Exposing the dark side of Wikipedia: Targeted exposes the industry of paid Wikipedia editors who were hired to destroy my reputation online.

Wikipedia - once the poster boy for “democratization of the internet” has fallen victim to malicious gangs of keyboard warriors, willing to slander and defame anyone - for a price.

For the full story of how I was Targeted by a smear campaign designed to let a sanctioned Russian oil trader, Niels Troost, off the hook.

Gaurav and Zach discuss the red flags they each missed in former business partners and associates. All the signs were there - but they were dismissed or excused. Only in retrospect were the dots connected - but it was already too late. Watch the full interview here.

In this excerpt of the first part of Gaurav’s interview on Targeted, host Zach Abramowitz and Victoria Katoka discuss the cognitive bias which was built-in to the story by the time it had reached mainstream media such as the FT and WSJ. The shiny, sexy story which Niles Troost had to tell made for compelling reading.

As Victoria says “It is masterful, it is extremely well resourced… The animous and the resources brought to bear to do this were extraordinary, and terrifying!”

Zach “Terrifying is right. The WSJ and FT articles seem so one-sided and skewed - when I go back and look at the article I’m like ‘How in writing this are they not seeing this?’ And as you pointed out it’s not you’re talking about some saint here. We’re talking about someone [Niels Troost] who is trading in Russian oil ata time when Russia must be the most unpopular country in the West.”

The fake news articles needed a stepping stone to whitewash the lies and graduate into mainstream media to defame Gaurav Sribastava. In Gaurav’s case this a former wsj journalist whp icked up the story in his blog.