Wikipedia tries to erase the story of Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian woman brutally murdered in Charlotte

Editors at Wikipedia attempted to suppress information about the brutal murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte by removing important information about the alleged attacker, according to a report from The Free Press (TFP).

The Wikipedia article "Murder of Iryna Zarutska" was created on Saturday, and several editors of the website have since scrambled to have the entry removed.

According to The Free Press, Wikipedia editors debated how to frame the article, adding and then removing references to the race of the alleged killer, Decarlos Brown, and phrases such as "race criminal." They also argued over whether to describe the incident as a "murder" or a "homicide."

The Free Press reported that Wikipedia editors also fought to keep the name Decarlos Brown Jr. out of the article, until one editor jumped in and removed the alleged assailant's name, citing serious violations of the policy "WP:BLPCRIME" from the online encyclopedia.

According to the summary of the debate posted on Wikipedia, the entry was the subject of nearly 350 modifications in just over 24 hours. The editors ultimately voted to keep the article.

Wikipedia editors decide who is 'important'

TFP noted that, on the article's discussion page, where editors can discuss improvements to articles, one of the editors advocated deleting the entry, arguing that it was just another crime.

Other editors responded with the comparison to George Floyd. "If Iryna Zarutska's murder is not noteworthy, neither is George Floyd's," one editor wrote. "They apply the same criteria to Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd or many other murders that Wikipedia editors decided were important, noteworthy or notable."

One of the editors manipulated the information about Kyle Rittenhouse

The Free Press reported that the same editor who tried to remove Brown's name from the Wikipedia entry was one of those who edited the story about the 2020 Kenosha shooting.

At the time, the editors raised no objection to mentioning Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two men during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests following the death of George Floyd.

The Wikipedia entry mentioned Rittenhouse at length. One version of the article included his name 50 times, TFP reported.

The editors also modified the "motive" field in the article information box from "Asserted as self-defense" to "Alleged by defense counsel as self-defense."

At one point, a redditor also added a reference from The Guardian, which falsely reported that Rittenhouse was "among armed white extremists."

According to information reviewed by The Free Press, in the first 500 editions of the Kenosha article, not a single editor referred to the policy "WP:BLPCRIME" as a valid reason for removing Rittenhouse's name from the article.

At the time, Rittenhouse was a minor and had not been convicted of any crime and, in fact, would be acquitted months later.