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Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

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Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#51

Post by jscipione »

monocasa wrote: post #50
jscipione wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Conservators feel like they are being censored because they are and liberals who support censorship are behind it.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#52

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

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…

This is the problem though, people who are "informed" of the culture war (on either side) have been given a list of dog whistles which are "facts" - true data but which can supposedly be bent to service of enemy objectives.

I've seen so many of these in the last few years who people on the talk pages are literally saying "Yes, but we can't let the Rep/Dem party benefit from this!"

An example of this that I saw was the "86-45" kerfuffle. To eighty-six something means dispose of, in some contexts to kill, and when someone was referenced saying this about trump (president 45) the fans of whoever said it went to Wiki and removed years-old references to the term meaning kill. It was obviously a reasonable statement meaning vote-out in context but they weren't happy letting people read the article and form the correct opinion - they wanted to censor all "potentially misleading" facts.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#54

Post by yeet_yeet_yeet »

> 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 stuff is never going to be taught in school (maybe in undergrad history program, but who majors in history?). But it's on Wikipedia.

In terms of non-controversial topics, there's tons of value on Wikipedia as well. There is a broad collection of informative math and physics articles, I have read many of them and would argue they're useful. And also like one for every species of butterfly and virus.

In terms of modern AND controversial topics, I agree that Wikipedia is sometimes the target of some bullshit psyops and corporate whitewashing. But if you're willing to cut through that, lots of articles have useful information, like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War. Even the title is relatively unbiased (unless you're in the west :) ). You don't go to Wikipedia for a peer reviewed article that's 100% accurate and defensible, you go to get a straight answer that's 90% correct, when every journalist and public figure is spewing a load of hot shit. And that's why, for example, when you Google "Darrell Brooks" the top suggestion is "Darrell Brooks wiki".

So yeah, I gave them 100 bucks. I don't care what they do with it. If they donate it to the Dr. Evil Foundation for Evil or somebody, fine whatever. As long as Wikipedia stays up.

I have a backup as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#55

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

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.

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.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#56

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #53
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #32

People sure love to hate Wikipedia. I wonder why.

No, we love Wikipedia and all the abuses bother us more than we benefit from a momentary partisan edge.

Small potatoes when at the end of the day wikipedia is one of the few great websites we have left.

No ads, tracking, or megacorps. Plenty of transparency.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#57

Post by spacemadness »

adamrezich wrote: post #39
spacemadness wrote: post #19

This 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.

is the statement inaccurate?

Oh yes, it’s an entirely objective observation. /s

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#58

Post by implements »

dsr_ wrote: post #34
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).

Cess pits are useful. Infogalactic, not so much. Complaining that Wikipedia is a source of propaganda and then citing Infogalactic as a balance is a mistake on the order of comparing Reuters and the Babylon Bee. I refer you to https://infogalactic.com/info/Bibhorr

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. Many people believe he is, but it’s not WPs place to authoritatively decide that, or the “Which is more real, sex or gender?” debate, or brand dissenters as immoral wrong-thinkers, or format articles to assert that stance. Ideally, WP should be far more factual and neutral.

NB: This isn’t meant to be about the Trans issue, I used that subject as an illustration of the kind of thing I personally see as ideological bias in WP.

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#59

Post by r721 »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #44
r721 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The crux of their problem with "Philip Cross" is not the amount of his edits (he could be a disabled person without other hobbies after all), but that he fact-checks pro-authoritarian propaganda (and that's why this was reported by "Russian state-owned outlets Sputnik and RT" - quote from BBC story).

Re: Wikipedia Is a Source of Political Propaganda

#60

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

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…

On the covid-misinformation page there are a lot of things that wouldn't be listed as a conspiracy theory if Trump hadn't said them. (I'm saying this as a foreigner.)

For instance, is the Wuhan lab the source of the virus? The correct answer is we don't know, and by now may never. The investigations just weren't done and they're about as detailed and exacting as those for an air crash. Without that it's all just guesses.

The article says that "Covid came from a lab" is misinformation, but not that "Covid DIDN"T come from a lab" is also misinformation.

I spent weeks trying to explain that a source which says "there is no evidence" means no evidence either way. It kept coming back to them saying they felt this paternalistic need to prevent the dumbs from getting the wrong opinion and because Trump had said it and the repubs are dumb, that there was a higher burden to represent that view as wrong than to represent the other views as also wrong!

In the end the article just ended up sounding like CNN. So much for unbiased.

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