Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s Wikipedia page was quietly revised over the past several months by a mystery editor who removed or softened references to several antisemitism-related controversies, according to social media researchers.
The editor, who uses the username “CopyleftEverything,” has also made dozens of changes to pages about the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the American Communist Party and the Revolutionary Communists of America.
Investigative journalist Ashley Rindsberg said the editor appeared to carry out a sustained “clean-up” of El-Sayed’s page ahead of Tuesday’s general election, in which the Democratic candidate defeated Republican Mike Rogers.
Rindsberg, the founder of the online campaign-influence tracker NPOV, and Yehuda Teitelbaum, a New York City-based researcher, independently reviewed revisions to El-Sayed’s page and shared their findings on X this week.
Among the changes was a June 12 revision that replaced the statement that El-Sayed “has never been granted a medical license” with the softer wording that he “did not pursue a medical license.”
El-Sayed faced criticism during the campaign for referring to himself as a “doctor.” He earned a doctor of medicine degree from Columbia University but did not complete residency training or obtain a medical license.
In another notable revision, a description of Hasan Piker—a left-wing influencer who once said that “America deserved” the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks—was changed on Oct. 10. The wording was revised from “a controversial left-wing Twitch … streamer and political commentator” to “left-wing political commentator” in a sentence noting that Piker appeared with El-Sayed at two primary-night parties in April.
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Additional edits on Oct. 12 and Oct. 31 removed paragraphs stating that El-Sayed had hired a Jewish community liaison officer “when there were tensions” between him and Michigan’s Jewish community. Those tensions were described as stemming from his criticism of the Israeli government, opposition to military aid for Israel and comments about the March 12 Temple Israel vehicle-ramming terror attack in West Bloomfield.
El-Sayed later apologized for saying “hurt people hurt people,” a remark he made while attempting to provide context about the synagogue attacker’s relatives being killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger responded to Rindsberg’s findings on X, calling the reporting “old-fashioned journalism” and saying it was “both appropriate and effective as a criticism of Wikipedia and how it works today.”
Wikipedia uses an open-contribution system that allows nearly anyone to click an article’s “Edit” tab and change its content immediately, including users who choose to remain anonymous. Editors generally support additions with verifiable third-party sources, such as news reports.
Teitelbaum told The Post that the revisions were particularly concerning because Google and artificial-intelligence search systems rely heavily on Wikipedia as a source of information.
“This is just not a random event to correct the public record,” he said. “This was really an organized effort to change the narrative in this country and to portray narratives and certain ideas that are not honest.”
