On August 31, 2015, the English Wikipedia community discovered 381 sockpuppet accounts operating an undisclosed paid editing ring.
The ring was nicknamed "Operation Orangemoody" after the first account uncovered in the sockpuppet investigation, and was Wikipedia's biggest conflict-of-interest scandal as of June 2021,[1][2] exceeding the scope of the Wiki-PR Wikipedia editing scandal in which approximately 250 sockpuppets were found and blocked in 2013.
[4][5][6] The editing was described by various media as the work of "black hat" editors (TechCrunch),[7] "dishonest editing" (PC World),[8] "extortion"[9] (Wired),[10] a "blackmail scam" (The Independent),[11] and an "extensive cybercrime syndicate" (ThinkProgress).
[15] Wikipedia's resulting investigation found that sockpuppets had searched the site for deleted or rejected articles about businesses and individuals.
The editors, some posing as Wikipedia administrators, would then extort[17] payment from the businesses to publish and protect the articles.