# Detecting Sockpuppetry on Wikipedia Using Meta-Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10314 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.10314/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [RoBERTa: A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11692/) (2019)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Prototypical Networks for Few-shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.05175/) (2017)
- [FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03832/) (2015)
- [Matching Networks for One Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04080/) (2016)
- [FEVER: a large-scale dataset for Fact Extraction and VERification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05355/) (2018)
- [Learning to Compare: Relation Network for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06025/) (2017)
- [On First-Order Meta-Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.02999/) (2018)
- [Meta-Learning in Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05439/) (2020)
- [Meta-Learning with Implicit Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.04630/) (2019)
- [Fake News Detection on Social Media: A Data Mining Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.01967/) (2017)
- [Meta-Dataset: A Dataset of Datasets for Learning to Learn from Few Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.03096/) (2019)
- [How to train your MAML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.09502/) (2018)
- [Meta Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00837/) (2017)
- [Probabilistic Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02817/) (2018)
- [Advances and Challenges in Meta-Learning: A Technical Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04722/) (2023)
- [An Army of Me: Sockpuppets in Online Discussion Communities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07355/) (2017)
- [Whodunit? Learning to Contrast for Authorship Attribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11887/) (2022)
- [On Data Efficiency of Meta-learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.00127/) (2021)
- [Diverse Distributions of Self-Supervised Tasks for Meta-Learning in NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.01322/) (2021)
- [Detecting ChatGPT: A Survey of the State of Detecting ChatGPT-Generated Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07689/) (2023)
- [MetaTroll: Few-shot Detection of State-Sponsored Trolls with Transformer Adapters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07354/) (2023)
- [Sockpuppet Detection in Wikipedia: A Corpus of Real-World Deceptive Writing for Linking Identities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.6772/) (2013)
- [Online Disinformation and the Role of Wikipedia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.12596/) (2019)
- [Characterizing, Detecting, and Predicting Online Ban Evasion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05257/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [FISSION: Label Augmentation for Bot Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26279/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Malicious sockpuppet detection on Wikipedia is critical to preserving access to reliable information on the internet and preventing the spread of disinformation. Prior machine learning approaches rely on stylistic and meta-data features, but do not prioritise adaptability to author-specific behaviours. As a result, they struggle to effectively model the behaviour of specific sockpuppet-groups, especially when text data is limited. To address this, we propose the application of meta-learning, a machine learning technique designed to improve performance in data-scarce settings by training models across multiple tasks. Meta-learning optimises a model for rapid adaptation to the writing style of a new sockpuppet-group. Our results show that meta-learning significantly enhances the precision of predictions compared to pre-trained models, marking an advancement in combating sockpuppetry on open editing platforms. We release a new dataset of sockpuppet investigations to foster future research in both sockpuppetry and meta-learning fields.