Wikipedia is under scrutiny this week after the site’s article “Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom” made the rounds on X. Originally created by editor K00B8 with the title “Muslim grooming gang panic” in late June, the page has been embroiled in an edit war since August.

The article’s Talk page, where users discuss and request edits to Wikipedia content, shows the extent of the conflict. On August 16, for example, a user called Lp9mm8g proposed deleting the page outright. “This page is misinformation/disinformation,” Lp9mm8g said. “Only a single source refers to this as a ‘panic’ of any sort… the majority of [sources] unambiguously imply that Asian Muslims are overrepresented.”

In the weeks that followed, an internal back-and-forth struggle among different factions of editors resulted in repeated changes to the page’s title, often having the effect of completely recontextualizing the article. After a group of Wikipedia users successfully lobbied to remove “moral panic” and tweak the title to “Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom,” a series of counter efforts by an opposing group of editors ultimately led the page back to where it started. By October 9th, the page had gone from “South Asian Muslim grooming gang panic,” to “Ethnicity and grooming gangs in the United Kingdom,” and finally, on October 7, to “Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom.”