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.
Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
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Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#12I 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 sor…
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."
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#13As 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.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#14[deleted]
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#15I 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.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#16whatever 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]'
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.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#17Yawn, 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/ Anyone who reads hidden/downvoted comme…
Right wing views are objectively censored on social media and Wikipedia. “Idiotic rants” are valid free speech and censorship of profanity is a deflection.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#18The 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 s…
> 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.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#19This 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.
Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda
#20The 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 s…
> 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.