Article by Tim Higgins: “Winners may write history. But Elon Musk has often complained that losers author the Wikipedia entry.
Now conservatives are trying to change that, putting their focus on the unflashy website that gets more eyeballs than the largest U.S. media outlets, making it the latest institution to feel such pressure.
For those not chronically online, however, this past week’s tempest over Wikipedia can be jolting—especially given the site’s objective to remain trustworthy. For many, it is the modern-day encyclopedia—a site written and edited by volunteers that aims to offer, as Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales once said, free access to “the sum of all human knowledge.”
To do that, Wikipedia adheres to three core policies that guide how entries are written. Each article must have a neutral point of view, be verifiable with information coming from published sources and no original research.
In effect, those final two points mean information comes summarized from known media sources. Those policies—and how they’re enforced—are what upset opponents such as billionaire Musk, White House AI czar David Sacks and others who don’t like its perceived slant.
Some call it “Wokepedia.” They talk as if its more than 64 million worldwide entries are fueled by mainstream media lies, pumping out propaganda that feeds online search results. For them, the threat is especially worrisome as Wikipedia is serving as a base layer of knowledge for AI chatbots.
“Wikipedia shapes America,” Tucker Carlson, the right-wing personality, said this past week on his podcast. “And because of its importance, it’s an emergency, in my opinion, that Wikipedia is completely dishonest and completely controlled on questions that matter.”
His guest was Wales’s former associate Larry Sanger, who helped create Wikipedia but left years ago. Since then, Sanger has often complained about the direction of Wikipedia, which, in theory, anyone can contribute to. The Wikimedia Foundation hosts the website, depending on donations to pay for its $207.5 million annual budget. That foundation doesn’t control the editorial processes. Volunteers, through consensus, do…(More)”.
