I have several times written about the blatant political bias at Wikipedia, even though it's supposed to be a completely neutral encyclopedia stating facts and nothing else.
Wikipedia has no central authority nor governing body. Instead, it's fully controlled by users. The problem is that Wikipedia is controlled by a majority leftist mob that holds the keys to the locks (all the politically most controversial pages are locked from being edited by anybody but the upper echelons of editors, all of whom are clearly extremely biased.) And this mob does not allow any more conservative editors to gain the keys to these locks. ie. the privileges of editing these articles. (This is pretty much the same thing that has been happening in American universities for the past few decades.)
The thing is, Wikipedia doesn't actually state facts. Maybe it does so when it comes to non-controversial subjects like science or mundane things. But when it comes to politically charged subjects, Wikipedia parrots the mainstream media, without any sort of unbiased fact-checking. Mainstream media is largely used as credible sources for all claims made in these articles, with complete (and intentional) disregard to how biased those sources are. In other words, it's essentially "bias by proxy": Just take a biased source and quote it, to keep up the pretense of just stating sourced "facts".
Of course sometimes the bias of the Wikipedia editors shines through even more clearly than that. There's a high degree of selection bias on what is and isn't written in the articles, and minor details (factually accurate or not) are given more or less emphasis depending on what the political goal is.
I have always said that in order to see how biased a politically charged Wikipedia page is, it's enough read its lede (in other words, the blurb of text at the beginning of the article that comes before the table of content). This is supposed to be a summary of the most important facts, in a condensed form. However, the more bias there is against something, or somebody, the more minor trivia and minutiae (which doesn't belong in this kind of lede even if it were factually accurate) that paints the subject in a negative light there will be, and the more text will be dedicated to this. In contrast, if the bias is in favor of something or somebody, no such minutiae will appear at all. (Even when the thing or person in question is very famous for some particularly negative incident, at the very most it will be mentioned only briefly and in passing in the lede. With personae non grata, however, copious amounts of text will be dedicated to emphasize this.)
Just take, for example, the (current) articles for Hillary Clinton, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Not a single negative thing is mentioned in either lede. Not one. Even though especially Clinton has been the subject of many investigations and many controversies, not one of them is mentioned in the lede. There are tons of positive things said in both, though.
Contrast this with the article for, of course, Donald Trump. For example, how is this something that belongs to the lede of the article?
Almost no mention is made whatsoever about anything positive he has done, prior or during his presidency. The negotiations with North Korea are only mentioned very briefly (in quite drastic contrast with the amount of text dedicated to subjective opinions like the above, or "many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist", which is purely opinion, not fact.)
Quite unsurprisingly, a good portion of the article is nothing but a hit piece against Trump, full of opinions and inferences. There's even an entire section titled "support from the far right", which is not encyclopedic, but an opinion piece (that doesn't belong in Wikipedia according to its own rules.)
Contrast this with the article about Hillary Clinton. There is no hit piece against her. The only controversy that the article doesn't dare to skip is the email controversy, and this is just dry text, not a hit piece, not individual people's opinions, no inferences, nothing, only official statements and results of investigations.
And this isn't even the most blatant example of regressive leftist bias.
Wikipedia is in dire need of a reform to remove political bias. It needs a neutral group of people to lead it and to moderate it, and to enact its own rules (which are happily ignored and circumvented with excuses by the current biased editors).
Wikipedia has no central authority nor governing body. Instead, it's fully controlled by users. The problem is that Wikipedia is controlled by a majority leftist mob that holds the keys to the locks (all the politically most controversial pages are locked from being edited by anybody but the upper echelons of editors, all of whom are clearly extremely biased.) And this mob does not allow any more conservative editors to gain the keys to these locks. ie. the privileges of editing these articles. (This is pretty much the same thing that has been happening in American universities for the past few decades.)
The thing is, Wikipedia doesn't actually state facts. Maybe it does so when it comes to non-controversial subjects like science or mundane things. But when it comes to politically charged subjects, Wikipedia parrots the mainstream media, without any sort of unbiased fact-checking. Mainstream media is largely used as credible sources for all claims made in these articles, with complete (and intentional) disregard to how biased those sources are. In other words, it's essentially "bias by proxy": Just take a biased source and quote it, to keep up the pretense of just stating sourced "facts".
Of course sometimes the bias of the Wikipedia editors shines through even more clearly than that. There's a high degree of selection bias on what is and isn't written in the articles, and minor details (factually accurate or not) are given more or less emphasis depending on what the political goal is.
I have always said that in order to see how biased a politically charged Wikipedia page is, it's enough read its lede (in other words, the blurb of text at the beginning of the article that comes before the table of content). This is supposed to be a summary of the most important facts, in a condensed form. However, the more bias there is against something, or somebody, the more minor trivia and minutiae (which doesn't belong in this kind of lede even if it were factually accurate) that paints the subject in a negative light there will be, and the more text will be dedicated to this. In contrast, if the bias is in favor of something or somebody, no such minutiae will appear at all. (Even when the thing or person in question is very famous for some particularly negative incident, at the very most it will be mentioned only briefly and in passing in the lede. With personae non grata, however, copious amounts of text will be dedicated to emphasize this.)
Just take, for example, the (current) articles for Hillary Clinton, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Not a single negative thing is mentioned in either lede. Not one. Even though especially Clinton has been the subject of many investigations and many controversies, not one of them is mentioned in the lede. There are tons of positive things said in both, though.
Contrast this with the article for, of course, Donald Trump. For example, how is this something that belongs to the lede of the article?
Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency. The statements have been documented by fact-checkers, and the media have widely described the phenomenon as unprecedented in American politics.Why does this belong in the lede of the article, and to this extent?
Almost no mention is made whatsoever about anything positive he has done, prior or during his presidency. The negotiations with North Korea are only mentioned very briefly (in quite drastic contrast with the amount of text dedicated to subjective opinions like the above, or "many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist", which is purely opinion, not fact.)
Quite unsurprisingly, a good portion of the article is nothing but a hit piece against Trump, full of opinions and inferences. There's even an entire section titled "support from the far right", which is not encyclopedic, but an opinion piece (that doesn't belong in Wikipedia according to its own rules.)
Contrast this with the article about Hillary Clinton. There is no hit piece against her. The only controversy that the article doesn't dare to skip is the email controversy, and this is just dry text, not a hit piece, not individual people's opinions, no inferences, nothing, only official statements and results of investigations.
And this isn't even the most blatant example of regressive leftist bias.
Wikipedia is in dire need of a reform to remove political bias. It needs a neutral group of people to lead it and to moderate it, and to enact its own rules (which are happily ignored and circumvented with excuses by the current biased editors).
Comments
Post a Comment