6 ms·
Plenty of subtle agenda-pushing on Wikipedia if you're paying attention
by matthewmorgan 6y ago
Plenty of subtle agenda-pushing on Wikipedia if you're paying attention
- notRobot 6y agoThat's a pretty serious allegation, and you're going to have to elaborate on that.
- astrange 6y agoIt is? It seems kind of obvious to me. People who don’t care about a topic are not going to edit the page about it.
- lovecg 6y agoBut that’s sort of how the whole thing tends to work. If a topic is niche and one sided, you’ll get your small filter bubble which doesn’t really hurt anyone. If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. It’s not perfect but works as well as anything its size could.
- GreenHeuristics 6y ago> If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. No, it will tend towards the side of those who has the most admin rights and most time for reverts. They will have no interest in neutrality
- tw04 6y agoI thought it was pretty well known that Wikipedia has been gamed repeatedly over the years. From companies to individuals. Generally speaking in the LONG TERM, things get corrected. But they are definitely not perfect and their editors have bias whether intentional or not. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJQ3COXPAt0y1nXwsDv1a8gL2Z66BEUOPaMolk2-ktIZwz8Ezlwa42ZGeHIjfP-yUEuLdEsv5Ucf9oqhp4Jv8Crz4MQb3XRxm2jioSjiWXhh3ahc62lfjZ6WsdXk5iHs8mNWijrISzoMC-hkTfqrNT1ItKRkcPW-RJrW6WMqi8Ey https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-fac...
- barbacoa 6y agoHere is a write-up on the subject. https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/ https://thecritic.co.uk/the-left-wing-bias-of-wikipedia/
- Bud 6y agoThis doesn't actually substantiate a left-wing bias on the part of Wikipedia. For instance, it's quite possible that right-wing editors have been disciplined or reversed more because they make more weak and tendentious edits that can't withstand scrutiny by someone in command of the facts. "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." —Stephen Colbert
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoGlib statements by comedians are not a good foundation for truth seeking. They are however great at maintaining emotional protection over one's viewpoints.
- Bud 6y agoI didn't intend to present Colbert's entertaining quote as a "foundation". More of a humorous aside. I apologize if my intent was unclear. :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Bud 6y agoSuch as?
- epoch_100 6y agoI did some work [0] at the Stanford Internet Observatory that somewhat supports OP's claim. We found that while Wikipedia is generally very good at maintaining neutrality, some bad edits slip through the cracks. [0] https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/wikipedia-part-one https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/wikipedia-part-one
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoSome people believe "Neutral Point of View" means you are supposed to write articles about serial killers in such a way that reading them would have no impact on your willingness to let them marry your son.
- firefoxd 6y agoDon't mind me, just stealing this quote above. On a serious note, this is very well put. It's the nature of language to lean toward a direction.
- Kim_Bruning 6y agoThat's not what it means though. It just means that you write a statement in such a way that everyone agrees it is true. "the sky is green" , is obviously not likely to be accepted by many people. 'In his science fiction story foobarbaz written in 2002, John Smith asked: What if people said "The Sky Is Green"?' In this case, we can agree that the story is written, we can look it up in the library. (I made up the title in this case). NPOV and consensus intersect here: Consensus is reached when no-one disagrees, and NPOV is defined as a point of view that no one could possibly disagree with.
- matthewmorgan 6y agoMy favourite at the moment is foreigners who change 'British' to English/Welsh/Scottish in an attempt to create division
- zozbot234 6y agoAgenda-pushing is quite common on Wiki, especially around controversial areas. You can read all about it on the Talk page for each article. The hope is that it all balances out in the end, but this does become harder to guarantee as high-quality, reliable sources for some points of view are getting increasingly thin and hard to find, both online and offline. (I'm aware that Larry Sanger among others has complained about this development, but it is a genuinely hard problem to solve as we can't just get rid of all sourcing standards in the service of less-represented viewpoints.)
- barbacoa 6y agoSubtle? Read the wiki page on hunter biden.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cortesoft 6y agoI just read it, and am not sure how else it could be written... do you expect Wikipedia to treat unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as anything but that? Are they supposed to pretend a conspiracy theory is possible out of 'fairness'? Are you also upset that they don't have a section on the Earth page saying the world might be flat?
- elliotec 6y ago"Fairness" is the enemy of accuracy in cases like this.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y agoOh, it's not even subtle. Here's a game you can play: compare an article with the same article in another language. If you don't speak another language then use google translate. You'll see where the agenda pushing is. Oh, and always read talk pages.
- elliotec 6y agoAny examples?
- Acrobatic_Road 6y agoSure. English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) Russian: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGab https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=ru&tl=en&u=htt...
- elliotec 6y agoFascinating. The most interesting thing of these differences is that they're saying the same thing,but the agenda is clear in that saying the same thing is more positive or negative depending on the language. Russian > Gab is an English-speaking social network . Gab is described as being tolerant of different patriotic groups [5] and a safe haven for communities that would be restricted or blocked on other social networks [6] . The Gab groups can be characterized as patriotic, white supremacist and alternative right [5] . The site allows each user to forward a message to 3000 other users, which are called "gebs" [7] . It has been revealed that Gab is generally a favorite platform for people with conservative, libertarian , patriotic views. [8] English > Gab is an American alt-tech social networking service known for its far-right and extremist userbase.[3][4][5][6] Widely described as a haven for extremists including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right, it has attracted users and groups who have been banned from other social networks.[7][8][18] Gab claims to promote free speech and individual liberty, though these statements have been criticized as being a shield for its alt-right and extremist ecosystem.[16][19][20] Antisemitism is prominent among the site's content, and the company itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary on Twitter.[22][23][24] Researchers have written that Gab has been "repeatedly linked to radicalization leading to real-world violent events".[25] Really interesting how language and national propaganda propagates through stuff like this.
- sien 6y agoHere is an example for people asking for one. As an experiment I tried to get some fairly innocuous numbers into participation in Australia sport. There is a big survey done in Australia, the Ausplay survey: https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/ https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/ They have extensive tables on adult participation. Two editors would not let this data into the sport in Australia article. The reason was fairly obvious, it shows that soccer/football is the most played team sport in Australia. Roy Morgan, a statistical agency also had similar figures. Some Australians don't like the fact that soccer/football is by far the most played team sport in Australia according to to the Ausplay Survey and Roy Morgan. There was much time spent in the talk pages spent asking these two what would be acceptable for quoting these sporting statistics. The answer was nothing. If you can't get fairly unobjectionable material like that into wikipedia what else is being blocked?
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoHere's the RFC in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sport_in_Australia#RFC_on_Population-Wide_Metrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sport_in_Australia#RFC_on... As can be expected when you're told that "the reason was fairly obvious" and that reason is somewhat nefarious, that reason is not the one given by anybody involved. Instead, people took issue with the methodology used to gather the data. (I have no idea if that criticism is legitimate, nor do I have any other horse in this race, nor do I care the least bit about the popularity of horse racing in Australia which, yes, happens to be part of that debate.)
- sien 6y agoCheck out how they ignore that the suggestion that if they take issue with those statistics they should take issue with the statistics that were currently in the article, notably cricket playing figures from Cricket Australia which, while they might be worth including, should have cautionary notes on them. They didn't care about that.
- globular-toast 6y agoWhat do they want the most popular sport to be and why do they care?
- teloli 6y agoNot even that subtle. For instance, declaring that Taiwan is a country despite the fact that it isn’t recognized as such by most of the world. That was such a big deal that it was met with triumph by Taiwanese media: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3948149 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3948149 Don’t get me wrong, I support the cause of Taiwanese independence, but facts are facts. I also think that the Basque Country should be independent, and yet it would be factually incorrect to claim that it’s a country.
- matkoniecz 6y agoThe clear difference is that (for now) Taiwan acts as a separate country while Basque is not doing this.
- ant6n 6y agoThe „cause of Taiwanese independence“. That’s a bit silly, since it’s really the PRC that split off from China and Taiwan is the continuation of the old republic. Did Taiwan in the 70s, when other countries changed their ties to China to recognize the PRC but not Taiwan, on the pressure of the more powerful PRC, suddenly lose its Independence? All the complicated history and political issues you can read about on Wikipedia btw.
- teloli 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_independence_movement
- sellyme 6y agoSurely if anyone's pushing an agenda of the Taiwan issue it's the geopolitical entities that have extremely strong financial incentives to do so. If you define "country" as being an entity recognised as a country by some percentage of other countries, then sure, you'd exclude Taiwan. But Wikipedia worked out pretty quickly that this is a terrible definition when a thousand microstates all recognised each other but didn't recognise any "actual countries", and then claimed that Belgium no longer existed. So instead they use a policy of "does this geopolitical entity operate in the way that humans typically understand countries to operate". Taiwan passes that check.
- nsajko 6y agoAn issue is that most well-meaning contributors very soon learn to keep off controversial pages, because it's simply not enjoyable to constantly fight over the content. The fact is: resolving disputes takes much time and usually the party with more time on their hands and more "meat-puppets" and allies wins. Also, making enemies from among the "editors" is both unpleasant and inconvenient for possible future efforts on Wikipedia.
- MichaelZuo 6y agoIf the percentage of pages that are considered controversial grows every year... wouldn’t that eventually mean every page will be controversial and thus not attract well-meaning contributors?
- arp242 6y agoThe total amount of pages also grows every year.
- PopePompus 6y agoI don't think so. There is a vast number of pages describing things like astronomical objects, types of tropical fish, species of fungus, etc. Conversations among editors about articles in those long tails tend to be friendly and civil. Just stay away from articles about "My Little Pony".