It's rather strange seeing a video in Hindi going over my work almost word by word. It's very clear that the two words they are most interested in are "sockpuppet" and "puffery". See
Hey @Smallbones It bothers me that you say Adani manipulated all the mentioned pages although only one user Satyam Trivedi was unmistakably (by his/her own admission) identified as an Adani staffer in 2013. Pardon my ignorance here but how do we know for a fact that everyone else was working for Adani? Manatpeace (talk) 18:29, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]