{"id":235511,"date":"2021-06-08T06:04:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T06:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=235511"},"modified":"2021-06-09T07:17:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T07:17:31","slug":"wikipedia-co-founder-sites-neutrality-is-dead-thanks-to-leftist-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=235511","title":{"rendered":"Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site\u2019s Neutrality Is \u2018Dead\u2019 Thanks to Leftist Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

TD Adler \u2013 Breibart May 26, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, published a blog post<\/a>\u00a0this month declaring that the online encyclopedia\u2019s \u201cneutral point of view\u201d policy is \u201cdead\u201d due to the rampant left-wing bias of the site. Noting the article on President Donald Trump, Sanger contrasted its extensive coverage of presidential scandals with the largely scandal-free article on former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Sanger also criticized Wikipedia\u2019s coverage of religion and other controversial topics. After Fox News reported<\/a> on his blog post, many Wikipedians ignored the bias Sanger identified and instead responded by attacking the conservative outlet as well as Sanger.<\/p>\n

On May 14, Sanger published<\/a> a blog piece titled \u201cWikipedia Is Badly Biased\u201d and started by declaring Wikipedia\u2019s \u201cNeutral Point of View\u201d policy dead. Having founded the online encyclopedia with Jimmy Wales and having been involved in the original drafting<\/a> of the policy, Sanger offered particular insight into its development and its practice in recent years. On the current policy\u2019s rejection of providing \u201cequal validity\u201d to different views, Sanger stated this went directly against the original policy\u2019s intent and that \u201cas journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Providing examples, Sanger noted former President Obama\u2019s article<\/a> excludes most notable scandals during his Administration, such as the bungled ATF Fast and Furious operation that armed Mexican cartels<\/a> who killed a U.S. border agent or the targeting of Tea Party groups<\/a> by the IRS. By contrast, Sanger pointed to Trump\u2019s article<\/a> containing overwhelmingly negative sections on the President regarding his \u201cpublic profile\u201d as well as investigations and impeachment. The sections critical of Trump and his presidency are nearly as long as those dealing with his presidency overall. He further criticized Wikipedia repeatedly saying Trump makes false statements rather than attributing such characterizations to sources.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia\u2019s coverage of other contentious political topics such as abortion were also criticized with Sanger singling out Wikipedia claiming abortion is \u201cone of the safest procedures in medicine.\u201d He pointed out how articles on legalization of drugs and gay adoption were focused on positives with little to no mention of criticisms. In the latter case, Sanger noted the section<\/a> on \u201cdebate\u201d about gay adoption only included arguments in favor rather than any against it. Sanger also criticized Wikipedia\u2019s coverage of religion describing the article on Jesus as \u201ca \u2018liberal\u2019 academic discussion\u201d focused \u201con assorted difficulties and controversies\u201d without explaining \u201ctraditional or orthodox views of those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further criticism was directed at Wikipedia\u2019s handling of scientific issues, where Sanger acknowledged some would consider a \u201cbias towards science\u201d to be desirable. However, he noted that it is not always clear what constitutes a legitimate scientific view and Wikipeda tends to \u201ctake for granted\u201d and \u201caggressively assert\u201d the views of the scientific establishment despite scientific minorities rejecting or criticizing these views such as on global warming. In the end, Sanger called on Wikipedia\u2019s community to concede that they have abandoned neutrality, while stating this was unlikely as Wikipedia editors \u201clive in a fantasy world of their own making.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his post was covered by Fox News, editors on Wikipedia posted<\/a> about his remarks on a discussion page for the site\u2019s other co-founder, Jimmy Wales,\u00a0where users bring issues to his attention and seek his comments. While Wales has yet to respond to Sanger\u2019s criticism, many other editors responded to the news, though most avoided addressing his concerns about political bias. Instead, editors mainly focused on criticizing Fox News with one of the first editors responding stating<\/a> \u201cfact and neutrality have their own bias, and one largely at odds with Fox.\u201d One cynically suggested<\/a> Sanger\u2019s criticism was him angling for a position at the network.<\/p>\n

Editors on Wikipedia often dismiss criticism of the site\u2019s history of left-wing bias<\/a>, despite repeated incidents such as editors burying<\/a> information about CNN\u2019s blackmail controversy<\/a>, an editor running a smear campaign<\/a> against then-nominee for the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh, or Antifa supporters downplaying<\/a> the far-left group\u2019s violent conduct<\/a> including by censoring<\/a> mention of the attack on journalist Andy Ngo. Smears of President Trump have included listing him<\/a> and various prominent conservatives as advocates of a \u201cNeo-Nazi conspiracy theory\u201d for talking about South African farm attacks. Editors contrarily defended<\/a> then-incoming New York Times<\/em> editor Sarah Jeong\u2019s bigoted anti-white commentary.<\/p>\n

Wikipedia\u2019s bias was particularly evident on Russiagate as editors sought<\/a> to \u201cpurge\u201d reliable sources that criticized Russia hacking allegations and continued pushing<\/a> the Trump campaign collusion theory, such as by insisting on the credibility of the infamous Steele Dossier, despite Mueller\u2019s report into alleged Russian interference finding no evidence supporting the theory. They also repeatedly<\/a> spun<\/a> articles on the Ukraine controversy against Trump and censored<\/a> the alleged name of the \u201cwhistleblower\u201d whose complaint sparked the impeachment drive.<\/p>\n

Editors have even banned numerous conservative news sources, including Breitbart<\/a>, sometimes citing<\/a> their unfavorable reporting of the Russiagate narrative as evidence.<\/p>\n

Having departed Wikipedia in its earlier years, Sanger has been a critic of the site\u2019s path in the time since and has attempted to help or establish various alternatives to the site such as Citizendium and Everipedia. In his blog post he cites his latest project<\/a> Encyclosphere, which seeks to build a network of online encyclopedias with a variety of perspectives similar to the blogosphere. Such alternatives have struggled to challenge the dominance of Wikipedia due to Big Tech sites such as YouTube<\/a> and Facebook<\/a> heavily incorporating and favoring Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

Media outlets increasingly<\/a> tout<\/a> the \u201creliability\u201d of Wikipedia, many citing it<\/a> as the solution to \u201cfake news\u201d and numerous recent<\/a> pieces<\/a> describing it as a vital information source on the coronavirus pandemic. Wikipedia is so widely relied on that studies found<\/a> its content shapes scientific research and economic patterns. News outlets and academic textbooks have sometimes copied Wikipedia content uncredited, such as the site\u2019s heavily slanted<\/a> article smearing the GamerGate anti-corruption movement in gaming, which has been copied extensively<\/a> by outlets including the BBC and USA Today<\/em>. Given widespread adoption of Wikipedia by establishment institutions, the criticism from its co-founder will likely go unheeded.<\/p>\n

D. Adler<\/a> edited Wikipedia as The Devil\u2019s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site\u2019s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mainstream media outlets frequently tout the Wikipedia’s “reliability” but the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, says its “neutral point of view” no longer exists <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":189397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235512,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235511\/revisions\/235512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/189397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}