7 ms·
Just curious, can you give an example?
by naz 5y ago
Just curious, can you give an example?
- mandmandam 5y agoTheir smearing of independent anti-war media is consistent. MPN, The Greyzone, and others have been disallowed as sources for very flimsy reasons: [0]. They backed up one editor at the highest levels, after people wised up that he edited Wikipedia an average of 30 times per day, every day, over 14 years; almost entirely making edits against left wing and anti-war causes: [1] They've also literally destroyed someone's life, lied about it, and then patted themselves on the back for fixing the problem nearly a year too late: [2] With regard to Irish national politics, I can attest that they leave out serious scandal information regarding the top two parties politicians, while leaving out important good stuff and including all sorts of bs about independent and left wing politicians; from what I've seen they do the same everywhere. [0] - https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censors-the-grayzone-as-regime-change-advocates-monopolize-editing/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor... [1] - https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wikipedia-editor-targeting-anti-war-sites/250824/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wiki... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-10-31/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- circlefavshape 5y agoCan you please provide an example from Irish national politics?
- akolbe 5y agoFor more on the Nathaniel White story and how having his picture used to illustrate the Wikipedia article on a serial killer affected him, according to his lawyer, see https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-identified-wrong-man-as-a-serial-killer-for-years https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-... But yes, it's the endemic failure to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" that is so worrying. The Wikimedia Foundation wants to become the "essential infrastructure of the [global] ecosystem of free knowledge". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017#Our_strategic_direction:_Service_and_Equity https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/... Even if one were to agree that such a global infrastructure monopoly is a desirable thing to have, one would have to need one's head examined to want an organisation in charge of this infrastructure that regularly resorts to lying by omission to suit its own self-interest.
- denton-scratch 5y ago> essential infrastructure of the [global] ecosystem of free knowledge I've been a WP editor since a couple of years after it was founded. I don't bother trying to edit anything on the Middle East - those articles are patrolled by zionists, with support from the very top. Articles about those states that are the remnants of Yugoslavia seem to be edited by various kinds of authoritarian bigots. To get the best out of WP, you have to be clear that many editors have an axe to grind; if something smells fishy, have a look at the talk page, and see if people have been challenging it. And have a look at the edit history. What's remarkable is that WP is as good as it is. But I'm not happy with the idea of one website becoming the touchstone of human knowledge.
- akolbe 5y ago> What's remarkable is that WP is as good as it is. But I'm not happy with the idea of one website becoming the touchstone of human knowledge. Exactly. It's a remarkable constellation of interests. People are invited to exercise anonymous influence on the most widely propagated information source on the planet, on condition that they work for free. Big Tech profits from the free content thus produced. I love Wikipedia, but it's a very human project. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, all mixed together.
- convery 5y agoI think the clearest example would be the Gamergate page. Whole page being rewritten twice a day, conservative outlets being blacklisted as sources for not supporting the narrative while random blogs were fine, long time editors being banned from editing because they wanted it to be 'neutral', and a lot of users being banned for pointing out that a lot of the claims were not supported by the questionable sources. For a more recent example that was posted on HN a few days ago: the proposed deletion of a page on mass-killings under Communism. Most of the arguments on the discussion page were from power-editors complaining that the page was "making Communism look bad" and that it was used for "anti-revolutionary talking-points". While the deletion is still being voted on, gives you an insight into the culture.
- kiba 5y agoSeems to be a non-issue WRT mass-killing under communism with lot of keep votes.
- matkoniecz 5y agoNote that nomination for deletion is not some vote count, especially if people were encouraged elsewhere to come there and blindly vote without any prior contributions.
- matkoniecz 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes_(4th_nomination) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... > An administrator or other editor is in the process of closing this discussion. Please do not contribute further to it; the result should be posted shortly. but nothing changed sine 29th November
- unicornfinder 5y agoNot OP and don't have an example to hand, but something I noticed is that with subjects where I understand them well I do tend to notice a bit of a bias, but equally edits are usually accepted too. The problem in my mind is that on subjects where I'm not as well educated I may well not notice the bias because I don't know what may or may not be disputed for a given subject matter. Obviously everything on Wikipedia should be sourced but it's entirely possible to be selective of which sources you use.
- manicdee 5y agoWelcome to the entire gamut of human endeavour. We don’t live long enough or have brains enough to know everything at once so we delegate information gathering to others.
- akolbe 5y agoKozierok's First Law: "The apparent accuracy of a Wikipedia article is inversely proportional to the depth of the reader's knowledge of the topic." :)
- no_time 5y agocompare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola&oldid=468626403 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Julius_Evola&oldi... Don't tell me him being antisemitic is such a paramount piece of information that it needs to appear in literally the first sentence.
- ceejayoz 5y agoTo clarify, you think the old revision is the better one?
- no_time 5y agoYes. The old lets the reader to decide for him/herself whether he was antisemitic or not. Does not obstruct information about his views yet does not devolve into name calling in the first sentence. I'm not trying to underplay what he is saying, but dismissing him in the first sentence on a supposedly neutral article really rubs me the wrong way.
- ceejayoz 5y ago> The old lets the reader to decide for him/herself whether he was antisemitic or not. I think you've misunderstood the point of an encyclopedia, personally.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y agoThere is no question that he was an antisemite if you read the sources provided on the very same page. He was objectively an antisemite there is no room for interpretation or your definition of the word differs from the one of the general public.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago[Deleted]
- sleepysysadmin 5y agoHere's a pretty good article from US point of view providing many examples: https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
- pera 5y ago> The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. [...] Yeah I'm OK with Wikipedia being biased against misinformation.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago>Yeah I'm OK with Wikipedia being biased against misinformation. Early in the pandemic, a conspiracy theory emerged that the virus had been bio-engineered by China at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One early source of this theory was former Israeli secret service officer Dany Shoham, who gave an interview to The Washington Times regarding the lab.[28][29] Later, US politicians began propagating the idea, including Senator Tom Cotton, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.[29] One scientist from Hong Kong, Li-Meng Yan, fled China and supported the idea. Many authorities debunked the conspiracy theory, including American biologist Richard Ebright, NIAID director Anthony Fauci, prominent scientists, and the US intelligence community.[29][failed verification] The conspiracy theory spread widely on social media, but subsequent scientific investigation showed that the virus originated in bats.[25] So you agree with Wikipedia being biased against the misinformation of the lab leak? You're even fine with them asserting it's a conspiracy theory and shutting down conversation about the possibility?
- satronaut 5y agothe lab leak hasn't been disproven yet. There was a senate investigation that biden killed (https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/biden-team-shut-down-inquiry-to-prove-lab-link-to-covid-report/ https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/biden-team-shut-down-inquiry-t...) Why he cancelled it, who's to say, but it COULD be something to do with this; https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-cut-in-deal-with-a-chinese-giant/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/29/joe-biden-expected-10-percent-... and the senate minority concluded that it was a lab leak; https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/2/house-gop-report-on-covid-19-origins-wuhan-lab-lea/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/2/house-gop-re...
- clavicat 5y agoEasily. >The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of unevidenced claims centered on the false allegation that while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, he engaged in corrupt activities relating to the employment of his son Hunter Biden by the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.[1] They were spread primarily in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation during the 2020 presidential campaign.[2] United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about the Bidens "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The article begins by immediately labeling the accusations “unevidenced” and “false” and then suggests that it is a foreign intelligence plot, an allegation which is itself a conspiracy theory. The article then continues to debunk the accusations point by point all in the introduction of the article, placing the refutation prominently at the top so that the only impression the reader is left with is that there is nothing to it. Only in the final sentence does it reluctantly concede that: >The article's veracity was strongly questioned by most mainstream media outlets, analysts and intelligence officials, due to the questionable provenance of the laptop and its contents, and the suspicion it may have been part of a disinformation campaign.[8][9][10] It was later confirmed that at least some of the laptop materials were genuine and Hunter Biden himself said that the laptop could be his.[11]
- Veen 5y agoWikipedia is a teriary source; its "bias" reflects that of the secondary sources on which it based. The article you refer to has 93 references to major news organizations and other sources. Are there reputable sources that argue the Biden-Ukraine theory is true and well-founded?
- clavicat 5y agoThat’s the rub, isn’t it? According to WP:RELIABLE, HuffPost is a reputable media source whereas the New York Post is not. Therefore, if the latter claims to be in possession of Hunter’s emails while the former claims that it’s an FSB forgery, the former must be correct. If only it were so easy to determine reputation.
- throwawaylinux 5y agoHere's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017–2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_... In the first paragraph - > The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller Report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy charges against Trump or his associates. This makes it sound like there was something underhanded there, and their source for it was some opinion piece news article rather than the report itself. The fact is that the report conceded that they found no evidence which linked Trump or his campaign of colluding, conspiring with Russia. The alleged hacking or leaking of Clinton and DNC information under the Obama administration by Russians or other hackers was nothing to do with Trump. He "welcomed" it like any politician welcomes bad news for their opponent, but it's a total mischaracterization of the report, which is really a incredibly problematic indictment of the wild conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation pushed by many politicians and corporations and people around this. And major related articles from this one, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates.... When you look at other kinds of misinformation or even unproven allegations made by less favorable sides of politics, the articles often lead with "unsubstantiated claims", "without evidence", etc. This Trump Russia conspiracy theory clearly should be treated the same way, but it is not, wikipedia is still attempting to keep it alive and is trying to salvage the reputations of those who perpetuated it and those who fell for it.
- chippy 5y agoI love how one can see the examples and the (political stances) effect which is being described especially when this question is asked by reading the responses to the answers.
- q1w2 5y agoI first noticed it with the article on the Orlando gay club shooting. The initial article contained unverified reports that the suspect was himself gay, and that that was his motive for the attack. ...and mods on Wikipedia were deleting any edits that referenced the fact that the suspect's father was a former Taliban official that was admitted under the Obama administration, and was politically active in Florida, attending a number of Hillary Clinton talks despite video evidence. References to the suspect verbally professing his allegiance to ISIS was constantly struck from the article with constant rewrites that the motive was that he himself was gay. It was wild to see the disinformation being pushed by mods.