Hi.
Go Fish Digital is a company that whitewashes Wikipedia. From its own site:
The primary platforms that define your online reputation include: [...]
- Wikipedia
[...]
With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content.
Source: https://gofishdigital.com/online-reputation-management
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. has been working with this company on search engine optimization: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198970. I have a few questions about this work.
How was this vendor chosen? Which other vendors were considered?
Why is this work being undertaken? At least the English Wikipedia has some of the best search engine results placement of any site on the Web, so I'm curious to know who's prioritizing Wikipedia's search engine optimization and for what reason.
How is it appropriate for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to work with a company that is, by its own admission, whitewashing Wikipedia? Doesn't this give Go Fish Digital a ton of legitimization by now being able to say it works directly with Wikimedia Foundation Inc. ("with Wikipedia")?
Is it appropriate to give a company that sells whitewashing Wikipedia services access to private user data, as was done in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T192893 and https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193052? The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. legal department apparently approved this access, but I'm curious to know why, given the company's role in selling an "Online Reputation Management" product. This looks bad to me.
MZMcBride