5 ms·

Wikipedia Is Covering the War in Israel and Gaza Better Than X

35 points by jruohonen 3y ago

mrangle 3y ago
Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this analysis is subjective, politically biased in itself, or otherwise predicated on a "narrow interpretation" of the facts. All things for which Salon is known. Regardless, people tend not to utilize resources such as X as they do traditional format media websites such as Wikipedia. Wherein the "editorial board's" presentation of the facts are one's only option for consumption. To suggest that consumers utilize these differing formats similarly is the introduction of a false premise into an argument that, ironically, proports to wish to prosecute a source of false premises. When looking at sources such as X, early on people tend to have multiple accounts that they look to for information. The point being to survey multiple sources of information toward ferreting out what is probably most true. Sources that are more consistent, in that, later tend to be seen as reliable. They then get more attention per their track record as experienced by readers. The viewer market of X punishes accounts that are percieved to routinely engage in lies. Even if lying accounts remain stuck in the "filter" of X. While some lies have had the chance to rise to the top, though arguably at a lesser rate than when being laundered through MSM editorial baords, the dominant effect has obviously been to punish propaganda. Compare this process to Wikipedia's type of engagement. Which is a site that has a bottom-barrel reputation for stubborn bias specifically in the realm of any page that deals in political topics. And within which there is no opportunity to seek out alternate takes or information sources. That's not to say that Wikipedia doesn't get it right. But that X and wikipedia are not comparable media sources. And that the individualized trust process for readers is more important in 2023. Than it is to validate with engagement more traditional formats that have to thread the needle of their no-option propaganda, in order to point to whatever it is that you are supposed to be happy about them being truthful over for a single cherry picked topic or even one peice of information.
ramesh31 3y ago
The signal has been almost completely lost on Ukraine. I see literally nothing but Russian propaganda at this point.
- sidibe 3y ago
  The blue checks who are the only visible people these days always eventually converge to Elon's viewpoints and he has more and more clearly adopted Putin-loving David Sacks's views. This is what they call "doing your own research"
- mrangle 3y ago
  Perhaps the MSM, and related sources, should have long ago rejected some of the most deeply revolting and otherwise distrusted people in the West to deliver the signal. That would have been a good idea if a unified positive opinion on Ukraine was the goal. The signal from faceless college grads would have been infintely less reflexively repellant than anything that has come out of the mouths of the forever-recycled Iraq War Era propagandists. Who were fresh from a deeply partisan propaganda campaign that doesn't have an equivalent in remembered US history. But apparently keeping the careers of these social rejects alive is more important that Ukraine opinion. Choices have consequences, for better and worse. But given this one, its diffuclt to take seriously complaints about signal failure.
mrpopo 3y ago
I like that they are not forcing the word "terrorism". As much as Oct. 7 actions are despicable, "terrorism" is now just a loaded political term that no one cares to define. Are the Israeli settlers terrorists? The Russian army? Wagner? It just distracts attention from the facts.
- mrangle 3y ago
  Sorry, October 7th was unambiguously terrorism by any civilization's definition. The only disagreement can come from those who are sympathetic to the event. The word terrorism isn't loaded, it isn't political, and it isn't undefineable. It's a term with a concrete definition. Those are the facts.
  - stormfather 3y ago
    What is your definition of terrorism?
    - mrangle 3y ago
      https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism Start there. The message to which I responded attempts to disqualify October 7th as terrorism by rhetorically suggesting that other events may or may not be terrorism. Which is a particulalry dumb fallacy to attempt to advance. Whether or not anything else is terrorism has no bearing on whether or not October 7th was. Even if it is all terrorism. If they want to justify october 7th, they should drop the particularly unskilled act of cowardice via wordsmithing. Their immoral disposition is revealed when they attempt to equate "Israeli Settlers" (civilians living their lives, and who didn't own guns let alone specifically focus them on civilians) to those who specifically targeted civilians for mass murder as a means of intimidation and sparking a War. Which is precisely the logic of Hamas. So again, they should drop the act and be more direct about 10/7.
      - archagon 3y ago
        You are reading way too much malice into that comment. It’s not unreasonable to dissuade labeling something as terrorism if it leads to flame wars across the site for more ambiguous situations. In no way does such an editorial action imply support for terrorism and murder, even if you strongly disagree with the reasoning. Instead of lashing out and accusing fairly innocuous people of being terrorist sympathizers and anti-semites across several different threads, maybe step away from the computer for a bit?
nvm0n2 3y ago
I was ready to believe it, but this is a really poor argument for the thesis. First problem, it's written by some pastiche of a blue-check obsessed journalist. The article goes on and on about how some accounts are posting misinformation despite having blue checks. Blue check was never a badge of accuracy, so why are Slate pretending it was? It was at best just a form of ID verification. Then they name one account that supposedly was blue check whilst claiming affiliation with Al Jazeera, but don't link directly to it (of course). Instead the link goes to Reuters which just repeats the claim and also doesn't link to it. Yet after digging and looking at screenshots of this account posted at the time Al Jazeera complained, no blue check is to be seen anywhere. Is Slate itself now spreading misinformation? Second problem, no evidence is provided for the claim in the headline. After some undisguised Musk hatred that doesn't even pretend to be neutral journalism, Harrison spends numerous paragraphs explaining how Wikipedia works, presumably for people who spent the last 20 years in a coma. We are told that Wikipedia is clearly superior because anyone can edit it, except at the moment when they can't but only "the self-proclaimed free speech absolutists on X" care about that, and because you have to cite reliable sources like newspapers. That "age old rule" has protected Wikipedia from citing cell-phone sourced misinformation. But this makes no sense because it was only days ago that major newspapers were having to apologize for having blindly repeated misinformation about the Gaza conflict. The rest of the article is about wiki-fights over choices of words: is it a war between Israel and Hamas or Israel and Gaza. Were the men who attacked the music festival terrorists or militants, and was that a massacre or something else? We are told "the impact of Wikipedia’s description ... cannot be overstated" because "journalists often turn to its pages for guidance". This article offers no specific evidence that Wikipedia is doing a better job of covering the war. It's not even made clear what it means for such services to "cover" something. This is really just another complaint by a journalist that Twitter doesn't give them special blue check privileges anymore, whereas Wikipedia still does.
araes 3y ago
I would note that Wikipedia coverage of the Ukraine conflict is also superior to anything I have even slightly seen in major world news sources. Tend to look at AP, Reuters, AlJazeera, TASS, SCMP, Xinhuanet, none are close in details about the actual battles and conflicts - at least from the coverage that gets filtered for me based on their algorithms. There are two Large articles covering: 2014-present issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War 2022-present invasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine An outline with all major events that have occured since 2014: outline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian... AND an animated map that shows every major force movement from 2022 to present: animated gif map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/2022_Russian_Invasion_of_Ukraine_animated.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/2022_Rus... Same with Sudan, had no idea until looking at the Wikipedia page the fight had now fractured into four combatant groups.
- floxy 3y ago
  >AND an animated map that shows every major force movement from 2022 to present: ...looks like that animation goes from February 24th, 2022 through December 3rd, 2022 (unless I'm missing something).
  - araes 3y ago
    Did not check to make sure it went all the way. On looking, it was because there was a long winter stalemate where almost nothing happened for half a year. The 2023 conflict article covers further progress this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensiv...
- hulitu 3y ago
  > I would note that Wikipedia coverage of the Ukraine conflict is also superior to anything I have even slightly seen in major world news sources It is the same as in major world news sources: partizan, without objective reporting and using "special" words. Wikipedia is becoming a shadow of itself.
two_handfuls 3y ago
At this point, a potato would do better than X.
Zanni 3y ago
Counterpoint: Wikipedia, by it's nature, strives to coalesce around a single narrative (there may be a lot of wrangling behind the scenes, but that's what they present). That puts them in line with much of the mainstream media, who have gotten several key events of the war fantastically wrong. Twitter, by contrast, presents multiple points of view. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want to follow accounts cheering on Hamas, well, you're an animal, but go for it. If you want to follow IDF or particular sources you trust, you're probably much better informed than anyone reading, e.g., the New York Times. Blue check marks have nothing to do with it. This reads like the last gasp of a gatekeeper trying to remain relevant in an increasingly distributed world.

35 points by jruohonen 3y ago

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe this analysis is subjective, politically biased in itself, or otherwise predicated on a "narrow interpretation" of the facts. All things for which Salon is known. Regardless, people tend not to utilize resources such as X as they do traditional format media websites such as Wikipedia. Wherein the "editorial board's" presentation of the facts are one's only option for consumption. To suggest that consumers utilize these differing formats similarly is the introduction of a false premise into an argument that, ironically, proports to wish to prosecute a source of false premises. When looking at sources such as X, early on people tend to have multiple accounts that they look to for information. The point being to survey multiple sources of information toward ferreting out what is probably most true. Sources that are more consistent, in that, later tend to be seen as reliable. They then get more attention per their track record as experienced by readers. The viewer market of X punishes accounts that are percieved to routinely engage in lies. Even if lying accounts remain stuck in the "filter" of X. While some lies have had the chance to rise to the top, though arguably at a lesser rate than when being laundered through MSM editorial baords, the dominant effect has obviously been to punish propaganda. Compare this process to Wikipedia's type of engagement. Which is a site that has a bottom-barrel reputation for stubborn bias specifically in the realm of any page that deals in political topics. And within which there is no opportunity to seek out alternate takes or information sources. That's not to say that Wikipedia doesn't get it right. But that X and wikipedia are not comparable media sources. And that the individualized trust process for readers is more important in 2023. Than it is to validate with engagement more traditional formats that have to thread the needle of their no-option propaganda, in order to point to whatever it is that you are supposed to be happy about them being truthful over for a single cherry picked topic or even one peice of information.

ramesh31 3y ago

The signal has been almost completely lost on Ukraine. I see literally nothing but Russian propaganda at this point.

sidibe 3y ago
The blue checks who are the only visible people these days always eventually converge to Elon's viewpoints and he has more and more clearly adopted Putin-loving David Sacks's views. This is what they call "doing your own research"
mrangle 3y ago
Perhaps the MSM, and related sources, should have long ago rejected some of the most deeply revolting and otherwise distrusted people in the West to deliver the signal. That would have been a good idea if a unified positive opinion on Ukraine was the goal. The signal from faceless college grads would have been infintely less reflexively repellant than anything that has come out of the mouths of the forever-recycled Iraq War Era propagandists. Who were fresh from a deeply partisan propaganda campaign that doesn't have an equivalent in remembered US history. But apparently keeping the careers of these social rejects alive is more important that Ukraine opinion. Choices have consequences, for better and worse. But given this one, its diffuclt to take seriously complaints about signal failure.

mrpopo 3y ago

I like that they are not forcing the word "terrorism". As much as Oct. 7 actions are despicable, "terrorism" is now just a loaded political term that no one cares to define. Are the Israeli settlers terrorists? The Russian army? Wagner? It just distracts attention from the facts.

mrangle 3y ago
Sorry, October 7th was unambiguously terrorism by any civilization's definition. The only disagreement can come from those who are sympathetic to the event. The word terrorism isn't loaded, it isn't political, and it isn't undefineable. It's a term with a concrete definition. Those are the facts.
- stormfather 3y ago
  What is your definition of terrorism?
  - mrangle 3y ago
    https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism Start there. The message to which I responded attempts to disqualify October 7th as terrorism by rhetorically suggesting that other events may or may not be terrorism. Which is a particulalry dumb fallacy to attempt to advance. Whether or not anything else is terrorism has no bearing on whether or not October 7th was. Even if it is all terrorism. If they want to justify october 7th, they should drop the particularly unskilled act of cowardice via wordsmithing. Their immoral disposition is revealed when they attempt to equate "Israeli Settlers" (civilians living their lives, and who didn't own guns let alone specifically focus them on civilians) to those who specifically targeted civilians for mass murder as a means of intimidation and sparking a War. Which is precisely the logic of Hamas. So again, they should drop the act and be more direct about 10/7.
    - archagon 3y ago
      You are reading way too much malice into that comment. It’s not unreasonable to dissuade labeling something as terrorism if it leads to flame wars across the site for more ambiguous situations. In no way does such an editorial action imply support for terrorism and murder, even if you strongly disagree with the reasoning. Instead of lashing out and accusing fairly innocuous people of being terrorist sympathizers and anti-semites across several different threads, maybe step away from the computer for a bit?

nvm0n2 3y ago

I was ready to believe it, but this is a really poor argument for the thesis. First problem, it's written by some pastiche of a blue-check obsessed journalist. The article goes on and on about how some accounts are posting misinformation despite having blue checks. Blue check was never a badge of accuracy, so why are Slate pretending it was? It was at best just a form of ID verification. Then they name one account that supposedly was blue check whilst claiming affiliation with Al Jazeera, but don't link directly to it (of course). Instead the link goes to Reuters which just repeats the claim and also doesn't link to it. Yet after digging and looking at screenshots of this account posted at the time Al Jazeera complained, no blue check is to be seen anywhere. Is Slate itself now spreading misinformation? Second problem, no evidence is provided for the claim in the headline. After some undisguised Musk hatred that doesn't even pretend to be neutral journalism, Harrison spends numerous paragraphs explaining how Wikipedia works, presumably for people who spent the last 20 years in a coma. We are told that Wikipedia is clearly superior because anyone can edit it, except at the moment when they can't but only "the self-proclaimed free speech absolutists on X" care about that, and because you have to cite reliable sources like newspapers. That "age old rule" has protected Wikipedia from citing cell-phone sourced misinformation. But this makes no sense because it was only days ago that major newspapers were having to apologize for having blindly repeated misinformation about the Gaza conflict. The rest of the article is about wiki-fights over choices of words: is it a war between Israel and Hamas or Israel and Gaza. Were the men who attacked the music festival terrorists or militants, and was that a massacre or something else? We are told "the impact of Wikipedia’s description ... cannot be overstated" because "journalists often turn to its pages for guidance". This article offers no specific evidence that Wikipedia is doing a better job of covering the war. It's not even made clear what it means for such services to "cover" something. This is really just another complaint by a journalist that Twitter doesn't give them special blue check privileges anymore, whereas Wikipedia still does.

araes 3y ago

I would note that Wikipedia coverage of the Ukraine conflict is also superior to anything I have even slightly seen in major world news sources. Tend to look at AP, Reuters, AlJazeera, TASS, SCMP, Xinhuanet, none are close in details about the actual battles and conflicts - at least from the coverage that gets filtered for me based on their algorithms. There are two Large articles covering: 2014-present issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War 2022-present invasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine An outline with all major events that have occured since 2014: outline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian... AND an animated map that shows every major force movement from 2022 to present: animated gif map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/2022_Russian_Invasion_of_Ukraine_animated.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/2022_Rus... Same with Sudan, had no idea until looking at the Wikipedia page the fight had now fractured into four combatant groups.

floxy 3y ago
>AND an animated map that shows every major force movement from 2022 to present: ...looks like that animation goes from February 24th, 2022 through December 3rd, 2022 (unless I'm missing something).
- araes 3y ago
  Did not check to make sure it went all the way. On looking, it was because there was a long winter stalemate where almost nothing happened for half a year. The 2023 conflict article covers further progress this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Ukrainian_counteroffensiv...
hulitu 3y ago
> I would note that Wikipedia coverage of the Ukraine conflict is also superior to anything I have even slightly seen in major world news sources It is the same as in major world news sources: partizan, without objective reporting and using "special" words. Wikipedia is becoming a shadow of itself.

two_handfuls 3y ago

At this point, a potato would do better than X.

Zanni 3y ago

Counterpoint: Wikipedia, by it's nature, strives to coalesce around a single narrative (there may be a lot of wrangling behind the scenes, but that's what they present). That puts them in line with much of the mainstream media, who have gotten several key events of the war fantastically wrong. Twitter, by contrast, presents multiple points of view. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want to follow accounts cheering on Hamas, well, you're an animal, but go for it. If you want to follow IDF or particular sources you trust, you're probably much better informed than anyone reading, e.g., the New York Times. Blue check marks have nothing to do with it. This reads like the last gasp of a gatekeeper trying to remain relevant in an increasingly distributed world.