Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s Wikipedia page was whitewashed of controversies by mystery editor before election: sources

Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s Wikipedia page was quietly whitewashed over the past few months by a mysterious editor, including scrubbing a series of antisemitism controversies, according to social media sleuths.

The editor — who goes by “CopyleftEverything” — is also responsible for dozens of other edits to pages on the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the American Communist Party and the Revolutionary Communists of America.

The editor was “diligent in what appears to be a clean-up of El-Sayed’s page” heading into Tuesday’s general election where the radical Dem defeated Republican Mike Rogers, according to investigative journalist Ashley Rindsberg.

Both Rindsberg, founder of online-campaign-influence tracker NPOV, and Yehuda Teitelbaum, a NYC-based researcher, separately tracked revisions to El-Sayed’s page and posted them this week on X.

They include a June 12 edit where wording is changed from El-Sayed “has never been granted a medical license” to the softer phrasing, “did not pursue a medical license.”

El-Sayed came under fire during the campaign for calling himself a “doctor.” Although he holds a doctor of medicine degree from Columbia University, he never entered residency training or obtained a medical license.

In another eyebrow-raising edit, a description of Hasan Piker – a left-wing influencer who once said “America deserved” the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks – was altered on Oct. 10 from “a controversial left-wing Twitch … streamer and political commentator” to “left-wing political commentator” in a sentence noting Piker appeared with El-Sayed at two primary night parties in April.

Another edit includes deleting similar paragraphs on Oct. 12 and Oct. 31 that noted El-Sayed hired a Jewish community liaison officer “when there were tensions” between him and Michigan’s Jewish community “due to his criticism of the Israeli government, his opposition to military aid to Israel, and his statements” about the March 12 Temple Israel vehicle-ramming terror attack in West Bloomfield.

El-Sayed later apologized for saying “hurt people hurt people” — an attempt to provide context about the synagogue attacker’s relatives being killed in an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon.

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger responded to Rindsberg’s findings, saying on X it’s “old-fashioned journalism,” and “both appropriate and effective as a criticism of Wikipedia and how it works today.”

Wikipedia pages are edited through a open-contribution system where just about anyone can click the “Edit” tab on an article to modify contents immediately – including people who wish to remain anonymous. Editors typically back up additions with verifiable third-party references, such as news reports.  

Teitelbaum told The Post the revisions are especially troubling because Google and AI search systems rely heavily on Wikipedia being objective and correct.

“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.”