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STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- While Wikipedia has become the world’s most powerful thought leader — controlling a vast amount of internet information and being used to determine the credibility of experts across most fields — Wikipedia itself warns it is not a reliable source, as it can be edited by anyone at any time
- Despite this blatant admission of unreliability, Wikipedia is the go-to site for Google quality raters to assess the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an author or website
- Despite Wikipedia’s claims of neutrality, what they’re putting on their site is some of the most biased information you’ll find anywhere in media today
- Scientists found 9 of 10 of the costliest medical conditions covered on Wikipedia contain assertions that are contradicted by peer-reviewed medical literature
- A specialized Wikipedia project called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia recruits skeptics to edit pages and squash opposing views. In 2018, this project had at least 120 editors
Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published July 8, 2019.
You may think Wikipedia — originally funded with revenue from soft-core pornography1 — is the best thing since Cliff Notes, with quick and easy access to all the facts and news you ever needed to know. Some believe Wikipedia is even better than Encyclopedia Britannica; indeed, Wikipedia’s founders intended it to be a replacement for it. But is Wikipedia really a trustworthy source?
Wikipedia Is Not a Reliable Source
Interestingly enough, while Wikipedia has become the world’s most powerful thought leader — controlling a vast amount of internet information and being used to determine the credibility of experts across most fields — Wikipedia itself warns it is NOT a reliable source. It states:2
“Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time. This means that any information it contains at any particular time could be vandalism, a work in progress, or just plain wrong.
Biographies of living persons, subjects that happen to be in the news, and politically or culturally contentious topics are especially vulnerable to these issues. Edits on Wikipedia that are in error may eventually be fixed.
However, because Wikipedia is a volunteer run project, it cannot monitor every contribution all of the time. There are many errors that remain unnoticed for days, weeks, months, or even years. Therefore, Wikipedia should not be considered a definitive source in and of itself.”
Despite this blatant admission of unreliability, Wikipedia is the go-to site for Google quality raters to assess the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an author or website. There’s also evidence showing Wikipedia is edited by people with a very specific agenda, and anyone who tries to clarify or clear up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked.
Wikipedia Is Ruled by Skeptics With Biased Agendas
Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, for example, has repeatedly tried to “correct provably false facts” about her background on Wikipedia, only to be told she’s not a reliable source and having her edits overridden by anonymous editors that guard her page, making sure her award-winning work is kept hushed and her character portrait tarnished.3
Anyone looking at Wikipedia to assess Attkisson’s expertise as a journalist — without already being familiar with her stellar body of work — would walk away thinking she’s an unreliable source, when in fact she’s one of a very few impeccable truth-tellers of our time.
Other examples of “sanitizing” certain pages and tarnishing others can be found in a June 28, 2015 article4 in The Epoch Times. As noted by Deepak Chopra in a 2013 article:5
“Thanks to the Internet, skepticism can spread with the speed of light, carrying in its wake all forms of unfairness and bad faith. A distressing example has been occurring at Wikipedia, where a band of committed skeptics have focused their efforts to discredit anyone whom they judge an enemy …
[S]keptics … have become so skilled at thwarting anyone who disagrees with their point of view that a small swarm of skeptical editors is capable of outnumbering, bullying, and even banning all those who oppose them.”
Similarly, British journalist and author Robert McLuhan, who covers consciousness, spirituality and psi research, had the following to say about Wikipedia in 2013:6
“Recently I’ve been poking around on the site to see how psi topics are presented. My impression is that a novice would come away with a pretty jaundiced view. It’s obvious that sceptics are busily re-editing articles in their favour, and a reader has kindly sent me a link that shows how they do this.
It’s a project called Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia,7 run by Susan Gerbic, who recruits sceptics to give pages a makeover, both those that publicise their own side (ie debunkers, key sceptic figures, etc) and also the opposition’s (celebrity psychics, paranormal claimants, etc).
This is a specialised activity and Gerbic’s blog8 gives tips and techniques. Recently she’s gone global, getting sceptics to edit foreign language pages.”
According to Wired, the Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project had at least 120 editors as of 2018.9 For an inside look at what many Wikipedia editors seeking more neutral coverage are up against, read this six-part series on The Weiler Psi blog.10 To learn even more, check out Wikipediocracy11 — an entire organization dedicated to exposing the many problems and hypocrisy of Wikipedia.
Even Lawrence (Larry) Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, bailed ship the very next year,12 saying “trolls sort of took over” the site, that “The inmates started running the asylum,”13 and that “In some fields and some topics, there are groups who ‘squat’ on articles and insist on making them reflect their own specific biases.”14,15
In 2012, evidence also emerged revealing a Wikipedia trustee and Wikipedian in Residence were being paid to edit pages on behalf of their clients and secure their placement on Wikipedia’s front page in the “Did You Know” section,16 which publicizes new or expanded articles17 — a clear violation of Wikipedia rules.
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