Twitter CEO Elon Musk called out Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales on Tuesday after leftist editors on the site were pushing to have a page removed on last week’s release of “The Twitter Files.”
Musk released internal company communications through journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday about the company’s censorship of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election and about how the platform removed content at the behest of the Democratic Party.
The story appeared on Wikipedia under the page name “Twitter Files Investigation” and featured the following short explanation of what has so far been released:
Twitter Files is a Substack article by Matt Taibbi published in December 2022. It presented internal emails amongst Twitter employees who were discussing moderation of content related to the New York Post article that fomented the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. Officials of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party asked Twitter employees to remove tweets they flagged.
Writer Ian Miles Cheong flagged the conversations that Wikipedia’s editors were having about the page for Musk to see on Twitter.
TIRED OF THE LEGACY MEDIA’S BIAS CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE AND OBSCURING THE TRUTH? JOIN US.
“Wikipedia is voting on the deletion of the entry for Elon Musk’s Twitter Files because the editors have deemed it a ‘nothing burger’ that is ‘not notable’ because the media didn’t give it enough coverage,” Cheong tweeted. “These people work hand in hand with the MSM to shape the narrative.”
Cheong included in his tweet screenshots from editors at Wikipedia that wanted the page removed.
Some of the comments from editors included:
- “I don’t know where to start explaining why this should be deleted. It’s a disaster. Maybe we can have a Twitter Files article, but not this one.”
- “Delete: This was generally ignored by the media (with good reason) and thus failed to establish notability.”
- “Delete: I would suggest a merge, but there’s not really anything here. Even as a stub it suffers from being unsourced in some places and poorly sourced in others, suggesting a lack of notability. It also doesn’t have a clearly defined topic. Is this about an investigation, or is this about a Substack article? While the title suggests the former and the lede suggests the latter, the content of the article is actually about neither. There is no investigation, and the article lacks any notable information about what the self-published article had to offer. The original revision was much larger than the current one because once you trim out the poorly written editorialized sensationalism there’s not really anything left.”
- “Delete: This is a three-sentence description of a self-published internet page. Not Notable.”
- “Delete: — under the scope of the laptop article.”
- “Delete: – this self-published blogpost (with a grandiose title) lacks significant coverage in reliable sources. If relevant, discourse relating to the blogpost could be covered under the laptop page. I don’t think a merge is necessary.”
Musk responded, “Most of Earth: ‘The MSM is biased.’ Wikipedia: ‘Cite MSM source to confirm this claim.’ 🤣🤣 Wikipedia has a non-trivial left-wing bias. @jimmy_wales, what are your thoughts?”
Most of Earth: “The MSM is biased.”
Wikipedia: “Cite MSM source to confirm this claim.” 🤣🤣Wikipedia has a non-trivial left-wing bias.@jimmy_wales, what are your thoughts?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022