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Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

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Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#41

Post by dsfyu404ed »

psychphysic wrote: post #6
hulitu wrote: post #2

> Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda > Although the free online encyclopedia is good at general information about broad topics, it’s terribly inaccurate for anything political, contentions or controversial. No. Who would have thought ?

Sadly it's far more pervasive than just political content.

Why is this downvoted?

I can't count the number of times where I've come across some boring, mundane topic and quickly figured out (by observing reality conflicting with what I'm seeing) that the discourse is dominated by one group or another who come into it with their own assumptions.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#42

Post by psychphysic »

Jeema101 wrote: post #12
psychphysic wrote: post #5

I 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." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak

You seem to be part of the cover up!

The fact you likely aren't even aware of the incredible controversy around this topic makes clear the santization is working.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#43

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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 wikipedia one has an extensive edit history going back to 2006, the Infogalactic one seems to have a single revision, presumably copied from Wikipedia at some point in 2016.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#44

Post by cool_dude85 »

r721 wrote: post #38
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…

George Galloway, Craig Murray and MintPress News are also propagandists (possibly even state-backed judging from their positive attitude to authoritarian regimes), not some objective truth seekers.

Ok - but they don't claim to be otherwise (except state-backed, I guess). That doesn't make the factual claims in the GP's post false. If you ever catch them getting into wiki edit wars you can hold them up as an example of political propaganda on wikipedia too.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#45

Post by psychphysic »

Spivak wrote: post #23
psychphysic wrote: post #5

I 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…

I don't know what you do here. It's being omitted because the alternative is pouring fire on the campaigns by anti-lgbt groups who are trying to use the outbreak as an opportunity to spread the "gay men are pedophile groomers" narrative whenever a child catches monkeypox which when people believe this garbage manifests in real life harm. Could you explain this whole controversy in the Wikipedia article? Yes, but doin…

How about just having the encyclopedia stick to the facts?

It's not all anti-LGBT stuff although, that is perennial.

But there were doubts around the vaccine safety and effectiveness.

And the campaign was secretive (invites asked you not to disclose to others it was happening).

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#46

Post by jscipione »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #33
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.

ya gotta source on that one buddy? I remain skeptical that there even is such a thing as "objectively" on this subject, but every time I see someone trying to look into or tally this up the main social media platforms are slightly-to-somewhat more tolerant of fringe right views than they are fringe left. A confounder here is that social media inherits a lot of american political bias, and america has no mainstream le…

Fact checks are biased against conservative views. Warning labels for left wing political ideas like global warming are attached to posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube which are patronizing and censorious. A quick search found dozens of examples that backup my point but perhaps a source you might accept showing Conservative censorship comes from Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/08/19/most-america...

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#47

Post by DontchaKnowit »

indymike wrote: post #37

Wikipedia is not the source of propaganda, but it is targeted by propagandists and people wanting to shape the world's collective memory. Calling Wikipedia the source is a lot like calling the phone company the source of debt collection calls.

But doesnt wikipedia solicit donations that get funnelled to wikimedia, which is a political entity? So they are kinda both the source and the conduit

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#48

Post by mch82 »

If you feel there is a problem with unsubstantiated claims on the page, please edit the page and add “citation needed” tags to those claims. Here’s how to add them, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed

If the overall article needs more citations then you can edit the page and apply the “more citations needed” tag, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:More_citations_need...

Here’s an overview of Wikipedia’s approach to site reliability. Lots of tools to help flag content that needs verification and there are lists of volunteer opportunities to clean up content that had been flagged. Check it out, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Reliab....

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#49

Post by indymike »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #47
indymike wrote: post #37

Wikipedia is not the source of propaganda, but it is targeted by propagandists and people wanting to shape the world's collective memory. Calling Wikipedia the source is a lot like calling the phone company the source of debt collection calls.

But doesnt wikipedia solicit donations that get funnelled to wikimedia, which is a political entity? So they are kinda both the source and the conduit

Wikimedia does not edit the content on Wikipedia, so they are not the source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#50

Post by monocasa »

jscipione wrote: post #46
giraffe_lady wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ya gotta source on that one buddy? I remain skeptical that there even is such a thing as "objectively" on this subject, but every time I see someone trying to look into or tally this up the main social media platforms are slightly-to-somewhat more tolerant of fringe right views than they are fringe left. A confounder here is that social media inherits a lot of american political bias, and america has no mainstream le…

Fact checks are biased against conservative views. Warning labels for left wing political ideas like global warming are attached to posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube which are patronizing and censorious. A quick search found dozens of examples that backup my point but perhaps a source you might accept showing Conservative censorship comes from Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/08/19/most-ameri…

Your citation doesn't appear to say that right wing views are more censored, only that right wingers think they're more censored.
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