Co-founder warns: Wikipedia is more biased than ever

Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger warned that the online encyclopedia is more one-sided than ever, as evidenced by its entries on controversial topics such as Black Lives Matter (BLM), the 2020 U.S. elections, and the two impeachments of former President Trump.

In particular, Sanger takes issue with the sources cited in some of the Wiki entries.

“In short, with few exceptions, only globalist (globalist), progressive (progressive) mainstream sources, and sources friendly to globalist progressivism, are allowed.” He wrote in an article on his personal website.

Several centrist news outlets, such as The Daily Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard, are sometimes allowed as sources, he said. However, Wikipedia’s editors are “careful never to leave the Overton window of current progressive thinking.

Note: The Overton window is a well-known political theory coined by political scientist Joseph Overton in the 1990s. The “Overton window” refers to the range of policy and political dialogue that is acceptable to the mainstream public at a given time in the political climate.

Wikipedia’s approach to content review differs from that of Facebook and Twitter. Wikipedia, which celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this year, relies heavily on unpaid volunteers to handle questions about user behavior, editing entries and other aspects of site management.

According to Reuters, Wikipedia has 230,000 volunteer editors who work on “crowdsourced articles” and more than 3,500 “administrators” who can block accounts or restrict editing to certain pages.

In addition, Sanger notes that Wikipedia’s editors “systematically purge conservative mainstream sources” because the wiki’s editors “don’t want claims that they dismiss as ‘misinformation,’ ‘conspiracy theories,’ and ‘conspiracy theories. conspiracy theory’ claims that get any exposure.”

“They (and similarly biased institutions) clearly have exclusive control over what to think about. They want to set the boundaries of the debate, they want to tell you how to think.” Sanger wrote.

Sanger noted that Wikipedia has banned Fox News’ political coverage, the New York Post and the Daily Mail as sources.

According to Wikipedia’s available sources description page, other conservative news sites such as Breitbart, “The Blaze,” “The Daily Wire,” “Gateway Pundit” and “Newsmax” have also been banned.

He added: “Many mainstream conservative, liberal or contrarian sources have also been banned from Wikipedia, including the online magazines ‘Quillette,’ ‘The Federalist,’ and ‘The Federalist. ‘ (The Federalist) and ‘The Daily Caller’ (The Daily Caller), among others.”

“These may be counter-trendy or conservative, but it’s hard to call them ‘radical’; they’re still mainstream. So how exactly does one get on Wikipedia and publish such views?”

The answer, Sanger says, “is that, in general, they can’t, if no ‘reliable source’ has confirmed that they can be reported.”

Sanger concludes, “It is no exaggeration to say that Wikipedia, like many other heavily biased institutions in our ‘brave new digital world’ (often the opposite), has become the thought police, effectively shackling those they disagree with. effectively shackling the conservative views they disagree with.”

“Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions. I maintain that Wikipedia has become a vibrant opponent of democracy.”

Democracy, he argues, “requires that voters be provided with the full range of views on controversial issues so that they can make their own decisions.”

“It would make a mockery of democracy if society’s main sources of information were ideologically aligned. In this way, the rich and powerful could manipulate and control all important political discussions by controlling only a small number of approved and acceptable bodies of thought.” Sanger writes.

Sanger and Jimmy Wales co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, for which Sanger is named. Sanger left the project the following year and has been a critic of the site for years.