Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

battlepenguin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 105 posts

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#71

Post by JSchmoe »

jscipione wrote: post #17
dangerwill wrote: post #9

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/ 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.

1. Wikipedia is supposed to be objective truth. Right wing and left wing views are opinions on how the world should be, so neither belong on Wikipedia.

2. What right wing views are censored on social media? Superiority of capitalism over other economic systems? Less taxes leading to better prosperity? Reduced government regulation lets innovation flourish? Welfare programs are a waste of money? I see these views get debated and their pros and cons pointed out, not censored.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#72

Post by implements »

woodruffw wrote: post #65
implements wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was specifically citing the contrast between the two articles. I know little of IG, but IG’s is what I’d expect an encyclopaedic article on this subject to look like, with (as I said) the inclusion of a paragraph about his views on sex and gender. WP’s puts his views (ideologically slanted as anti-trans rather than as he sees them gender critical ) front and centre, and thereby characterises him as a bad person. Ma…

The "anti-trans" label is a rejection of false balance, not a particular ideological stance. It's roughly in line with Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions. Compare, for example, the white supremacists who call themselves "race realists."

That’s the stated rationale, but with respect I disagree that it isn’t ideological or slanted.

In my experience in the UK people who describe themselves as gender critical are older left-leaning (majority lesbian) women and hold their long held (1970s onwards) beliefs in good faith and from a position of pro-female / pro same sex-attracted rights, and resistance to gender as a useful social construct.

They’re not anti-trans by primary motivation - it’s that the logical consequence of what they believe about the nature of sex and gender leads them to believe that “Trans-X aren’t X”. But from an opposing ideological viewpoint this is deemed definitionally transphobic, and the slant becomes evident when it’s asserted that this transphobic sentiment is and must be at the heart of what motivates gender critical beliefs - “They espouse their beliefs as racists espouse ‘race realism’ - as a guise to discriminate against the other”.

But in this case it’s simply not true, and denying that citing “false balance” is in itself biased and disingenuous.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#73

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

woodruffw wrote: post #65
implements wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was specifically citing the contrast between the two articles. I know little of IG, but IG’s is what I’d expect an encyclopaedic article on this subject to look like, with (as I said) the inclusion of a paragraph about his views on sex and gender. WP’s puts his views (ideologically slanted as anti-trans rather than as he sees them gender critical ) front and centre, and thereby characterises him as a bad person. Ma…

The "anti-trans" label is a rejection of false balance, not a particular ideological stance. It's roughly in line with Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions. Compare, for example, the white supremacists who call themselves "race realists."

This is one of the dog whistles I mentioned in an earlier post. Women asking for sex-based rights such as female-only sports.

An example of this is the LGB Association in the UK. They're a homosexual rights organization and they talk about sex-based rights. They're currently undergoing a tribunal to strip their charity status depending on in their charitable goals match their actions.

Wiki editors have gamed what sources are considered reliable until they're all the ones that condemn this organization and none that support them. The article doesn't actually mention any of their words or stated goals, just what you're supposed to think about them ("anti-trans agenda, etc") and the criticism section is even worse. None of the sources explicitly used for criticism is even criticizing their actual words - just the supposedly hidden meaning.

> Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions

Pro-Up isn't Anti-Down. There's a big difference between pro-woman and anti-trans and trying to "unsoften" one into the other is trying to put words in people's mouths.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#74

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

dale_glass wrote: post #67
0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure what is "Free Speech (tm)", but I'd say neither version belongs on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is supposed to be a collection of facts, not of self-expression. Eg, we see here on the front page that Fred Brooks passed away on Nov 18, 2022. That's either a fact or it isn't. If it is a fact, then that's what his article should contain.

"Free Speech (tm)" is what you appear to be arguing against. If I had to guess, you envision people who are vocal about free speech as holding views you disagree with. Whereas as a moral/ethical principle, you cannot have a Wikipedia without the free exchange of ideas - whether it's fact or opinion.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#75

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

woodruffw wrote: post #28
implements wrote: post #24

The article references https://infogalactic.com as a WP alternative. Constrast: https://infogalactic.com/info/Graham_Linehan with: 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).

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.

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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#76

Post by dale_glass »

0xbadc0de5 wrote: post #74
dale_glass wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what is "Free Speech (tm)", but I'd say neither version belongs on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is supposed to be a collection of facts, not of self-expression. Eg, we see here on the front page that Fred Brooks passed away on Nov 18, 2022. That's either a fact or it isn't. If it is a fact, then that's what his article should contain.

"Free Speech (tm)" is what you appear to be arguing against. If I had to guess, you envision people who are vocal about free speech as holding views you disagree with. Whereas as a moral/ethical principle, you cannot have a Wikipedia without the free exchange of ideas - whether it's fact or opinion.

> "Free Speech (tm)" is what you appear to be arguing against.

And what would that be?

> If I had to guess, you envision people who are vocal about free speech as holding views you disagree with.

This has nothing to do with Wikipedia. My contention is that Wikipedia is not for "speech" at all, of any kind.

Eg, this is not "free speech" in any of its meanings: "New York, often called New York City (NYC),[a] is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States."

That's a factual statement that can have been compiled by an AI. It's not an expression of the views or opinions of any single person, and one that can be extracted from maps and databases.

> Whereas as a moral/ethical principle, you cannot have a Wikipedia without the free exchange of ideas - whether it's fact or opinion.

True, but the actual contents of Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to constitute exchanges of ideas.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#77

Post by woodruffw »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #75
woodruffw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

This is a lot of defense, which is sort of irrelevant. All I've said is that Linehan's current public status and notability centers around each of the things mentioned in his Wikipedia article, which is...exactly what Wikipedia is supposed to be for.

The material content of his positions isn't that important to me; only that Wikipedia doesn't conveniently omit those positions.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#79

Post by hunglee2 »

blululu wrote: post #16
hunglee2 wrote: post #8

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]'

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 thi…

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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#80

Post by woodruffw »

implements wrote: post #72
woodruffw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "anti-trans" label is a rejection of false balance, not a particular ideological stance. It's roughly in line with Wikipedia's broader policy of rejecting "softening" labels that groups use to obscure their positions. Compare, for example, the white supremacists who call themselves "race realists."

That’s the stated rationale, but with respect I disagree that it isn’t ideological or slanted. In my experience in the UK people who describe themselves as gender critical are older left-leaning (majority lesbian) women and hold their long held (1970s onwards) beliefs in good faith and from a position of pro-female / pro same sex-attracted rights, and resistance to gender as a useful social construct. They’re not ant…

> They’re not anti-trans by primary motivation - it’s that the logical consequence of what they believe about the nature of sex and gender leads them to believe that “Trans-X aren’t X”.

This reasoning is suspect: most people don't wake up and decide to be "Anti-X" as a "primary" motivation; they're "Anti-X" because it adheres to all kinds of other positions they have, and humans are pattern-matching beings.

In other words: most people exhibit prejudice not for its own sake, but for some other sake. This doesn't meaningfully change the fact that it would be correct to label them as prejudiced.

Post reply on HN