Updated: February 22, 2023 5:40 PM IST 
New Delhi: The New Year’s wishes don’t seem to have gone well for Gautam Adani and his business empire. The first-generation Indian billionaire lost a lot of money, too much than a common person could anticipate.
As per Forbes, Gautam Adani’s net worth in 2022 was $90 billion; and today, according to Forbes Real Time Billionaires List, Gautam Adani’s net worth stands at $44.2 billion — the business tycoon lost over half his wealth in the first two months of 2023, most of being drained out after the publication of Hindenburg Research’s report titled “Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History” on 24 January 2023, just three days ahead of Adani Enterprises’ Rs 20,000 crore follow on public offer (FPO), which was eventually scrapped despite being fully subscribed. It’s not just the loss of wealth, his business empire’s overall image has taken a hit, as clearly seen by the continuing depreciation of Adani Group stocks and dollar bonds.
In the latest incident, The Signpost, an online newspaper of the Wikimedia movement has hinted that Gautam Adani or his employees could’ve “improperly” edited Wikipedia. “Billionaires have a history of apparent undeclared paid editing on Wikipedia,” said the report on The Signpost.
Even while making this allegation in The Signpost, the author of the article, Smallbones, has given a plausibility of a Wikipedia editor’s identity being non-authentic.
“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 report said.
“So did Adani or his employees improperly edit Wikipedia? Almost certainly, yes.”
The report says that due to Wikipedia’s account name regulations, administrators blocked a user named ‘Adanigrouponline‘ in May 2013 and a user named ‘Adani group’ in September 2014. These users were single-purpose accounts (SPAs) editing Adani-related articles including a complete rewrite of the article titled ‘Adani Group’, removing a conflict-of-interest notice from the top of the article. Also, these users added a list of Adani Group’s business units and awards it received, in the article.
As per Smallbones, the author of this report on The Signpost, the article titled Gautam Adani on Wikipedia was started in 2007 “in a straightforward style by a respected editor.”
Between 2012 and 2022, twenty-five ‘sockpuppets’ edited this article including users named ‘Kkm010’, who edited three Adani-related articles, ‘Similar2me’ who edited the article 18 times between 2018-2020, and ‘Hatchens’ who made only three edits to the article Gautam Adani, but also edited articles on Pranav Adani, Karan Adani, Adani Group, Adani Ports & SEZ and Karan Adani.
The article on Priti Adani, the wife of Gautam Adani and the chairperson of Adani Foundation was created as a draft article on 8 March 2021, and moved to mainspace as a regular article thirty minutes later by a user named ‘Sallauddin786′. According to the report on The Signpost, ‘Sallaudin786′ is not a blocked sockpuppet, but a single-purpose account specialising in the articles Adani Foundation, Priti Adani, and related articles.
The article on Karan Adani, the son of Gautam and Priti Adani, was created by an “unusual roundabout process,” said the report.
A user named ‘Floyd1965′ submitted two drafts for the article, but both of them were rejected in June and September 2018. The article was then created as a redirect to ‘Adani Group’ by a user named ‘VishalSuryavanshi89’, who, according to the author Smallbones, is an “inexperienced editor” suspected of paid writing. The article was further edited by users named ‘Dirooz’ and ‘UncleScrooze’, the latter of who made the made article “readable with about 40 edits on November 29, 2019.”
The article on Wikipedia about Gautam Adani’s nephew and director of Adani Enterprises, Pranav Adani, was created in November 2018 by a user named ‘Similar2me’, the same user who edited the article named ‘Gautam Adani’ 18 times between 2018-20, as per the report.
Two weeks later, another user named ‘Venomous Sniper’ added “multiple issues” tag at the top of the article warning the readers of a possible autobiography, BLP (Biographies of Living Persons) violation, and a non-encyclopedic essay-style format.
Seven more edits happened in course of the next seven months by users named ‘Similar2me’ and ‘Danceofdeath666’, the report said. Later, a user named ‘Hatchens’ made a dozen edits the following year, it added.
According to the author Smallbones, the article titled ‘Adani Group’ was created by a “respected editor in 2006 and only had a few problems with sockpuppets before September 2010”.
In 2010, a user named ‘Kkm010’ made five edits, followed by four edits in February 2012. In April 2013, an “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.”
As per the report, in total, about 22 sockpuppets edited the article ‘Adani Group’.
The article ‘Adani Enterprises’ was created by a user named ‘Krishnavilasom Bhageerathan Pilla’ in 2021 from a redirect using Articles for Creation process, as per the report. This article was edited by four blocked sockpuppets.
The article ‘Adani Transmission’ was created by a user named ‘Sallaudin786’ on 27 November 2020 with four edits from the user ‘Amkgp’ and two edits from ‘Hatchens’.
The article ‘Adani Green Energy’ was created by a user named ‘Globaltrends.LK’ in March 2020 and the user was shortly blocked for violation of user name regulations, said the report. “Four blocked sockpuppets – ‘Mirror1010’, ‘Hatchens’, ‘Amkgp’, and ‘Cyberfan195’ – worked on this seldom edited article”, the report added.
The article ‘Adani Ports & SEZ’ was created in 2006. It was dominated by a user named ‘Vineethxavier’ between 2009-12 with over 161 edits. Apart from this user, six blocked sockpuppets including ‘Lancelot1818’, a sockpuppet of ‘Similar2me’, ‘Hatchens’, ‘Amkgp’, ‘Kaliwarriors’, ‘UncleScrooze’, and ‘Cyberfan195’ edited this article, according to The Signpost report.
“Almost certainly, they did”, as per the author Smallbones, according to whom over 40 later banned or blocked sockpuppets or undeclared editors created and revised nine articles related to Gautam Adani, his family, and businesses.
The report further says that one of the “most concerning” findings is that ‘Hatchens’, an Articles for Creation reviewer, who was banned for “abusing position” and “possibly corruptly approving” several articles related to Gautam Adani, edited seven of the nine articles examined here.
For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest Business News on India.com.
Follow Us 
By 
