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Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

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Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#91

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

woodruffw wrote: post #77
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is the undue weight given to the opinion of those who show up for editing and debating "reliable" sources, and political purity tests during these events. Self-selected editors often don't share the interests of readers of their articles.

There's a no-false-balance policy which means the moon-landing-hoax theory doesn't need to get mentioned on every article related to space.

Why is your view, or anti-view, important enough that it should be mentioned, such that you'd say it was omitted if it wasn't there?

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#92

Post by jscipione »

dale_glass wrote: post #27
jscipione wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right wing views are objectively censored on social media and Wikipedia. “Idiotic rants” are valid free speech and censorship of profanity is a deflection.

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.

You’re right about free speech on Wikipedia but see the linked article where the co-founder declares Wikipedia to be political propaganda. Primary sources are biased against conservatives when they come from left-wing propaganda publications.

Social media however IS meant for specific people to spread their opinions and conservative opinions are censored there.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#94

Post by illuminerdy »

plaguepilled wrote: post #10

>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 fun…

> "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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#95

Post by JetSpiegel »

hunglee2 wrote: post #79
blululu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#96

Post by the_third_wave »

yeet_yeet_yeet wrote: post #54

> 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 . Want to read about Japan's human experimentation program and how the US offered them immunity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 . Obviously this stu…

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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#98

Post by dj_gitmo »

jamespo wrote: post #35
dj_gitmo wrote: post #22

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-trendi…

Craig Murray? sigh

I am not British and don’t know who that is. FWIW I was not editing anything related to British politics.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#99

Post by barbariangrunge »

yeet_yeet_yeet wrote: post #66
barbariangrunge wrote: post #29

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 Editors aren’t even trying…

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.

The implication, I suppose, being that I’m a low quality person? Charming

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#100

Post by throwoutway »

amiga386 wrote: post #83
dj_gitmo wrote: post #22

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-trendi…

Both these articles are from 2018. It would be remiss of you not to mention the 2018 ArbCom case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests... > Philip Cross has engaged in a personalized, public, off-wiki dispute with George Galloway while simultaneously making significant content edits to George Galloway’s article over an extended period of time. > Philip Cross has demonstrated a conflict of inte…

Is there a book or long form of Wikipedia’s contentious history? Would make interesting reading I’d think
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