October 8, 2024 - 4:40pm

The title of the Wikipedia article about Muslim grooming gangs in Britain has this week been changed to include the phrase “moral panic”. Previously titled “Muslim grooming gangs in the United Kingdom”, the name was altered on 7 October to “Grooming gang moral panic in the United Kingdom”.

Every Wikipedia article has a “Talk” function which allows users to request and debate edits. The change was confirmed by a user named “Sceptre”, who wrote: “There is a consensus that, if the article is to be kept (and for the meanwhile, it is to be kept), that ‘moral panic’ should be included in the article title to reflect how the subject is dealt with in reliable sources.”

The grooming gangs scandal, which involved groups of mainly Pakistani-origin men sexually abusing young girls in many British towns and cities, often without facing prosecution, first came to public prominence in 2010 with the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal. This was quickly followed by reports of similar widespread networks of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale and Telford. In 2014, the landmark Jay report found that 1,400 girls were sexually abused by gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani heritage, in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Almost 15 years since the scandal made national news, prosecutions are still ongoing. Last month, seven men of South Asian heritage who committed child sex abuse offences against two teenage girls in Rotherham were jailed for a total of 106 years.

The Wikipedia article states that “Right-wing and far-Right activists” popularised the term “Muslim grooming gangs”. Despite the majority of offenders being of Pakistani heritage, the article also refers to a 2020 Home Office report which found no links between ethnicity and child sexual abuse.

In the announcement of the article’s title change, the question of ethnicity is addressed. “There was a late discussion about the possible title of ‘Ethnicity and…’, but […] I cannot find a consensus for that inclusion yet,” writes the same user, Sceptre. “Nor can I find a consensus for the inclusion of the word ‘Muslim’. However, if after informal — and possible formal — discussion such a consensus emerges, that can easily be revisited.”

While the title change request was granted, it wasn’t unanimously supported. One user wrote: “It seems to me that, ‘I don’t like it or it’s too offensive to me/others’ (i.e., trying to be politically correct so not to offend certain groups) are at play here, and I ask the community to be wary of changing the article’s title on those grounds […] If sources say ‘Muslim/Asian grooming gangs’, then we should leave it as is. It is irrelevant what the far-Right groups say or how it might or might not play into their narrative.”

Founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia has often been accused of being politically biased in favour of progressive or Left-wing opinions. Sanger, who left the online encyclopaedia in 2002, told UnHerd in 2021 that on the site “there is only one legitimate defensible version of the truth on any controversial question.”


Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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