<div>
Wikipedia has <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/06/22/tech/left-leaning-wikipedia-blocked-founder-from-editing-site-after-he-campaigned-to-make-it-more-balanced/">permanently blocked</a> one of its founders from editing the site after he launched a campaign to make it more ideologically balanced — a move that critics say exposes a deeper problem: the platform&#8217;s well-documented liberal tilt is now being baked directly into the AI engines that hundreds of millions of people rely on for information.
</div>
<div>
Larry Sanger, who coined the name &#8220;Wikipedia,&#8221; drafted its original rules, and co-launched it with Jimmy Wales in 2001, was banned indefinitely after creating WikiProject Intellectual Diversity, an effort to restore what he called the site&#8217;s original commitment to neutrality. Sanger had urged groups historically underrepresented among Wikipedia&#8217;s editors — including Hindus and American conservatives — to become more involved. He was blocked within days.
</div>
<div>
Sanger <a href="https://gizmodo.com/one-of-wikipedias-cofounders-banned-from-the-site-over-influence-campaigns-2000776345">described</a> the process as a &#8220;kangaroo court&#8221; run by a &#8220;mob or a blob,&#8221; with no formal charges, no designated prosecutor, and no real opportunity to defend himself. He noted the bitter irony that one of his nine proposed reforms had specifically called for ending the practice of indefinite blocking, which he considered &#8220;draconian.&#8221;
The ban was pushed primarily by an anonymous editor known as TarnishedPath — the same editor who engineered a year-long freeze on Wikipedia&#8217;s &#8220;Zionism&#8221; article locking in language critics say equates Jewish self-determination with ethnic cleansing, and who had campaigned to label J.K. Rowling as anti-trans on her Wikipedia page. Wikipedia&#8217;s own administrators had just banned TarnishedPath from the entire Israel-Palestine subject area — yet the editor remained influential enough to drive Sanger&#8217;s ouster.
</div>
<div>
The episode illustrates what Sanger has called the site&#8217;s real power structure: not its 262,000 claimed contributors, but a small circle he identifies as just 62 administrator accounts belonging to leadership groups, 85% of whom operate anonymously. Wikipedia&#8217;s source reliability ratings <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_sources_list">tell</a> a similar story — CNN, The New York Times, the BBC, and the Southern Poverty Law Center are rated green for &#8220;generally reliable,&#8221; while Fox News, Newsmax, and the Federalist are rated red for &#8220;generally unreliable.”
</div>
<div>
The consequences of that institutional lean now extend far beyond Wikipedia itself. A June 2025 <a href="https://cybernews.com/news/chatgpt-wikipedia-google-reddit/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">analysis</a> by Profound, which tracks citations across major AI platforms, found that Wikipedia accounts for nearly 48% of ChatGPT&#8217;s top citations. Google AI Overviews and Perplexity draw heavily from the same source.
</div>
<div>
Academic research confirms the concern. A <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.15328">University of Stuttgart study</a> published in 2025 found that major large language models — including various versions of GPT — consistently display mild to strong Left-leaning bias across politically sensitive topics, even when questions are framed to elicit conservative responses. Crucially, the researchers argue this isn&#8217;t accidental: the very process of &#8220;aligning&#8221; AI to be safe and helpful encodes liberal assumptions about harm, fairness, and truth, tilting outputs toward progressive conclusions by design.
</div>
<div>
The result is a feedback loop. A Left-leaning Wikipedia shapes AI training data. AI systems absorb and amplify that tilt. Users who trust those systems to deliver neutral information receive something far less balanced than advertised — with no visible warning label in sight.
</div>

FRA-ILLUSTRATION-APP

Wikipedia Silences Own Founder’s Attempt To Moderate — Now Leftist Bias Is Training AI

Artificial Intelligence

Bias

Leftist

Wikipedia

For most of its existence, Wikipedia has been hailed as a marvel of the digital age: a sprawling, collaborative encyclopedia written by anyone and corrected by everyone. An open marketplace of knowledge. A monument to the democratization of information.
But democracies — political or epistemic — rarely collapse in an instant. They erode from within. And what my team at the Media Research Center (MRC) has uncovered about how Wikipedia operates, and how carefully it conceals that machinery, should alarm anyone who believes a self-governing society depends on an open, honest information sphere.
<a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/11/17/how-wikipedia-infiltrated-colleges-train-next-generation">Our recent investigation</a> shows that Wikipedia and its educational partner, Wiki Education, have developed a vast, little-known system for shaping, and increasingly weaponizing, the content millions of Americans rely on every day. What we found is not simply concerning; it reveals the quiet architecture of an ideological project. It is also possible that, in attempting to hide its operations, Wikipedia has crossed legal lines that could carry serious consequences.
Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, has said openly that the platform no longer reflects its original mission of neutrality. It has become a curator of political narrative, amplifying the messaging of the left rather than serving as an impartial arbiter of knowledge.
<h2>The Blacklist(s)</h2>
Wikipedia is transparent about one thing: it blacklists right-leaning news outlets and conservative non-profits. But even this admission obscures more than it reveals. In reality, <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/02/03/exclusive-wikipedia-effectively-blacklists-all-right">Wikipedia maintains three tiers of blacklists</a> — Blacklisted, Deprecated, and Generally Unreliable — each designed to exclude certain publishers from the encyclopedia’s information ecosystem.
The “Blacklisted” category is the most severe. Sources here are blocked entirely; links cannot even be submitted for review. This is Wikipedia’s “do not pass go” list. It includes outlets such as the Heritage Foundation, Breitbart News, and the Washington Examiner. Content from these organizations is not debated or fact-checked, it is simply turned away at the gate.
The second level, “Deprecated,” involves sources that are “generally prohibited.” Users attempting to cite to these sources receive warnings, before Wikipedia’s editors almost always reject the suggestions. LifeSiteNews, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, and Blaze Media fall here. The effect is the same as the first list, exclusion, just with a thin procedural layer.
The third category, “Generally Unreliable,” is essentially a blacklist with a tiny escape hatch. Wikipedia discourages use of these sources and directs contributors to “more reliable” outlets. The Daily Wire is stuck in this purgatory: technically citable, but heavily disfavored.
The disparities this system produces are staggering. The Daily Wire has been cited only 445 times across Wikipedia. The New York Times, by contrast, appears in more than 1.6 million citations — meaning Wikipedia cites the Times nearly 4,000 times for every single Daily Wire reference. Similar gaps exist with Newsweek, Politico, and The Washington Post, which are cited hundreds of times more frequently than their far more reliable conservative counterparts.
More broadly, <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/02/03/exclusive-wikipedia-effectively-blacklists-all-right">MRC research shows</a> that Wikipedia cites to left-leaning outlets almost 20 times more often than to right-leaning outlets. <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx">Trust in the media is at an all-time low</a>, specifically because of the bias injected into news stories. Wikipedia intentionally magnifies that bias, resulting in gross distortions of reality. We have documented Wikipedia’s smears against many political figures, including President Donald Trump, Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Charlie Kirk. 
When gatekeepers designate half the country’s media ecosystem — representing tens of millions of readers — as inherently “unreliable,” the result is not a pursuit of truth. It is a systematic silencing of outlets disfavored by the ideological left. The encyclopedia built on openness now thrives on exclusion.
<div id="attachment_1011409" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1011409" class="size-large wp-image-1011409" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-864x576.jpg" alt="skynesher. Getty Images. Male teacher giving a lecture from desktop PC during a class at computer lab." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/GettyImages-1079587192-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />skynesher. Getty Images.</div>
<h2>The Student Army</h2>
Yet the core of the MRC’s latest findings lies not in the blacklist itself, but in the machinery feeding content into Wikipedia: Wiki Education, a California nonprofit created as a spin-off of the Wikimedia Foundation, operating with its funding, personnel, and blessing.
Wiki Education recruits college professors to assign Wikipedia editing as coursework. Since 2010, more than 145,000 students have participated, generating over 120 million words of content. On the surface, this could be a civic success story — young people helping build a shared public resource.
But the reality, based on the courses Wiki Education recruits and supports, is far more ideological. Classes such as Queering Religion, Critical Race Feminisms, Queer of Color Critique, Gender and Identity in STEM, and similarly activist-oriented seminars are not fringe exceptions; they are typical of the curriculum Wiki Education promotes.
These disciplines are not merely academic; they are frameworks for political activism. And the content they generate — guided by ideology rather than neutrality — flows directly into Wikipedia. The encyclopedia becomes the final destination for arguments crafted within contemporary left-wing academic theory.
<h2>The Taxpayer Foots The Bill</h2>
Even more astonishing is that this ideological pipeline is largely underwritten by taxpayers. Because Wiki Education embeds itself in public universities, it leverages state-funded faculty, classrooms, and infrastructure to funnel student labor into Wikipedia. Students believe they are learning digital literacy; in practice, many are producing politicized content for a global platform.
The pattern extends to Wiki Education’s leadership. Every traceable political donation from its senior staff and board flows to Democratic candidates, progressive PACs, and left-aligned advocacy groups. While not illegal, it reveals the institutional alignment shaping the organization’s priorities.
<h2>A Potential Legal Problem</h2>
This coordinated system — Wikipedia funding Wiki Education, Wiki Education training student editors, students supplying content that reinforces Wikipedia’s ideological filters — creates not only an informational problem but potentially a legal one.
When Wikipedia spun off Wiki Education in 2013, the structural ties between the two organizations remained unusually close. Yet Wikipedia has insisted in court filings, sworn under penalty of perjury, that it is merely an “interactive computer service,” not a “publisher.” It did so to seek the liability protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
If Wikipedia effectively controls Wiki Education as an alter ego — training, directing, and financing its editorial labor — then it may have misrepresented its true operations under oath. Filing false statements in court is a crime under state and federal law. Attorneys general in jurisdictions where Wikipedia has invoked Section 230, like the state of Florida, may have ample reason to investigate those claims. And while the U.S. Department of Justice has its hands full unwinding the malfeasance committed during the Biden administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi might be interested in this, too.
<h2>Why It Matters</h2>
Wikipedia is not just a reference site. It is infrastructure. It consistently dominates Google search results — Google itself being a company that aggressively manipulates search results to push its own ideology. And modern AI systems, including chatbots, draw heavily from Wikipedia’s content pipelines. When Wikipedia’s entries tilt, so does the entire information ecosystem.
Its blacklist system also has downstream economic effects. Being labeled “unreliable” reduces an outlet’s visibility, decreases traffic, and predictably harms ad revenue. The encyclopedia’s judgments ripple outward into media markets and public perception.
Given these stakes, Congress should investigate. So should the Federal Trade Commission. And attorneys general, especially in cases where Wikipedia has defended its corporate structure under oath, should scrutinize whether the organization misrepresented how it operates.
Wikipedia has every right to express ideological preferences. But it does not have the right to cloak them behind false claims of neutrality to donors, to engage in deceptive or anticompetitive practices, or to misrepresent its structure in legal proceedings.
Transparency requires accountability. And it is long past time for the public to understand what Wikipedia has become.
* * *
Dan Schneider is Vice President for Free Speech at the Media Research Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

From Open Encyclopedia To Ideological Weapon: Wikipedia’s Hidden War On Truth

American Universities

Censorship

Democrats

Investigation

Leftists

Media Bias

Media Research Center

Silicon Valley

Students

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales reportedly stormed out of an interview after being pressed on why he referred to himself as the site’s “founder.”
The incident occurred while Wales was speaking with Tilo Jung for the German political podcast “Jung &amp; Naiv.” When Jung pressed him to clarify if he’s the founder or co-founder, Wales responded, “I don’t care. It’s the dumbest question in the world.”
Jung pressed the topic, asking if there was a “dispute” over the issue. “What are the facts?” Jung asked. “Well, it’s not a fact, it’s an opinion, so you can have whatever opinion you like,” Wales replied. 
Jung tried to nail down that detail again, saying, “For you, you’re the founder?”
“Can I just say again, it doesn&#8217;t matter. I&#8217;ve answered your question four times,” Wales said firmly. He then stood up and said, “You know what? I&#8217;m done. Thank you.”
“What&#8217;s going on?” Jung asked as Wales seemed to head for the exit, prompting Wales to say over his shoulder, “It&#8217;s stupid. Don&#8217;t ask me stupid questions.”
“How is that stupid?” Jung wondered.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia&#039;s founder/co-founder - Jung &amp; Naiv: Episode 792" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uswRbWyt_pg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This isn’t the first time this particular issue has caused strife. During a 2023 <a href="https://lexfridman.com/jimmy-wales-transcript/#chapter1_origin_story_of_wikipedia">interview</a> with Lex Fridman, Wales also called the question of who founded the most popular online encyclopedia “unimportant” and “not that interesting.” 
“I actually think Larry Sanger doesn’t get enough credit for his early work in Wikipedia, even though I think co-founder’s not the right title for that,” he said at the time.
Wales is the co-founder of Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger, but Sanger exited the project in 2002 and has been speaking out against it ever since.
“Wikipedia is badly biased. The original policy long since forgotten, it no longer has an effective neutrality policy. It now touts controversial opinions on politics, religion, and science. And examples have become embarrassingly easy to find,” Sanger <a href="https://x.com/lsanger/status/1260975408167759873">shared on X</a> in 2020 alongside a link to a blog post detailing some of the worst offenses. 
Those listed included a “Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing ‘Obamagate’ story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump.” 
“It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy). At the very least they should admit that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one,” Sanger wrote in the post. “Of course, Wikipedians are unlikely to concede any such thing; they live in a fantasy world of their own making.”
In September, President Donald Trump announced that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was investigating Wikipedia over alleged pro-Kremlin, anti-Western, and anti-Israel bias, and that it was raising serious concerns given that AI chatbots heavily rely on the site’s information, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-goes-to-war-with-wikipedia-over-political-slant">reported</a>.
Sanger expressed his gratitude for the probe, saying, “I am glad that Congress is investigating the use of foreign and U.S. government funds to pay for biased editing on Wikipedia. … There is clearly massive support for this sort of investigation.”
The co-founder added that Wikipedia “makes broad editorial decisions about what constitutes reliable sources, which must be respected by large numbers of participants. … The Wikipedia Foundation could address the situation, but does not.”  He noted that the Wikipedia Foundation also “refuses to reveal the identity of its most powerful editors or to override decisions by editors.”

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia Co-Founder Storms Out Of Interview After Being Asked Simple Question

Media

News

Podcast

Politics

<div>
Wikipedia editors have frozen in place a passage labeling Zionism as ethnic cleansing, blocking changes for at least a year.
On August 27, 2025, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation to examine potential foreign manipulation of Wikipedia, especially content related to Israel and antisemitism. The investigation followed reports of coordinated editorial activity by a network of approximately 40 Wikipedia editors, dubbed the “Gang of 40,” accused of systematically inserting anti-Zionist and anti-Israel narratives into thousands of Wikipedia articles.
</div>
<div>
Ashley Rindsberg, in an October 2024 <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-editors-hijacked-the-israel-palestine-narrative">report</a>, revealed how pro-Hamas Wikipedia editors push propaganda, scrub damaging details about Hamas, and tilt narratives against Israel. As she notes in <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/wiki-wars">Tablet</a>, these editors — many foreign nationals, some allegedly tied to Iranian interests — have racked up more than 850,000 edits across 10,000 articles, dramatically reshaping what the public reads about Zionism. A key controversy centers on a sentence added to the lead paragraph of Wikipedia’s “Zionism” article: “Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible.” This equates Zionism with ethnic cleansing, which was framed as fact in Wikipedia’s neutral “wikivoice.”
</div>
<div>
After a flawed internal dispute process, efforts to challenge the sentence were rejected. Although Wikipedia’s policies require neutrality and rigorous content standards, the “Gang of 40” allegedly exploited Wikipedia’s procedures to push through their preferred version, according to Rindsberg. The resulting Request for Comment (RfC) was closed by an administrator who later admitted to lacking expertise and misapplying site governance policies. A 12-month moratorium was then imposed, freezing the disputed content until February 2026.
</div>
<div>
This moratorium locks the ideologically-driven narrative into the article. The move may have been designed to preserve the sentence until the banned editors could appeal their sanctions and return to editing.
</div>
<div>
Rindsberg notes that several key editors have histories of downplaying Iranian human rights abuses or pushing disinformation aligned with Iranian regime interests. Editor “Iskandar323” allegedly removed references to Iranian atrocities and promoted narratives hostile to dissident groups.
</div>
<div>
Wikipedia’s editorial integrity and its role in shaping public discourse are in question. With AI tools and search engines relying heavily on Wikipedia data, the impact of the manipulation could dominate the digital knowledge ecosystem.
“Profound, a company helping brands monitor and influence their presence in AI search engines, has analyzed 30 million citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity from August 2024 to June 2025,” CyberNews <a href="https://cybernews.com/news/chatgpt-wikipedia-google-reddit/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">reported</a> in June. “OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows a clear preference for Wikipedia, which accounts for nearly half (47.9%) of its top citations within its top 10 most-cited sources.”
</div>

In this photo illustration a Wikipedia logo seen displayed

The Anti-Zionism Sentence Wikipedia Won’t Let You Touch

anti-Israel

Zionism

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating Wikipedia over alleged pro-Kremlin, anti-Western, and anti-Israel bias, raising serious concerns given that AI chatbots heavily rely on the site’s information.
“Profound, a company helping brands monitor and influence their presence in AI search engines, has analyzed 30 million citations across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity from August 2024 to June 2025,” CyberNews <a href="https://cybernews.com/news/chatgpt-wikipedia-google-reddit/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">reported</a> in June. “OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows a clear preference for Wikipedia, which accounts for nearly half (47.9%) of its top citations within its top 10 most-cited sources.”
“Multiple studies and reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at Western audiences,” The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wrote in a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/082725-letter-to-Wikimedia.pdf">letter</a> to Maryana Iskander, the CEO of the Wikipedia Foundation.  “One recent report raised troubling questions about potentially systematic efforts to advance antisemitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles related to conflicts with the State of Israel. A second investigation detailed actions by hostile nation-state actors to expose Western audiences to pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messaging by manipulating Wikipedia articles and other news outlets relied on for training AI chatbots.”
A comprehensive October 2024 <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-editors-hijacked-the-israel-palestine-narrative">report</a> delineated how pro-Hamas editors at Wikipedia were promoting pro-Palestinian propaganda, erasing vital information about Hamas, and biasing the narrative against Israel. An April 2025 <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/exposing-pravda-how-pro-kremlin-forces-are-poisoning-ai-models-and-rewriting-wikipedia/">report</a> titled, “Exposing Pravda: How pro-Kremlin forces are poisoning AI models and rewriting Wikipedia,” showed how pro-Kremlin, anti-Western propaganda was being pushed on the site.
Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, <a href="https://jewishwebsite.com/featured/house-panel-probing-organized-efforts-to-distort-wikipedia-including-entries-on-israel/107583/">expressed his gratitude</a> that the Committee was launching an investigation, saying, “I am glad that Congress is investigating the use of foreign and U.S. government funds to pay for biased editing on Wikipedia. &#8230; There is clearly massive support for this sort of investigation.”
Sanger said Wikipedia “makes broad editorial decisions about what constitutes reliable sources, which must be respected by large numbers of participants. &#8230; The Wikipedia Foundation could address the situation but does not.”  He noted that the Wikipedia Foundation also “refuses to reveal the identity of its most powerful editors or to override decisions by editors.”

Trump Goes To War With Wikipedia Over Political Slant

Anti-American

Trump Administration

Wikipedia’s editors’ forum filled with infighting Wednesday over the appropriate way to refer to a transgender-identifying shooter who killed two children at a Minneapolis Catholic school.
Soon after Robin Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School’s church in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, a small band of Wikipedia editors began to police the online encyclopedia’s article on the shooting, according to <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-if?f=home">Pirate Wires</a>.
The changes started with an editor identified as SuperPianoMan9167 swapping all instances where the shooter was referred to as a male for female terms. The editor also deleted all instances that referred to Westman’s birth name, Robert, arguing that to bring up the name Westman used before he began to identify as female is “deadnaming” and against Wikipedia policy.
“Wikipedia does not include someone&#8217;s birth name, even if it is sourced, unless they were notable under that name; to do otherwise is deadnaming,” SuperPianoMan9167 wrote. The anonymous editor said the risk of deadnaming applies to the shooter’s pronouns, as well.
The edits received pushback.
“[The birth name] is in the headline of arguably the most famous and reputable newspaper in the world [<a href="https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/robert-westman-trans-name-change-manifesto-mary-family-bfhps6kkf">The Times</a>]. To expunge it from WP is so absurd as to warrant invoking <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IGNORE">WP:IGNORE</a>,” an editor identified as Ergo Sum said, referring to Wikipedia’s stance that any rule that “prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia” in a certain circumstance should be ignored.
Editors tried to argue that they were making principled arguments around Wikipedia policy that should not be understood as expressing sympathy for a transgender-identifying mass shooter.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
“It doesn&#8217;t matter how insensitive it is (trust me, I think she was a terrible human being); it’s Wikipedia’s job to get the facts straight. If she identified as a female, then that&#8217;s what what [sic] Wikipedia should reflect, no matter how disgusting of a person someone is,” an editor identified as EF5 wrote.
As of this writing, Wikipedia’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunciation_Catholic_Church_shooting">article</a> on the shooting does not mention the shooter’s birth name, Robert, and exclusively uses female pronouns to refer to the shooter. There is only one mention of Westman as “transgender.”
Another topic of debate stemmed from the FBI’s decision to investigate the shooting as a hate crime.
“I get the antisemitism part, but last I checked, Catholics are not a protected minority, or even just a minority for that matter, so the ‘hate crime’ classification does not apply,” an editor that goes by the online name 46.97.170.26 said.
An editor identified as Unknown Template responded: “The FBI classes hate crimes against any identifiable group, including, shock horror, even Christians and *gasp* white people.”
Unknown Template and others who argued in favor of the hate crime designation appear to have won that argument. The article mentions that the FBI is investigating the shooting as an &#8220;act of domestic terrorism and an anti-Catholic hate crime.”
Westman attacked Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday morning as students and staff attended mass in the school’s church. Westman fired through the church’s windows from the parking lot, killing two students and injuring 17 others. Westman later turned his gun on himself, according to police.
Westman catalogued his extensive hate against Catholics, Jews, Donald Trump, and himself in writings, pictures, and videos. In one entry, Westman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wish-i-never-brain-washed-myself-minnesota-school-shooter-said-he-was-tired-of-being-trans?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=18&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=%E2%80%98Wish+I+Never+Brain-Washed+Myself%E2%80%99%3A+Minnesota+School+Shooter+Said+He+Was+%E2%80%98Tired+Of+Being+Trans%E2%80%99">wrote</a> that he came to regret his transgender identity.
“I only keep [long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” Westman wrote.
“I can’t cut my hair now as it would be [an] embarrassing defeat, and it might be a concerning change of character that could get me reported,” he continued. “It just always gets in my way. I will probably chop it on the day of the attack.”

Heated Debate Breaks Out In Wikipedia Editors’ Forum Over Trans-Identifying Shooter’s Pronouns

Annunciation Catholic School

Crime

Internet

Minnesota

School Shooting

U.S.

Wikipedia, once heralded as the internet’s neutral hub for knowledge, has taken a hard turn to the Left. Initially constructed to be the digital public square where ideas, history, and current events were to be explained in a balanced fashion, the online encyclopedia has emerged as yet another battleground in the war against President Trump, his administration officials and conservatives writ large.
The latest report from the <a href="https://www.mrc.org/">Media Research Center’s</a> (MRC) <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/">Free Speech America</a> division exposes a systematic blacklisting of right-leaning media outlets, further cementing the leftist control over online information. The bottom line: 84% of Left-leaning outlets have Wikipedia’s stamp of approval, while 0% of right-leaning outlets even get a wink from the tech giant.
The implications of this bias cannot be overstated as Wikipedia’s self-proclaimed &#8220;neutral point of view&#8221; (NPOV) policy is supposed to guarantee objectivity. Yet, in practice, the policy is being selectively applied to sideline conservative viewpoints.
Wikipedia’s cutting room floor includes influential right-leaning outlets such as The Daily Wire, Breitbart, Newsmax, One America News, The Daily Caller, and even the MRC. Meanwhile, Left-leaning publications such as Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, NPR, The Atlantic, and The Guardian are deemed “reliable,” despite their documented history of inaccurate reporting and radical ideology.
This imbalanced treatment is intentional and tactical. It is a deliberate effort to exclude right-of-center perspectives from the online discourse, with the obvious goal of disparaging, slandering and maligning anyone who opposes the radical Left agenda.
The evidence of this malicious treatment comes from Wikipedia itself. Its “Reliable Sources/Perennial Sources” page confesses its culpability like a guilt-torn defendant who blurts out in the courtroom, “I did it, I did it, I killed the victim!”
This page serves as Wikipedia’s gatekeeping tool that literally “blacklists” some of the most popular media on the right. Any outlet on Wikipedia’s naughty list is not allowed to help shape Wikipedia’s content.
This manipulation of information extends beyond just blacklisting certain sources — it actively distorts political narratives. Due to the systemic bias in Wikipedia’s sourcing policies, the pages on Trump’s appointees are overwhelmingly shaped by Left-leaning media, presenting a skewed, and often hostile, portrayal of these individuals. The same treatment is not applied to Democratic figures, whose pages benefit from friendlier coverage and selective omission of controversies.
The MRC report found that out of 44 media outlets classified as Left-leaning by AllSides, a staggering 84% are deemed reliable by Wikipedia. Meanwhile, virtually every prominent conservative outlet has been blacklisted or labeled unreliable.
The bias extends beyond media sources to broader political issues. The Hunter Biden laptop scandal is a glaring example. Initially dismissed by Left-wing outlets as “Russian disinformation,” the story was later verified by mainstream publications. Yet, Wikipedia’s coverage continues to reference the debunked narrative while downplaying the legitimacy of conservative outlets that reported the truth from the outset.
Similarly, the Wuhan lab leak theory — once ridiculed by Left-leaning media but now considered the most likely source of COVID-19—has not been accurately updated on Wikipedia. This selective curation of facts ensures that Wikipedia remains a tool for leftist narrative control rather than a genuine information repository.
One of the key figures responsible for this shift is Katherine Maher, who led Wikipedia&#8217;s parent company Wikimedia, from 2016 to 2021. Under her tenure, Wikipedia moved further into ideological bias, enforcing sourcing policies that favored leftist perspectives while suppressing conservative viewpoints. Maher’s public statements indicate an embrace of Left-wing activism, further solidifying Wikipedia’s transformation from a neutral information source to a partisan tool.
The consequences of this bias are severe. Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world, and it is regularly produced by Google as one of its highest ranked search results. So, its content influences not just your average Joe but journalists, researchers, and policymakers. The site’s Left-wing slant ensures that students, voters, and the general public are consistently fed a one-sided perspective, warping public perception and reinforcing media narratives that favor the political Left.
This should alarm anyone who values intellectual diversity and open debate. The internet was supposed to democratize information, allowing users to access multiple viewpoints and reach their own conclusions. Instead, Wikipedia’s editorial policies are steering the online discourse toward a singular ideological perspective, eliminating the voices of half the country in the process.
It is time for accountability. Wikimedia, Wikipedia’s parent company, is a 501(C)(3) not-for-profit. Trump’s IRS should investigate it and end its tax-free status if it does not immediately come into compliance with the law. Every federal agency should also terminate all contracts and grants they have been awarded to Wikipedia. American taxpayers should never be forced to turn over their hard-earned income to politicized organizations.
The battle against censorship and for free speech is one of the most critical fights of our time. Nobody is saying that Wikipedia cannot have a radical point of view. But conservatives should never confuse Wikipedia for what it once was, and Americans should never have to subsidize the radical arm of a radical political organization.
* * *
Dan Schneider is the Vice President of Media Research Center&#8217;s Free Speech America.
Luis Cornelio is Associate Editor of Media Research Center&#8217;s Free Speech America.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Wikipedia Imposes A 24 Hour Shutdown To Protest Over Web Piracy Bill

Wikipedia’s Blacklist: Smearing Trump, Conservatives, And The GOP

Wikipedia's Blacklist: Smearing Trump, Conservatives, And The GOP

Big Tech

Conservatives

Donald Trump

Legacy Media

Opinion

President Trump

Since October 7, roughly 40 Wikipedia editors have worked to “delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favorable light, and position fringe academic views on the Israel-Palestine conflict as mainstream over past years,” according to a new report.
Dozens of editors of the Wikipedia site have coordinated to promote radical Islamist ideas and undercut the Jewish state on the popular online encyclopedia, according to <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-editors-hijacked-the-israel-palestine-narrative" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pirate Wires</a>. In addition to the editors, the group Tech For Palestine made a similar push to propagandize Wikipedia&#8217;s pages, though the group stopped its efforts once they were discovered.
“A separate but complementary campaign, launched after October 7 and staged from an 8,000 member-strong Discord group called Tech For Palestine (TFP), employed common tech modalities — ticket creation, strategy planning sessions, group audio &#8216;office hour&#8217; chats — to alter over 100 articles,” according to the Pirate Wires report.
“Type ‘Zionism’ into Wikipedia’s search box and, aside from the main article on Zionism (and a disambiguation page), the auto-fill returns: ‘Zionism as settler colonialism,’ ‘Zionism in the Age of the Dictators’ (a book by a pro-Palestinian Trotskyite), ‘Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims,’ and ‘Racism in Israel,’” it added.
Google grants Wikipedia a “most favored nation” status, allowing Wikipedia articles to be listed first on any topic-related search result, according to the report.
“The recent issue with the ‘Zionism’ Wikipedia page is fundamentally a Google problem,” a source told Pirate Wires. “Wikipedia articles act as an unprotected back door to top Google search results, with the article&#8217;s introduction often populating the knowledge panel, giving the impression Google has vetted this content — when it hasn’t. Malicious editors exploit this vulnerability, platforming fringe views and giving them priority over more reliable sources.”
The groups perpetrating this diabolical effort violate a guideline called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729953281250000&amp;usg=AOvVaw27eXsh8uOu1r9CtxD9lyLl">Canvassing</a>, which “prohibits secret coordination with the ‘intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way,’” according to Pirate Wires.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1729077615157000&amp;usg=AOvVaw17Kprl74oE9DYOLREdiBPU">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28</a>
“To skirt this, the pro-Palestine group leverages deep Wikipedia know-how to coordinate efforts without raising red flags,” the report explains. “They work in small clusters, with only two or three active in the same article at any given time. On their own, many of these edits appear minor, even trivial. But together, their scope is staggering, with two million edits made to more than 10,000 articles.”
One example: an article about Hitler supporter Amin Al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem from the 1920s to the 1950s, that showed Al-Husseini touring a Nazi concentration camp, had the photo removed.
Another example: an article called  “Zionism, race and genetics,” later changed to “Racial conceptions of Jewish identity in Zionism,” tried to tie Zionism’s roots to 19th-century views on “race science” embraced by the Nazis.
A third example: an Iran-sympathizing editor edited an article on the Mahsa Amini protests to make it look like there was widespread support for the Iranian regime and “whitewash violent calls from pro-government counter-demonstrators,” according to Pirate Wires.

Wikipedia Editors Colluded To ‘Delegitimize Israel,’ Spread Radical Islamist Propaganda: Report

Google

Hamas

Israel

Radical Islam

Wikipedia editors are pushing to delete a page on Ryan Wesley Routh, the man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Sunday, arguing that Routh is not notable because he was prevented from harming Trump.
Routh&#8217;s page is listed as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Wesley_Routh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">nominated</a> for deletion, and editors are currently <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ryan_Wesley_Routh&amp;diff=prev&amp;oldid=1246018972&amp;diffonly=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debating</a> its fate.
On Sunday, Trump was targeted at his West Palm Beach golf course by a suspect who pointed an AK-47-style rifle through a fence about 400 yards away from the former president. Secret Service opened fire on the suspect, who fled. Routh was later arrested and charged. Trump remained safe and unharmed during the incident.
It was the second assassination attempt on Trump&#8217;s life since July 13 when Trump suffered a bloody gunshot to his ear at a Pennsylvania rally.
Wikipedia&#8217;s editors were not concerned.
&#8220;Nothing really happened here. The event itself might not even warrant its own article,&#8221; one Wikipedia editor wrote of Sunday&#8217;s assassination attempt.
&#8220;The man didn&#8217;t even get close,&#8221; wrote another. &#8220;This guy is not gonna remain notable enough to get his own page a week from now.&#8221;
&#8220;All that happened yesterday was that someone was found with a gun in a bush at Trump&#8217;s golf course. No injuries at all — Routh didn&#8217;t even let off any shots,&#8221; another person wrote.
&#8220;I second deletion. Let us stop making an article for every idiot who trespasses with intentions to commit a felony. We are not a Tabloid! Delete immediately or lose the credibility as an Encyclopedia,&#8221; wrote another editor.
Despite its stated commitment to producing accurate, crowd-sourced articles, Wikipedia&#8217;s left-leaning bias has been well documented. A Manhattan Institute report <a href="https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically-biased" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> that Wikipedia articles tend to associate negative emotions like &#8220;anger and disgust&#8221; with right-leaning public figures and positive emotions like &#8220;joy&#8221; with left-leaning public figures.
Wikipedia is the seventh-most visited domain on the internet, with tens of millions of people <a href="https://financesonline.com/wikipedia-statistics/#:~:text=There%20are%20more%20than%2041.4%20million%20registered%20users%20on%20the,45%25%20of%20readers%20are%20women." target="_blank" rel="noopener">reading</a> Wikipedia articles every day. American politics and Donald Trump in particular rank near the top for the most popular articles.
Some editors argued Routh should only be mentioned on the page about &#8220;security incidents involving Donald Trump.&#8221;
Other Wikipedia editors pushed back on deleting Routh&#8217;s page.
&#8220;Just when does an attempted Presidential assassin become notable? When he succeeds in getting a shot off?&#8221; one editor asked.
&#8220;This seems like a cover-up by Harris stans,&#8221; wrote another.
&#8220;Pretty obvious why some editors want this [page] binned. Yet, we have &#8216;Thomas Matthew Crooks,&#8217; who outside of an initial flurry of coverage, it&#8217;s highly unlikely that we&#8217;ll get additional details around what motivated him or his background,&#8221; wrote another editor.
Crooks was the gunman who shot Trump in the ear in July. He was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
One Wikipedia editor pointed out that Trump is also the current Republican nominee and noted that the FBI said Routh had been lying in wait for Trump for nearly 12 hours.
&#8220;Let the people see the facts as they are publicly known,&#8221; that editor said. &#8220;Otherwise, the attempt to delete this article is just another censorship attempt. What else do you need&#8230; a conviction?&#8221;
&#8220;If you try to assassinate a president or former president of the United States, you will most certainly make it into the history books. I don&#8217;t think I need to state the obvious,&#8221; another wrote.
&#8220;Two assassination attempts in one election cycle is unprecedented,&#8221; another person added. &#8220;He&#8217;s also an oddball, the information online about him and his motives tell an interesting story that is unique. He probably has the largest digital footprint of any attempted or successful US presidential assassin.&#8221;
Routh has a colorful background.
The 58-year-old&#8217;s online history shows he held anti-Trump views and was obsessed with the Ukraine war, which he spoke about in a 2022 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUyInDGLFlo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with Newsweek. Routh even traveled overseas hoping to fight in Ukraine&#8217;s military against Russia.
Routh also has a decades-long criminal history that includes writing bad checks, possession of a weapon of mass destruction, a hit-and-run, resisting arrest, and a concealed weapons violation.
Still, some Wikipedia editors remained unconvinced.
One editor dismissed the FBI <a href="https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2024/09/15/trump-campaign-gunshots-in-his-vicinity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">labeling</a> the incident an assassination attempt, saying Routh &#8220;did not even shoot close to Trump.&#8221;
&#8220;This is less of an assassination attempt as it is a security incident or foiled plan,&#8221; another editor wrote.
&#8220;This is getting absurd. This man has little to no notability,&#8221; another person said.
Another editor pointed out that Wikipedia does not have pages for the man who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/13/michael-steven-sandford-guilty-trump-shooting-attempt-las-vegas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tried</a> to grab a police officer&#8217;s gun at a Trump rally in 2016 and admitted he wanted to kill Trump.
&#8220;I feel like a person grabbing a cops gun [sic] is not the same as police opening fire on a guy aiming at trump [sic],&#8221; another editor responded.
One editor also pointed out that there is a Wikipedia page for Squeaky Fromme, a member of the Manson family who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975. Ford saw two attempts on his life in 17 days. Trump has seen two attempts on his life in just over two months.
Routh appeared in federal court Monday morning and was charged with both possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
As of Wednesday evening, his Wikipedia page was still live.

Wikipedia Photo Illustrations

‘Didn’t Even Let Off Any Shots:’ Wikipedia Editors Push To Delete Trump Shooter Page

Wikipedia Editors Push To Delete Ryan Wesley Routh Page 

assassination

assassination attempt

Trump 2024

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wikipedia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wikipedia</a> editors got caught making multiple real-time changes to its Pine Tree Flag page description to fit the narrative by some about the reason Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was flying a Revolutionary War-Era Flag.
Editors of the online encyclopedia appeared to take a page right out of the dystopian thriller “1984” by changing the flag description to match up with claims coming from the Left calling for Alito to recuse himself from cases involving former President Donald Trump, <a href="https://twitchy.com/fuzzychimp/2024/05/25/wikipedia-plays-the-ministry-of-truth-in-all-lib-remake-of-the-classic-1984-n2396589">Twitchy</a> reported. At the time of the report, it had been edited 150 times since May 22.
The slew of edits comes days after The New York Times claimed the flag was “carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021” and is “now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms,” as previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-times-targets-alito-again-this-time-its-for-revolutionary-war-era-flag">reported</a>.
The Pine Tree Flag, or “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which was originally used by a squadron of frigates commissioned by George Washington at the time of the Revolutionary War, was flown at Alito’s beach house last summer.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Wikipedia edits on the Pine Tree Flag page are fascinating.
On Wednesday, it was just a normal flag.
On Friday, it&#8217;s a now a symbol of Christian nationalism and right-wing extremism.
And the Popular Culture section on the HBO miniseries has been completely removed. <a href="https://t.co/vIadtsCiyZ">pic.twitter.com/vIadtsCiyZ</a>
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/1794095510338335069?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2024</a></blockquote>
According to several screenshots <a href="https://x.com/JonathanRawles/status/1794084421500293142">posted on X</a>, the original description of the flag last week on Wikipedia &#8212; under the “Modern Usage” portion &#8212; described it as a flag used by “a diverse cast of characters, including some Christian nationalists.”
On Friday, the page read that the flag is “a symbol of right-wing extremism.” Another person <a href="https://x.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/1794095510338335069">posted</a> that the flag was now described as a “symbol of Christian nationalism.”
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1716990157394000&amp;usg=AOvVaw33qQydjIo8bet419amChif">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
One person noticed that other edits to claim it was a flag used by “far-right” extremists seemed to ignore the fact that the flag was flown at a BLM rally. The picture of the flag at the July 2020 rally is still on the site, one person <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Lives_Matter_protest_signs.jpg">posted</a>.
Others noted that there had been <a href="https://x.com/AndrewKerrNC/status/1794095510338335069?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1794095510338335069%7Ctwgr%5Ee3427572af77c124a6569f11984be3efac17efde%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Ffuzzychimp%2F2024%2F05%2F25%2Fwikipedia-plays-the-ministry-of-truth-in-all-lib-remake-of-the-classic-1984-n2396589">edits</a> to the “Popular Culture” section, sharing screenshots to back up claims. A Wikipedia page in 2019 read, “The Pine Tree Flag appears with several other Revolutionary flags on the desk of Ron Swanson, a character on the NBC comedy ‘Parks and Recreation.’”
It also used to <a href="https://x.com/JonathanRawles/status/1794117745992511615">include</a> that “the Pine Tree Flag is shown in opening credits of all seven episodes of the HBO miniseries ‘John Adams.’ And is shown being carried by colonial forces in &#8216;Part 1: Join or Die,'&#8221; according to screenshots.
The current <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Flag">description</a> at the time of this publication reads, “In the 2020s, the flag was flown at events attended by various <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_right_(United_States)">far-right</a> groups, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_nationalism#United_States">Christian nationalists</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump">Donald Trump</a>&#8216;s ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election">Stop the Steal</a>’ campaign, along with protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement  and other causes.”
“Justice Samuel Alito flew the flag at his New Jersey home in 2023, which some criticized because of its presence at past far-right events, despite its lack of historical association with the far-right, and use at protests associated with other causes,” it added.
The latest edit has removed any “Popular Culture” references.
Hank Berrien contributed to this piece.

Wikipedia ‘Editors’ Caught Making Multiple Changes To Pine Tree Flag Page

Wikipedia 'Editors' Caught Making Multiple Changes To Pine Tree Flag Page

General

January 6

Samuel Alito

Supreme Court

NPR&#8217;s president and CEO said she abandoned the idea of a &#8220;free and open&#8221; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, which she used to lead, because it is a &#8220;white, male, Westernized construct.&#8221;
In a newly resurfaced video clip, Katherine Maher, who took over as NPR&#8217;s chief executive in January says she found Wikpedia&#8217;s &#8220;free and open&#8221; ethos &#8220;inherently limited.&#8221; The clip was posted to X by Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Maher served as chief executive at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, from 2019 to 2021.
&#8220;I have come to the opinion and the perspective that &#8216;free and open&#8217; was a way of looking at the world that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying to achieve,&#8221; Maher says in the clip.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that she abandoned a &quot;free and open&quot; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, because those principles recapitulated a &quot;white male Westernized construct&quot; and &quot;did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Ved9mgGvJH">pic.twitter.com/Ved9mgGvJH</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780929268949614848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher doesn&#39;t just want to &quot;stamp out bad information&quot; on the internet. She wants to replace it with &quot;good information&quot;—i.e., left-wing narratives—and force the public to &quot;sit within that good information&quot; as &quot;a collective.&quot;
Big Sister has arrived. <a href="https://t.co/7kfq8VYHfj">pic.twitter.com/7kfq8VYHfj</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1781009614584381486?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the &quot;the number one challenge&quot; in her fight against disinformation is &quot;the First Amendment in the United States,&quot; which makes it &quot;a little bit tricky&quot; to censor &quot;bad information&quot; and &quot;the influence peddlers&quot; who spread it.
NPR&#39;s censor-in-chief. <a href="https://t.co/0vY6hIpbmO">pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;&#8216;Free and open&#8217; has the best of intentionality, but in the end what &#8216;free and open&#8217; often ended up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics that exist offline, prior to the advent of the internet,&#8221; Maher said.
One of the problems with Wikipedia is the way it relies on a &#8220;written tradition&#8221; and &#8220;reliable sources,&#8221; Maher said.
&#8220;You see the exclusion of communities, of languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition, which is particular to some cultures and not to others,&#8221; the former Wikimedia CEO said.
&#8220;The ways in which we ascribe notability often really comes from sort of this white, male, Westernized construct around who matters in societies and who is elevated and whose voices. And so some of these ideas of sort of this radical openness really did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be,&#8221; she said.
X owner Elon Musk responded to the clip, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1780962477011796287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting</a>, &#8220;That’s literally the point of Wikipedia.&#8221;
Maher has recently come under fire from conservatives after a former NPR editor blew the whistle on the outlet&#8217;s liberal bias. Former editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday after NPR suspended him.
In the wake of the NPR editor&#8217;s accusations, a slew of since-deleted tweets and previous statements from Maher have surfaced, adding fuel to the outrage.
In another clip posted by Rufo, Maher says she is interested in how we can &#8220;immerse ourself in good information,&#8221; not just &#8220;stamp out bad information.&#8221;
In yet another clip, Maher says the &#8220;number one challenge&#8221; for her in fighting disinformation is the First Amendment, which she calls a &#8220;fairly robust protection of rights.&#8221;
&#8220;It also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from,&#8221; she said.
She has been accused of expressing explicitly biased views in her previous tweets.
In 2018, Maher <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/13/us-news/nprs-new-ceo-katherine-mahers-woke-tweets-arise-as-editor-claims-bias/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>, “Donald Trump is a racist.”
In 2020 she wrote, &#8220;I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.&#8221;

Web Summit Lisbon 2023

‘White, Male, Westernized’: NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia’s ‘Free And Open’ Mission

'White, Male, Westernized': NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia's 'Free And Open' Mission

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

First Amendment

Free Speech

National Public Radio (NPR)

Woke Culture

Wokeness

Elon Musk, speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a live-streamed event on X, adapted a well-known adage to slam Wikipedia.
Both Musk and Netanyahu have come under attack from the Left for years with Netanyahu currently battling the Left in Israel as he attempts to reform the judiciary so its leftist justices cannot control the Israeli government. During the  event, the two discussed the topic of knowledge and encyclopedias.
“I’ve kind of read the encyclopedia out of desperation because I didn’t have anything else to read,” Musk said.
“You read the whole encyclopedia?” Netanyahu —whose father, Benzion Netanyahu, was a scholar and professor of history at Cornell University and also was the editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica — asked.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Musk admitted.
“That’s desperation,” Netanyahu kidded him.
“It was desperation,” Musk acknowledged. “I’d run out of books.”
“I think probably it was a better encyclopedia than these digital encyclopedias today, unfortunately, which are edited that don’t necessarily bring out the balanced views of things,” Netanyahu said.
“The funny thing about, say, Wikipedia, is like, there’s an old saying, like, history is written by the victors,” Musk said. “It’s, like, well, yes, but not if your enemies are still alive, have a lot of time on their hands to edit Wikipedia.”
“History is written by the people who can harness the most editors,” Netanyahu replied.
“Yeah, I mean — whoever the losers are, they got a lot of time on their hands, so, what do they do, edit Wikipedia. Literally,” Musk said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu slam Wikipedia for its bias. <a href="https://t.co/FkDLheKJAY">pic.twitter.com/FkDLheKJAY</a>
&mdash; Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) <a href="https://twitter.com/CatchUpFeed/status/1703836076782260353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In December 2022, after it was reported that Wikipedia was voting on deleting the entry for Musk’s Twitter files, 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.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Most of Earth: “The MSM is biased.” Wikipedia: “Cite MSM source to confirm this claim.” 🤣🤣
Wikipedia has a non-trivial left-wing bias.<a href="https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jimmy_wales</a>, what are your thoughts?
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1600200000763756544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In July 2021, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/07/16/wikipedia-co-founder-says-site-is-now-propaganda-for-left-leaning-establishment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> Wikipedia could no longer be trusted, saying it had become “propaganda” for the Left-leaning “establishment.”
Sanger <a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-longer-trust-the-website-i-created/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told UnHerd’s Lockdown TV </a>he had helped create Wikipedia in 2001 so it could offer “multiple points of view” on “hot button issues.” He asserted that conservative voices had been “sternly warned if not kicked out” if they differed from the prevailing narrative, saying, “You can’t cite Fox News on socio-political issues. It’s just banned now. &#8230; It means that if a controversy does not appear in the mainstream centre-Left media, then it’s not going to appear on Wikipedia. &#8230; If only one version of the facts is allowed then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power.”

Elon Musk to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Musk Rips Wikipedia: ‘History Is Written By The Victors … But Not If Your Enemies Are Alive’

Benjamin Netanyahu

Elon Musk

Menu