8 ms·

Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

89 points by pelasaco 4y ago

hulitu 4y ago
> Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda > Although the free online encyclopedia is good at general information about broad topics, it’s terribly inaccurate for anything political, contentions or controversial. No. Who would have thought ?
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Shocking to learn there’s bias in user curated content on the internet.
  - sam0x17 4y ago
    All content is user-curated, it's just a matter of whether those users are corporations, random people, etc
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Sadly it's far more pervasive than just political content.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Why is this downvoted? I can't count the number of times where I've come across some boring, mundane topic and quickly figured out (by observing reality conflicting with what I'm seeing) that the discourse is dominated by one group or another who come into it with their own assumptions.
psychphysic 4y ago
I do enjoy reading the Wikipedia article on particular hot button topics. And medical articles are also very frequently biased/agenda driven. Often it's a complete fantasy omitting any real world painful facts. I'm easily entertained but a recent one from a week ago was the article on Monkeypox outbreak within the UK[0]. The current UK strategy from the likes of PHE is to vaccinate gay & bisexual men. It's been a sore topic in the UK, but literally no mention in the article. The NHS article mentions it [1]. So the world's most popular encyclopaedia, sanitizer its 'truth'. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak_in_t... [1] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/monkeypox/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/monkeypox/
- hammock 4y ago
  >I do enjoy reading the Wikipedia article on particular hot button topics. Read the "Talk" page too on those
- Jeema101 4y ago
  There is no conspiracy. The main article (linked to in the first sentence of this one) says pretty clearly: "While anyone can get monkeypox, to date the majority of confirmed cases outside of the endemic regions in Africa occurred in young or middle-aged men who have sex with men (MSM) who had recent sexual contact with new or multiple partners." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    You seem to be part of the cover up! The fact you likely aren't even aware of the incredible controversy around this topic makes clear the santization is working.
- joe5150 4y ago
  I'm confused about what you're implying has been "sanitized" from this article. there's no indication in the edit history that someone has added or removed any information about the vaccine strategy.
  - psychphysic 4y ago
    Not that such a history of edits and reverts are required for there to be santization. But there are edits and reverts and removed versions of the article... So what are you getting at?
- Spivak 4y ago
  I don't know what you do here. It's being omitted because the alternative is pouring fire on the campaigns by anti-lgbt groups who are trying to use the outbreak as an opportunity to spread the "gay men are pedophile groomers" narrative whenever a child catches monkeypox which when people believe this garbage manifests in real life harm. Could you explain this whole controversy in the Wikipedia article? Yes, but doing that is also divisive so you just ignore it since it's not that important in the grand scheme of things.
hunglee2 4y ago
whatever the merits of this particular claim, the vulnerability of Wikipedia to subversion should be pretty clear for all of us. If you were NatSec it would be a simple matter to recruit or train a few editors to focus on and continually update / amend a contested topic. Even KPI's could be pretty simple to manage - 'ensure mentions of [insert targeted country] always carries [insert pejorative Y]'
- blululu 4y ago
  It would be equally simple for a few citizens of [insert targeted country] to contest the claims that it is linked with [insert pejorative Y]. The open nature of the encyclopedia means that there is at the very least a record of the controversy and in general a countervailing force against such distortions. While an open project like Wikipedia is more vulnerable to this type of attack it is also more resilient to this style of attack but the exact same reasons.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    true but there would be a massive resource imbalance. A small team of paid professionals whose job was solely wikipedia edits would quickly overwhelm the efforts of well meaning amateurs. Additionally, there is a market size problem. For example, a highly literate, politically mobilised population would out-edit a less literate, politically apathetic competitor.
    - JetSpiegel 4y ago
      > true but there would be a massive resource imbalance. A small team of paid professionals whose job was solely wikipedia edits would quickly overwhelm the efforts of well meaning amateurs. Is this a real problem, in the USA at least? Trump spent literal billions to have armies of paid professionals make him look good and still lost the popular vote by millions. > For example, a highly literate, politically mobilised population would out-edit a less literate, politically apathetic competitor. Politically mobilized populations will trounce everything, the sky is the limit. Controlling Wikipedia is one of the least interesting thing they could do. Wikipedia did not cause culture wars.
dangerwill 4y ago
Yawn, yet another right winger claiming that their terrible views are unpopular because of censorship when really its because most people simply disagree. See also, them advocating to read hidden/downvoted comments because "There is a wealth of information found in views that are not widely held or considered controversial.". https://battlepenguin.com/tech/read-from-the-bottom/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/read-from-the-bottom/ Anyone who reads hidden/downvoted comments on social media knows that the vast majority are just unhinged idiotic rants or a stream of slurs.
- jscipione 4y ago
  Right wing views are objectively censored on social media and Wikipedia. “Idiotic rants” are valid free speech and censorship of profanity is a deflection.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    It's the same with left wing views. You just don't see them because well, they're censored. What's is seemingly a uniquely right phenomenon is viewing the annoyingly centrist stuff that is allowed on the internet as left. Like yes, it's on your left, but it's not left by any stretch of imagination.
  - dale_glass 4y ago
    Free speech has no place on Wikipedia. It's supposed to be an encyclopedia, and to summarize the contents of primary sources, not a way for specific people to spread their opinions.
    - 0xbadc0de5 4y ago
      I think this is highlighting an important point. People seem to be using different definitions of "free speech." It appears one side is arguing against what we might call "Free Speech (tm)" while others are arguing in favor of the moral/ethical principle of not restricting the free exchange of ideas. Thus the two sides end up talking past each other.
plaguepilled 4y ago
>I posted dude defending himself on Tim Pool's platform There is half your problem. Tim Pool generally is not a valid journalistic source. He regularly fails to fact check, citing inflammatory rhetoric in the process for a double whammy of bad journalism. In fact, in terms of avoiding misinformation, Pool is as inadequate for the task as citing Ben Shapiro or Alex Jones. While I agree that Wikimedia should not be funding non-Wikipedia activities with funds raised through Wikipedia, that does not mean hit pieces like this get to start being sloppy without recourse.
- illuminerdy 4y ago
  > "In fact, in terms of avoiding misinformation, Pool is as inadequate for the task as citing Ben Shapiro or Alex Jones." Or any of the numerous corporate media (MSNBC, NY TIMES, CNN, FOX NEWS, etc.) that have clearly been spreading misinformation for donkey's years.
  - plaguepilled 4y ago
    I did not mention legacy media on purpose. I said "as" inadequate. The constructed narratives and data cherrypicking of fringe entertainers like Shapiro and Jones are more frequent and more damaging than the selective reporting and factual confusions of mainstream media. The financial motivations are also slightly different as legacy media is impacted by different billionaire spending vs political infotainers. Or more plainly: the point was not to say "aha, see, Pool and Shapiro and Jones are the ONLY sources of misinformation, and by omitting, say, the BBC, I think its fine to watch them because they are definitely trustworthy*" - I was saying the three mentioned infotainers are all on the same level. That's an important distinction.
blululu 4y ago
The encyclopedia is giant and highly decentralized. It will elude any simple characterization like this. Wikipedia's vast and distributed community of editors maintains a policy that it is not a place for original research. Thus, in general, Wikipedia is not a source for anything - it is a medium for information from other places. Personally I think the fact that it is a good model for how to distribute information since it is unequivocally open in terms of viewing the history and discussions around an article. Any claim can be contested by anyone willing to take the time and make their case. I realize that both of these steps are unrealistic for a large number of people but these are also the minimal requirements of any non-centralized source of information.
- AnonCoward42 4y ago
  > The encyclopedia is giant and highly decentralized. At least in Germany it's highly centralized for any topic that is even slightly political. I forgot the exact percentage, but it's in the realm of 95%+ is editted by a few dozen people for all topics that are even slightly political and spreads a numbers of expertises they seemingly have. Most German Wikipedians probably know Felikz and Kopilot or the Politburo of Wikipedia in general. edit: It's Kopilot not Copilot.
- herculity275 4y ago
  > Thus, in general, Wikipedia is not a source for anything - it is a medium for information from other places How you choose to present that information + which particular sources you choose to cite on a given topic is absolutely susceptible to bias and propaganda efforts.
karaterobot 4y ago
As someone who wants Wikipedia to stop begging me for money it doesn't really need, I want that to be the main complaint here. I don't want it to be about what the Wikimedia Foundation is spending that money on, because suddenly the story becomes a referendum on whether you like the subject of their donations or not. What they're spending on doesn't actually matter very much, and focusing on it turns the issue into a dog whistle. It makes this another battle in the ideological trench warfare we're locked in, where people choose sides not based on what's happening, but on their prior affiliations. Please, when talking about this, just make it about a company that has all the money it needs, but keeps asking you for more, and try as much as you can to leave the politics out of it.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  They shouldn’t be spending money on donations for either side of the culture war.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dimitar 4y ago
I looked through the linked claim that Wikipedia is biased and it seems like the bias is not putting a particular political agenda front and center. In the example is the Wikipedia article not talking about highly dubious Fox news "scandals" during the Obama presidency; I checked the Donald Trump article and he gets the same treatment. I like the bias of not treating politics as a set of "scandals" just like the media does. It is likely that being an international effort, the English Wikipedia avoids voting in a particular partisan bias, even if it doesn't appear to be so for other languages.
spacemadness 4y ago
This from a site that brings you such nuggets of wisdom like In the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more aware at how conservatives will simply state the facts, or praise what they appreciate, when an ideological adversary dies. In contrast, progressives and our legacy media will often write horrific hit pieces when someone on the opposite end of the spectrum passes away. No bias there at all.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  is the statement inaccurate?
  - spacemadness 4y ago
    Oh yes, it’s an entirely objective observation. /s
  - happytoexplain 4y ago
    The number of cases to examine is small enough to make it difficult to extract a trend, and the nature of the question is very subjective, but my best attempt at an observation is that the described behavior is one of the many personality/cognitive faults that people on both sides of politics exhibit in roughly equal measures. I think an observation of a strong bias in one direction here might be due to other factors (e.g. biases that affect one's exposure to these things).
- airhangerf15 4y ago
  You could put the entire thing in the context he framed it in: > I was living in Wellington, New Zealand when Margaret Thatcher died. Some people I knew threw a party at Hotel Bristol, a pub on Cuba Street. I knew nothing about Thatcher, but I assumed she must have been pretty bad if friends of mine were singing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” in her wake. Today, activist still literally piss on her grave1. > Years later in Seattle, I worked with a British woman who grew up under Thatcher. She was horrified when people celebrated the death of someone who was an inspiration to many young women all over the United Kingdom. In the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more aware at how conservatives will simply state the facts, or praise what they appreciate, when an ideological adversary dies. If the author hung out with a bunch of people and observed this happening, and then later talked to a British woman who gave him a different perspective, can you at least see why that bias developed? I mean ... his friends threw a party when a prime minister they probably weren't even alive for died.
dj_gitmo 4y ago
For an example of a biased and probably state-backed Wikipedia editor, see the example of Philip Cross. I very casually edit Wikipedia, a few times a year, and I within an hour of certain changes ran into this "individual". Cross is almost certainly a team of people, and they didn't fully remove my edits, but it was very clear that certain topics are heavily monitored and shaped. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44495696 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44495696 > Political analyst and former UK British ambassador Craig Murray described the scale of Cross’s activities: > Philip Cross” has not had one single day off from editing Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited every single day from 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive days of editing. 133,612 edits to Wikipedia have been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week. And I do not use that figuratively: Wikipedia edits are timed, and if you plot them, the timecard for “Philip Cross’s” Wikipedia activity is astonishing if it is one individual.’ https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wikipedia-editor-targeting-anti-war-sites/250824/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wiki...
- pelasaco 4y ago
  I can imagine that who controls or enforce what is posted on Wikipedia, controls at least partially the narrative. How often is wikipedia used as fact check?
- jamespo 4y ago
  Craig Murray? sigh
  - dj_gitmo 4y ago
    I am not British and don’t know who that is. FWIW I was not editing anything related to British politics.
- r721 4y ago
  George Galloway, Craig Murray and MintPress News are also propagandists (possibly even state-backed judging from their positive attitude to authoritarian regimes), not some objective truth seekers.
implements 4y ago
The article references https://infogalactic.com https://infogalactic.com as a WP alternative. Constrast: https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan - I think the author may have a point. Regardless of what you think about the person in question, the former seems far more encyclopaedic and neutral (though perhaps missing a necessary paragraph on his unpopular beliefs).
- woodruffw 4y ago
  The counterpoint to this is that Wikipedia's article contains everything that the other one does, and also contains all of the things that Linehan is currently well known for.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    No, subtly different. It contains all the things, and the proper slant on those things, that activist editors want GL to be known for regardless of the actual prevalence of people talking about that. I doubt even 1% of people who know his name know that he's involved in "gender critical" debate, let alone his views. Further, these ideological corrections are always biased because they're based on outrage articles and nobody writes counterpoint articles in which nothing happened and nothing is wrong. "Dog does not bite man". Nobody is going to pen a Guardian article saying "GL can tell the difference between the type of people who give birth and those who do not" because we all can and it's just not interesting. But if a few people working for Pink News and Gawker write that GL's statements are actually dog-whistles designed to stigmatize "fake women" or something, then all of a sudden 100% of the sources agree that he's committing literal violence against trans folx. Another article was attempting to trans an 18th century person. They said "Oh, it's okay, we'll also accept reliable sources that say they weren't a trans man" as if such a source could even exist. The point isn't his positions but that Wikipedia is a platform for activists to pick and choose which words to amplify or to amplify pushback against, and our rules for academic sources break down entirely in a culture war where new sources can be spun up in an instant. This is giving undue weight to certain elements and ignoring others.
jscipione 4y ago
I trust the co-founder Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is a hate site masquerading as an encyclopedia. The valid pages provide cover for the propaganda.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
Not just political. Half the articles I read are spun like pr pieces lately, at least when it comes to organizations and people (even dead people) Random one I read last night > The realization that Fitzgerald had improved as a novelist to point that Gatsby was a masterwork was immediately evident to certain members of the literary world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald Editors aren’t even trying to appear objective any more. It’s like the news. I think this is becoming the commonplace on Wikipedia and I hate it
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
  The quality of the topic directly correlates with the quality of editors it attracts. So of course The Great Gatsby is going to have a terrible article. Because it's a miserable book If you care so much about The Great Gatsby, then you should invest your time improving the article.
  - barbariangrunge 4y ago
    The implication, I suppose, being that I’m a low quality person? Charming
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
People sure love to hate Wikipedia. I wonder why.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  No, we love Wikipedia and all the abuses bother us more than we benefit from a momentary partisan edge.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    Small potatoes when at the end of the day wikipedia is one of the few great websites we have left. No ads, tracking, or megacorps. Plenty of transparency.
    - ccn0p 4y ago
      There's a collective of thought police massaging a lot of the content to convey a certain narrative and it's all done under the veil of "transparent community-driven moderation". I wouldn't be surprised if much of this effort is done by the megacorps you claim aren't involved.
      - yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
        Could you provide an example?
        ccn0p 4y ago
        As the article of this post points out Larry Sanger is pretty vocal about how biased the content is and how changes to try and provide any semblance of a fair and balanced perspective are edited out of existence oftentimes by small numbers of people.
indymike 4y ago
Wikipedia is not the source of propaganda, but it is targeted by propagandists and people wanting to shape the world's collective memory. Calling Wikipedia the source is a lot like calling the phone company the source of debt collection calls.
- DontchaKnowit 4y ago
  But doesnt wikipedia solicit donations that get funnelled to wikimedia, which is a political entity? So they are kinda both the source and the conduit
  - indymike 4y ago
    Wikimedia does not edit the content on Wikipedia, so they are not the source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation
mch82 4y ago
If you feel there is a problem with unsubstantiated claims on the page, please edit the page and add “citation needed” tags to those claims. Here’s how to add them, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed If the overall article needs more citations then you can edit the page and apply the “more citations needed” tag, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:More_citations_needed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:More_citations_need... Here’s an overview of Wikipedia’s approach to site reliability. Lots of tools to help flag content that needs verification and there are lists of volunteer opportunities to clean up content that had been flagged. Check it out, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliability https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliab....
- yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
  Counterargument: none of these work if the page is edit-protected. There you just have to trust that the admins with edit access are acting in good faith. From my experience, they usually do, though.
yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
> Wikipedia is not a reliable source for any controversial topics or people. Maybe this is true for certain modern topics, but I was able to learn most of 20th century history due to Wikipedia. Want to read about MK Ultra? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra. Want to read about Japan's human experimentation program and how the US offered them immunity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731. Obviously this stuff is never going to be taught in school (maybe in undergrad history program, but who majors in history?). But it's on Wikipedia. In terms of non-controversial topics, there's tons of value on Wikipedia as well. There is a broad collection of informative math and physics articles, I have read many of them and would argue they're useful. And also like one for every species of butterfly and virus. In terms of modern AND controversial topics, I agree that Wikipedia is sometimes the target of some bullshit psyops and corporate whitewashing. But if you're willing to cut through that, lots of articles have useful information, like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War. Even the title is relatively unbiased (unless you're in the west :) ). You don't go to Wikipedia for a peer reviewed article that's 100% accurate and defensible, you go to get a straight answer that's 90% correct, when every journalist and public figure is spewing a load of hot shit. And that's why, for example, when you Google "Darrell Brooks" the top suggestion is "Darrell Brooks wiki". So yeah, I gave them 100 bucks. I don't care what they do with it. If they donate it to the Dr. Evil Foundation for Evil or somebody, fine whatever. As long as Wikipedia stays up. I have a backup as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  Given the examples of bias you provide - bullshit psyops and corporate whitewashing - and even more given the fact that you do not mention the political/ideological bias many if not most 'politically sensitive topics' have I can but assume that you do not notice that bias because it happens to coincide with your own standpoints and as such just assume those biased statements to be true and worthy of note. Just imagine what you would have thought of Wikipedia had all those entries been biased towards the 'other' side to get an idea of just how strong the bias is. Imagine a lauding article on e.g. Trump where anything critical of the man was quickly edited out. When you try to add some common sense to the clearly biased article you're met with a string of reverts without any clear explanation other that 'not noteworthy', 'unreliable source' or 'against the NPOV'. You try again and again but hit the same wall every time. After trying to add some balanced information to the clearly flawed entry you receive a warning from an administrator who tells you that edit warring is not tolerated. That is what many if not most people mean when they state that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for any controversial topic or people.
LordDragonfang 4y ago
Let's look at one of the suggested alternatives this blog post endorses. First one on the list, "Wikispooks". Interestingly, Wikipedia does not have an article on Wikispooks, but Wikispooks does have an article about Wikipedia! https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia It seems to be headlined with with subpages for their concerns about Wikipedia. Let's see: Wikipedia/Hasbara | Systematic gatekeeping for Jewish interest on Wikipedia Oh dear.
cullinap 4y ago
https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/
cvalka 4y ago
"Larry Sanger, one of the original founders of Wikipedia, has openly stated that Wikipedia is clearly biased." Larry Sanger is a nut. The section 230 "analysis" is bs too .
Magnusmaster 4y ago
In Argentina Wikipedia is notorious for parroting Kirchnerist propaganda. There are people whose entire job is to make sure every topic related to Argentinian politics follows Kirchner's narrative
smitty1e 4y ago
Precisely why I've never given anything more than traffic to Jimmy Wales. I don't know how that sad pack of Winston Smiths they call editors rationalizes its behavior , and I don't want to know.
KerrAvon 4y ago
This person is complaining about right-wing nutjobs — the Project Veritas person in this case — being mistreated. This is not worth further investigation.

89 points by pelasaco 4y ago

> Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda > Although the free online encyclopedia is good at general information about broad topics, it’s terribly inaccurate for anything political, contentions or controversial. No. Who would have thought ?

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Shocking to learn there’s bias in user curated content on the internet.
- sam0x17 4y ago
  All content is user-curated, it's just a matter of whether those users are corporations, random people, etc
psychphysic 4y ago
Sadly it's far more pervasive than just political content.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Why is this downvoted? I can't count the number of times where I've come across some boring, mundane topic and quickly figured out (by observing reality conflicting with what I'm seeing) that the discourse is dominated by one group or another who come into it with their own assumptions.

psychphysic 4y ago

I do enjoy reading the Wikipedia article on particular hot button topics. And medical articles are also very frequently biased/agenda driven. Often it's a complete fantasy omitting any real world painful facts. I'm easily entertained but a recent one from a week ago was the article on Monkeypox outbreak within the UK[0]. The current UK strategy from the likes of PHE is to vaccinate gay & bisexual men. It's been a sore topic in the UK, but literally no mention in the article. The NHS article mentions it [1]. So the world's most popular encyclopaedia, sanitizer its 'truth'. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak_in_t... [1] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/monkeypox/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/monkeypox/

hammock 4y ago
>I do enjoy reading the Wikipedia article on particular hot button topics. Read the "Talk" page too on those
Jeema101 4y ago
There is no conspiracy. The main article (linked to in the first sentence of this one) says pretty clearly: "While anyone can get monkeypox, to date the majority of confirmed cases outside of the endemic regions in Africa occurred in young or middle-aged men who have sex with men (MSM) who had recent sexual contact with new or multiple partners." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak
- psychphysic 4y ago
  You seem to be part of the cover up! The fact you likely aren't even aware of the incredible controversy around this topic makes clear the santization is working.
joe5150 4y ago
I'm confused about what you're implying has been "sanitized" from this article. there's no indication in the edit history that someone has added or removed any information about the vaccine strategy.
- psychphysic 4y ago
  Not that such a history of edits and reverts are required for there to be santization. But there are edits and reverts and removed versions of the article... So what are you getting at?
Spivak 4y ago
I don't know what you do here. It's being omitted because the alternative is pouring fire on the campaigns by anti-lgbt groups who are trying to use the outbreak as an opportunity to spread the "gay men are pedophile groomers" narrative whenever a child catches monkeypox which when people believe this garbage manifests in real life harm. Could you explain this whole controversy in the Wikipedia article? Yes, but doing that is also divisive so you just ignore it since it's not that important in the grand scheme of things.

hunglee2 4y ago

whatever the merits of this particular claim, the vulnerability of Wikipedia to subversion should be pretty clear for all of us. If you were NatSec it would be a simple matter to recruit or train a few editors to focus on and continually update / amend a contested topic. Even KPI's could be pretty simple to manage - 'ensure mentions of [insert targeted country] always carries [insert pejorative Y]'

blululu 4y ago
It would be equally simple for a few citizens of [insert targeted country] to contest the claims that it is linked with [insert pejorative Y]. The open nature of the encyclopedia means that there is at the very least a record of the controversy and in general a countervailing force against such distortions. While an open project like Wikipedia is more vulnerable to this type of attack it is also more resilient to this style of attack but the exact same reasons.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  true but there would be a massive resource imbalance. A small team of paid professionals whose job was solely wikipedia edits would quickly overwhelm the efforts of well meaning amateurs. Additionally, there is a market size problem. For example, a highly literate, politically mobilised population would out-edit a less literate, politically apathetic competitor.
  - JetSpiegel 4y ago
    > true but there would be a massive resource imbalance. A small team of paid professionals whose job was solely wikipedia edits would quickly overwhelm the efforts of well meaning amateurs. Is this a real problem, in the USA at least? Trump spent literal billions to have armies of paid professionals make him look good and still lost the popular vote by millions. > For example, a highly literate, politically mobilised population would out-edit a less literate, politically apathetic competitor. Politically mobilized populations will trounce everything, the sky is the limit. Controlling Wikipedia is one of the least interesting thing they could do. Wikipedia did not cause culture wars.

dangerwill 4y ago

Yawn, yet another right winger claiming that their terrible views are unpopular because of censorship when really its because most people simply disagree. See also, them advocating to read hidden/downvoted comments because "There is a wealth of information found in views that are not widely held or considered controversial.". https://battlepenguin.com/tech/read-from-the-bottom/ https://battlepenguin.com/tech/read-from-the-bottom/ Anyone who reads hidden/downvoted comments on social media knows that the vast majority are just unhinged idiotic rants or a stream of slurs.

jscipione 4y ago
Right wing views are objectively censored on social media and Wikipedia. “Idiotic rants” are valid free speech and censorship of profanity is a deflection.
- Spivak 4y ago
  It's the same with left wing views. You just don't see them because well, they're censored. What's is seemingly a uniquely right phenomenon is viewing the annoyingly centrist stuff that is allowed on the internet as left. Like yes, it's on your left, but it's not left by any stretch of imagination.
- dale_glass 4y ago
  Free speech has no place on Wikipedia. It's supposed to be an encyclopedia, and to summarize the contents of primary sources, not a way for specific people to spread their opinions.
  - 0xbadc0de5 4y ago
    I think this is highlighting an important point. People seem to be using different definitions of "free speech." It appears one side is arguing against what we might call "Free Speech (tm)" while others are arguing in favor of the moral/ethical principle of not restricting the free exchange of ideas. Thus the two sides end up talking past each other.

plaguepilled 4y ago

>I posted dude defending himself on Tim Pool's platform There is half your problem. Tim Pool generally is not a valid journalistic source. He regularly fails to fact check, citing inflammatory rhetoric in the process for a double whammy of bad journalism. In fact, in terms of avoiding misinformation, Pool is as inadequate for the task as citing Ben Shapiro or Alex Jones. While I agree that Wikimedia should not be funding non-Wikipedia activities with funds raised through Wikipedia, that does not mean hit pieces like this get to start being sloppy without recourse.

illuminerdy 4y ago
> "In fact, in terms of avoiding misinformation, Pool is as inadequate for the task as citing Ben Shapiro or Alex Jones." Or any of the numerous corporate media (MSNBC, NY TIMES, CNN, FOX NEWS, etc.) that have clearly been spreading misinformation for donkey's years.
- plaguepilled 4y ago
  I did not mention legacy media on purpose. I said "as" inadequate. The constructed narratives and data cherrypicking of fringe entertainers like Shapiro and Jones are more frequent and more damaging than the selective reporting and factual confusions of mainstream media. The financial motivations are also slightly different as legacy media is impacted by different billionaire spending vs political infotainers. Or more plainly: the point was not to say "aha, see, Pool and Shapiro and Jones are the ONLY sources of misinformation, and by omitting, say, the BBC, I think its fine to watch them because they are definitely trustworthy*" - I was saying the three mentioned infotainers are all on the same level. That's an important distinction.

blululu 4y ago

The encyclopedia is giant and highly decentralized. It will elude any simple characterization like this. Wikipedia's vast and distributed community of editors maintains a policy that it is not a place for original research. Thus, in general, Wikipedia is not a source for anything - it is a medium for information from other places. Personally I think the fact that it is a good model for how to distribute information since it is unequivocally open in terms of viewing the history and discussions around an article. Any claim can be contested by anyone willing to take the time and make their case. I realize that both of these steps are unrealistic for a large number of people but these are also the minimal requirements of any non-centralized source of information.

AnonCoward42 4y ago
> The encyclopedia is giant and highly decentralized. At least in Germany it's highly centralized for any topic that is even slightly political. I forgot the exact percentage, but it's in the realm of 95%+ is editted by a few dozen people for all topics that are even slightly political and spreads a numbers of expertises they seemingly have. Most German Wikipedians probably know Felikz and Kopilot or the Politburo of Wikipedia in general. edit: It's Kopilot not Copilot.
herculity275 4y ago
> Thus, in general, Wikipedia is not a source for anything - it is a medium for information from other places How you choose to present that information + which particular sources you choose to cite on a given topic is absolutely susceptible to bias and propaganda efforts.

karaterobot 4y ago

As someone who wants Wikipedia to stop begging me for money it doesn't really need, I want that to be the main complaint here. I don't want it to be about what the Wikimedia Foundation is spending that money on, because suddenly the story becomes a referendum on whether you like the subject of their donations or not. What they're spending on doesn't actually matter very much, and focusing on it turns the issue into a dog whistle. It makes this another battle in the ideological trench warfare we're locked in, where people choose sides not based on what's happening, but on their prior affiliations. Please, when talking about this, just make it about a company that has all the money it needs, but keeps asking you for more, and try as much as you can to leave the politics out of it.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago
They shouldn’t be spending money on donations for either side of the culture war.

deleted 4y ago

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dimitar 4y ago

I looked through the linked claim that Wikipedia is biased and it seems like the bias is not putting a particular political agenda front and center. In the example is the Wikipedia article not talking about highly dubious Fox news "scandals" during the Obama presidency; I checked the Donald Trump article and he gets the same treatment. I like the bias of not treating politics as a set of "scandals" just like the media does. It is likely that being an international effort, the English Wikipedia avoids voting in a particular partisan bias, even if it doesn't appear to be so for other languages.

spacemadness 4y ago

This from a site that brings you such nuggets of wisdom like In the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more aware at how conservatives will simply state the facts, or praise what they appreciate, when an ideological adversary dies. In contrast, progressives and our legacy media will often write horrific hit pieces when someone on the opposite end of the spectrum passes away. No bias there at all.

adamrezich 4y ago
is the statement inaccurate?
- spacemadness 4y ago
  Oh yes, it’s an entirely objective observation. /s
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  The number of cases to examine is small enough to make it difficult to extract a trend, and the nature of the question is very subjective, but my best attempt at an observation is that the described behavior is one of the many personality/cognitive faults that people on both sides of politics exhibit in roughly equal measures. I think an observation of a strong bias in one direction here might be due to other factors (e.g. biases that affect one's exposure to these things).
airhangerf15 4y ago
You could put the entire thing in the context he framed it in: > I was living in Wellington, New Zealand when Margaret Thatcher died. Some people I knew threw a party at Hotel Bristol, a pub on Cuba Street. I knew nothing about Thatcher, but I assumed she must have been pretty bad if friends of mine were singing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” in her wake. Today, activist still literally piss on her grave1. > Years later in Seattle, I worked with a British woman who grew up under Thatcher. She was horrified when people celebrated the death of someone who was an inspiration to many young women all over the United Kingdom. In the past few years, I’ve become increasingly more aware at how conservatives will simply state the facts, or praise what they appreciate, when an ideological adversary dies. If the author hung out with a bunch of people and observed this happening, and then later talked to a British woman who gave him a different perspective, can you at least see why that bias developed? I mean ... his friends threw a party when a prime minister they probably weren't even alive for died.

dj_gitmo 4y ago

For an example of a biased and probably state-backed Wikipedia editor, see the example of Philip Cross. I very casually edit Wikipedia, a few times a year, and I within an hour of certain changes ran into this "individual". Cross is almost certainly a team of people, and they didn't fully remove my edits, but it was very clear that certain topics are heavily monitored and shaped. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44495696 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44495696 > Political analyst and former UK British ambassador Craig Murray described the scale of Cross’s activities: > Philip Cross” has not had one single day off from editing Wikipedia in almost five years. “He” has edited every single day from 29 August 2013 to 14 May 2018. Including five Christmas Days. That’s 1,721 consecutive days of editing. 133,612 edits to Wikipedia have been made in the name of “Philip Cross” over 14 years. That’s over 30 edits per day, seven days a week. And I do not use that figuratively: Wikipedia edits are timed, and if you plot them, the timecard for “Philip Cross’s” Wikipedia activity is astonishing if it is one individual.’ https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wikipedia-editor-targeting-anti-war-sites/250824/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wiki...

pelasaco 4y ago
I can imagine that who controls or enforce what is posted on Wikipedia, controls at least partially the narrative. How often is wikipedia used as fact check?
jamespo 4y ago
Craig Murray? sigh
- dj_gitmo 4y ago
  I am not British and don’t know who that is. FWIW I was not editing anything related to British politics.
r721 4y ago
George Galloway, Craig Murray and MintPress News are also propagandists (possibly even state-backed judging from their positive attitude to authoritarian regimes), not some objective truth seekers.

implements 4y ago

The article references https://infogalactic.com https://infogalactic.com as a WP alternative. Constrast: https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Linehan - I think the author may have a point. Regardless of what you think about the person in question, the former seems far more encyclopaedic and neutral (though perhaps missing a necessary paragraph on his unpopular beliefs).

woodruffw 4y ago
The counterpoint to this is that Wikipedia's article contains everything that the other one does, and also contains all of the things that Linehan is currently well known for.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  No, subtly different. It contains all the things, and the proper slant on those things, that activist editors want GL to be known for regardless of the actual prevalence of people talking about that. I doubt even 1% of people who know his name know that he's involved in "gender critical" debate, let alone his views. Further, these ideological corrections are always biased because they're based on outrage articles and nobody writes counterpoint articles in which nothing happened and nothing is wrong. "Dog does not bite man". Nobody is going to pen a Guardian article saying "GL can tell the difference between the type of people who give birth and those who do not" because we all can and it's just not interesting. But if a few people working for Pink News and Gawker write that GL's statements are actually dog-whistles designed to stigmatize "fake women" or something, then all of a sudden 100% of the sources agree that he's committing literal violence against trans folx. Another article was attempting to trans an 18th century person. They said "Oh, it's okay, we'll also accept reliable sources that say they weren't a trans man" as if such a source could even exist. The point isn't his positions but that Wikipedia is a platform for activists to pick and choose which words to amplify or to amplify pushback against, and our rules for academic sources break down entirely in a culture war where new sources can be spun up in an instant. This is giving undue weight to certain elements and ignoring others.

jscipione 4y ago

I trust the co-founder Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is a hate site masquerading as an encyclopedia. The valid pages provide cover for the propaganda.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

Not just political. Half the articles I read are spun like pr pieces lately, at least when it comes to organizations and people (even dead people) Random one I read last night > The realization that Fitzgerald had improved as a novelist to point that Gatsby was a masterwork was immediately evident to certain members of the literary world. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald Editors aren’t even trying to appear objective any more. It’s like the news. I think this is becoming the commonplace on Wikipedia and I hate it

deleted 4y ago
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yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
The quality of the topic directly correlates with the quality of editors it attracts. So of course The Great Gatsby is going to have a terrible article. Because it's a miserable book If you care so much about The Great Gatsby, then you should invest your time improving the article.
- barbariangrunge 4y ago
  The implication, I suppose, being that I’m a low quality person? Charming

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

People sure love to hate Wikipedia. I wonder why.

LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
No, we love Wikipedia and all the abuses bother us more than we benefit from a momentary partisan edge.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Small potatoes when at the end of the day wikipedia is one of the few great websites we have left. No ads, tracking, or megacorps. Plenty of transparency.
  - ccn0p 4y ago
    There's a collective of thought police massaging a lot of the content to convey a certain narrative and it's all done under the veil of "transparent community-driven moderation". I wouldn't be surprised if much of this effort is done by the megacorps you claim aren't involved.
    - yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
      Could you provide an example?
      - ccn0p 4y ago
        As the article of this post points out Larry Sanger is pretty vocal about how biased the content is and how changes to try and provide any semblance of a fair and balanced perspective are edited out of existence oftentimes by small numbers of people.

indymike 4y ago

Wikipedia is not the source of propaganda, but it is targeted by propagandists and people wanting to shape the world's collective memory. Calling Wikipedia the source is a lot like calling the phone company the source of debt collection calls.

DontchaKnowit 4y ago
But doesnt wikipedia solicit donations that get funnelled to wikimedia, which is a political entity? So they are kinda both the source and the conduit
- indymike 4y ago
  Wikimedia does not edit the content on Wikipedia, so they are not the source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation

mch82 4y ago

If you feel there is a problem with unsubstantiated claims on the page, please edit the page and add “citation needed” tags to those claims. Here’s how to add them, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed If the overall article needs more citations then you can edit the page and apply the “more citations needed” tag, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:More_citations_needed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:More_citations_need... Here’s an overview of Wikipedia’s approach to site reliability. Lots of tools to help flag content that needs verification and there are lists of volunteer opportunities to clean up content that had been flagged. Check it out, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliability https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliab....

yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago
Counterargument: none of these work if the page is edit-protected. There you just have to trust that the admins with edit access are acting in good faith. From my experience, they usually do, though.

yeet_yeet_yeet 4y ago

> Wikipedia is not a reliable source for any controversial topics or people. Maybe this is true for certain modern topics, but I was able to learn most of 20th century history due to Wikipedia. Want to read about MK Ultra? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra. Want to read about Japan's human experimentation program and how the US offered them immunity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731. Obviously this stuff is never going to be taught in school (maybe in undergrad history program, but who majors in history?). But it's on Wikipedia. In terms of non-controversial topics, there's tons of value on Wikipedia as well. There is a broad collection of informative math and physics articles, I have read many of them and would argue they're useful. And also like one for every species of butterfly and virus. In terms of modern AND controversial topics, I agree that Wikipedia is sometimes the target of some bullshit psyops and corporate whitewashing. But if you're willing to cut through that, lots of articles have useful information, like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War. Even the title is relatively unbiased (unless you're in the west :) ). You don't go to Wikipedia for a peer reviewed article that's 100% accurate and defensible, you go to get a straight answer that's 90% correct, when every journalist and public figure is spewing a load of hot shit. And that's why, for example, when you Google "Darrell Brooks" the top suggestion is "Darrell Brooks wiki". So yeah, I gave them 100 bucks. I don't care what they do with it. If they donate it to the Dr. Evil Foundation for Evil or somebody, fine whatever. As long as Wikipedia stays up. I have a backup as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

the_third_wave 4y ago
Given the examples of bias you provide - bullshit psyops and corporate whitewashing - and even more given the fact that you do not mention the political/ideological bias many if not most 'politically sensitive topics' have I can but assume that you do not notice that bias because it happens to coincide with your own standpoints and as such just assume those biased statements to be true and worthy of note. Just imagine what you would have thought of Wikipedia had all those entries been biased towards the 'other' side to get an idea of just how strong the bias is. Imagine a lauding article on e.g. Trump where anything critical of the man was quickly edited out. When you try to add some common sense to the clearly biased article you're met with a string of reverts without any clear explanation other that 'not noteworthy', 'unreliable source' or 'against the NPOV'. You try again and again but hit the same wall every time. After trying to add some balanced information to the clearly flawed entry you receive a warning from an administrator who tells you that edit warring is not tolerated. That is what many if not most people mean when they state that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for any controversial topic or people.

LordDragonfang 4y ago

Let's look at one of the suggested alternatives this blog post endorses. First one on the list, "Wikispooks". Interestingly, Wikipedia does not have an article on Wikispooks, but Wikispooks does have an article about Wikipedia! https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Wikipedia It seems to be headlined with with subpages for their concerns about Wikipedia. Let's see: Wikipedia/Hasbara | Systematic gatekeeping for Jewish interest on Wikipedia Oh dear.

cullinap 4y ago

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/ https://theintercept.com/2020/07/02/kamala-harris-wikipedia/

cvalka 4y ago

"Larry Sanger, one of the original founders of Wikipedia, has openly stated that Wikipedia is clearly biased." Larry Sanger is a nut. The section 230 "analysis" is bs too .

Magnusmaster 4y ago

In Argentina Wikipedia is notorious for parroting Kirchnerist propaganda. There are people whose entire job is to make sure every topic related to Argentinian politics follows Kirchner's narrative

smitty1e 4y ago

Precisely why I've never given anything more than traffic to Jimmy Wales. I don't know how that sad pack of Winston Smiths they call editors rationalizes its behavior , and I don't want to know.

KerrAvon 4y ago

This person is complaining about right-wing nutjobs — the Project Veritas person in this case — being mistreated. This is not worth further investigation.