<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

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

U.S.

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

Twitter CEO <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> 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&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-releases-hunter-biden-files-tweets-deleted-at-behest-of-team-biden-exec-was-key-behind-censorship-decision">release</a> of &#8220;The Twitter Files.&#8221;
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 &#8220;Twitter Files Investigation&#8221; and <a href="https://archive.ph/ytFYA">featured</a> the following short explanation of what has so far been released:
<blockquote>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.</blockquote>
Writer Ian Miles Cheong flagged the conversations that Wikipedia&#8217;s editors were having about the page for Musk to see on Twitter.
<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-34448">TIRED OF THE LEGACY MEDIA’S BIAS CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE AND OBSCURING THE TRUTH? JOIN US.</a>
&#8220;Wikipedia is voting on the deletion of the entry for Elon Musk’s Twitter Files because the editors have deemed it a &#8216;nothing burger&#8217; that is &#8216;not notable&#8217; because the media didn’t give it enough coverage,&#8221; Cheong tweeted. &#8220;These people work hand in hand with the MSM to shape the narrative.&#8221;
Cheong included in his tweet screenshots from editors at Wikipedia that wanted the page removed.
Some of the comments from editors included:
<ul>
<li>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know where to start explaining why this should be deleted. It&#8217;s a disaster. Maybe we can have a Twitter Files article, but not this one.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Delete: This was generally ignored by the media (with good reason) and thus failed to establish notability.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Delete: I would suggest a merge, but there&#8217;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&#8217;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&#8217;s not really anything left.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Delete: This is a three-sentence description of a self-published internet page. Not Notable.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Delete: &#8212; under the scope of the laptop article.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;Delete: &#8211; 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&#8217;t think a merge is necessary.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
Musk responded, &#8220;Most of Earth: &#8216;The MSM is biased.&#8217; Wikipedia: &#8216;Cite MSM source to confirm this claim.&#8217; 🤣🤣 Wikipedia has a non-trivial left-wing bias. @jimmy_wales, what are your thoughts?&#8221;
<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>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/musk-releases-hunter-biden-files-tweets-deleted-at-behest-of-team-biden-exec-was-key-behind-censorship-decision">Musk Releases ‘Hunter Biden’ Files: Tweets Deleted At Behest Of Team Biden, Exec Was Key Behind Censorship Decision</a>

The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” – Arrivals

Elon Musk Calls Out Wikipedia Founder After Leftist Editors Plot To Remove Page On ‘The Twitter Files’

Elon Musk Calls Out Wikipedia Founder After Leftist Editors Plot To Remove Page On 'The Twitter Files'

Big Tech

A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> administrator has placed a pause on edits to Wikipedia&#8217;s &#8220;Recession&#8221; page by unregistered users until early August to stop &#8220;vandalism&#8221; and &#8220;malicious&#8221; content after the page was edited 41 times in the past seven days with repeated attempts to alter the historical definition of a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/recession">recession</a>.
On Thursday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-in-a-recession-after-second-straight-quarter-of-negative-growth">estimated</a> that the U.S. economy shrank for the second straight quarter at a 0.9 annualized rate. In recent weeks, the Biden administration had <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-economy-identifies-as-growing">argued</a> that there is no agreed-upon definition of a recession, despite economists consistently saying a recession can be signaled by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. The plethora of Wikipedia revisions come as the Biden administration attempts to go around the commonly held definition of the term.
On Wednesday, writer Ann Bauer flagged the edits, tweeting, &#8220;Here is the revision history from roughly the past 24 hours on Wikipedia&#8217;s RECESSION page,&#8221; while showing the extensive list.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Here is the revision history from roughly the past 24 hours on Wikipedia&#39;s RECESSION page: <a href="https://t.co/LxU5RiEEZ9">pic.twitter.com/LxU5RiEEZ9</a>
&mdash; Ann Bauer (@annbauerwriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/annbauerwriter/status/1552417150731751427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
For example, an editor by the name &#8220;Soibangla&#8221; — the third most prominent member of the Recession page by authorship — repeatedly <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recession&amp;diff=prev&amp;oldid=1100801950">deleted</a> additions by other editors who used the textbook definition of a recession as being two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
The editor, who contributed to more than a thousand other Wikipedia articles, replaced the historically-applied indicator with various ambiguous explanations. For example, one of Soibangla&#8217;s edits claimed, “There is no global consensus on” what a recession is.
Other editors, however, tried changing or reverting the definitions, only to be foiled by other editors who removed their changes.
There have been so many edits to the page in such a short time that a Wikipedia administrator named “Anarchyte” had to pause all additions due to “Persistent addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content,” requiring all edits to be confirmed by trusted users.
Wikipedia editors are not paid by the company and can be banned if they repeatedly violate its rules. 
As of publication, many of the changes made by users have been deleted, and the historical definition is live on the site, albeit with added context. 
The administrator Anarchyte also tagged the post with “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Twinkle">Twinkle</a>,” which is used to &#8220;stop vandalism, or the malicious addition and/or deletion of content on a page.&#8221; This verification process will be in place for weeks, if not months. 
On the national stage, White House economic advisor Brian Deese has claimed that a recession is not universally defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.
“It’s not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on,” Deese recently said regarding the aforementioned definition.
In 2008, Deese <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/07/27/white-house-takes-heat-after-biden-adviser-accused-of-redefining-recession/">told</a> the media, “Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Brian Deese, yesterday: &quot;Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession.”
Deese, 2008: “Economists have a technical definition of recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.” <a href="https://t.co/MzVk7drq3v">pic.twitter.com/MzVk7drq3v</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1552355645055270912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 27, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also refused to acknowledge that the U.S. was heading toward a recession and claimed that the economy was in a “transition” with growth “slowing.”
“This is not an economy that’s in recession,” she <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yellen-were-not-in-a-recession-were-in-a-transition-in-which-growth-is-slowing">told</a> NBC News&#8217; Chuck Todd. “But we’re in a period of transition in which growth is slowing and that’s necessary and appropriate and we need to be growing at a steady and sustainable pace. So there is a slowdown and businesses can see that and that’s appropriate, given that people now have jobs and we have a strong labor market.”

Wikipedia’s ‘Recession’ Page Shows 41 Edits In One Week, Attempts At Changing Definition

Wikipedia's 'Recession' Page Shows 41 Edits In One Week, Attempts At Changing Definition

Economics

English

language

Recession

Steven Crowder&#8217;s latest video takes a deep dive into the alleged left-wing bias of Wikipedia, the world&#8217;s most popular crowdsourced encyclopedia. While Wikipedia has an article on virtually everything under the sun, Crowder — like many other conservatives — has long suspected that it shields readers from the true set of facts, hiding ones that run contrary to progressive narratives on key social issues.
Rather than speculate, Crowder devised a simple hypothesis and test, aiming to see which edits Wikipedia allows on certain issues and which ones they reject. Crowder took the time to edit articles with factual statements and unbiased sources. He then waited for Wikipedia&#8217;s response, even tallying up whether &#8220;truth&#8221; or Wikipedia won out the day. His latest episode of &#8220;Louder with Crowder&#8221; claims to &#8220;prove&#8221; that Wikipedia is biased. The results seem to show that the truth does not always win out on Wikipedia.
Crowder lumped Wikipedia in with &#8220;Big Tech,&#8221; alleging, &#8220;As it turns out — and this should come as no surprise to anyone who knows even a little bit about how Big Tech operates — Wikipedia is full of bias.&#8221;
&#8220;Time after time, article after article, we decided to go in and add, edit, or clarify information with our own account,&#8221; he added. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t go in and say anything outlandish (as I once decided to do while bored out of my mind). Our team cited sources, provided verifiable information, or simply attempted to remove overtly biased opinions (in some cases, purely personal opinions). Wikipedia did not approve.&#8221;
Crowder&#8217;s team said they made their edits based on what they thought would comply with Wikipedia&#8217;s &#8220;neutrality test,&#8221; adding that the edits avoided opinion, unreliable sources, or sketchy data. Still, Wikipedia shot down their edits each time.
On entries regarding child transgender hormone therapy, the Texas heartbeat abortion law, and even the data regarding anti-Asian history — Wikipedia editors appear to have denied all of Crowder&#8217;s edits — allowing only one side of the argument to come into fruition.
&#8220;If there&#8217;s are things left-wing tech giants don&#8217;t approve of they&#8217;re facts, objective truth, and anything that doesn&#8217;t purposefully toe the party line,&#8221; Crowder claimed. &#8220;The &#8216;reasoning&#8217; provided for negating our edits was ignorant, convoluted, and sometimes completely non-existent! The left need not have good reasons to silence opposing views, though. And if they have reasons at all, they need not explain themselves to you.&#8221;
For example, Crowder was left wondering why Thomas Sowell — a world-renowned economist — was not a reliable source under Wikipedia&#8217;s eyes.
In one entry about minimum wage, Crowder noted that the article was &#8220;extremely biased&#8221; in favor of the liberal persuasion of Paul Krugman. The New York Times economist was listed as an expert, something that Crowder said was not a problem in and of itself. The problem, according to Crowder, was that the column relied solely on Krugman&#8217;s point of view to craft the &#8220;truth&#8221; about minimum wage, which presented the view from only one side of the aisle:
<blockquote>The Wikipedia page obviously favors increasing the minimum wage. Before our edit, this is what it said, &#8216;According to economist Paul Krugman&#8217; — I just threw up in my mouth a little — &#8216;the great preponderance of evidence indicates that there is no negative impact to employment from moderate increases on mimunum wage.&#8217;
Now here&#8217;s the thing, Paul Krugman writes. He&#8217;s an economist. I don&#8217;t know much he&#8217;s helped the economy or run a business but&#8230;there&#8217;s no right-leaning source offering a counter-balancing opinion. If this is going to be the number one research portal in the world, 18 billion page views per month, all we need to see is a counterbalance, which they claim in their own neutrality guidelines, right it&#8217;s supposed to be neutral? </blockquote>
So, in order to make it neutral and balanced, Crowder and his colleague added a quote from Hoover Institute fellow and conservative Sowell. That quote said:
<blockquote>“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”</blockquote>
&#8220;It would be hard to dispute the idea that there&#8217;s a more qualified economist in the world today than Thomas Sowell. He&#8217;s certainly up there, all of his peers respect him and he&#8217;s done a lot of work on the minimum wage issue,&#8221; Crowder noted.
Yet, despite his qualifications, the Sowell quote was removed within a day because, according to Wikipedia&#8217;s editors, &#8220;the source was unreliable.&#8221;
Crowder&#8217;s video appears to confirm the co-founder of Wikipedia Larry Sanger&#8217;s belief that Wikipedia was pushing &#8220;propaganda&#8221; because it only was allowing one version of the facts, thereby benefiting the wealthy and powerful.
The entire video can be seen here and is well worth the watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="EXPOSED: Wikipedia’s Bias Tested and PROVEN! | Louder with Crowder" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Iv7s_ydrdHE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Did Steven Crowder Just Expose Wikipedia’s Left-Wing Bias? Watch His Test And Judge For Yourself.

Steven Crowder

Following a broad range of contentious and controversial events — such as Black Lives Matter riots, the 2020 election, and the impeachment(s) of former President Donald Trump — the online encyclopedia “Wikipedia” has become “more one-sided than ever,” according to its co-founder, Larry Sanger.
Sanger began a <a href="https://larrysanger.org/2021/06/wikipedia-is-more-one-sided-than-ever/">blog post</a> titled, “Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever,” by discussing the website’s pursuit of “neutrality.”
“But what does ‘neutral’ mean?” Sanger wrote. “This is easy to misunderstand; many people think it means the same as ‘objective.’ But neutrality is not the same as objectivity.”
“If an encyclopedia is neutral about political, scientific, and religious controversies — the issues that define the ongoing culture war — then you will find competing sides represented carefully and respectfully, even if one side is ‘objectively’ wrong,” Sanger continued. “From a truly neutral article, you would learn why, on a whole variety of issues, conservatives believe one thing, while progressives believe another thing. And then you would be able to make up your own mind.”
Sanger then listed “four of the biggest political issues” in the United States — Trump’s impeachments, Biden’s scandals, the Antifa and BLM riots, and alleged election irregularities — which demonstrated that Wikipedia fails to meet this definition.
“These contentious issues are exactly where we should expect to see fair treatment of ‘alternative’ views on Wikipedia,” Sanger wrote in the post’s conclusion. “But we do not.”
Sanger stated that “Wikipedia openly repudiates neutrality,” and is, therefore “shamelessly hypocritical in how it continues to pay lip service to its ‘neutral point of view’ policy.” Sanger accused Wikipedia’s editors of sometimes embracing their biases “so fervently that their articles emerge more as propaganda than as reference material.”
Sanger then also pointed out that some “conservative” stories which only receive focus from certain outlets remain censored from Wikipedia.
“A lot of mainstream news stories are broken only in Fox News, the Daily Mail, and the New York Post — all of which are banned from use as sources by Wikipedia,” Sanger wrote. “Beyond that, many mainstream sources of conservative, libertarian, or contrarian opinion are banned from Wikipedia as well, including Quillette, The Federalist, and the Daily Caller. Those might be contrarian or conservative, but they are hardly ‘radical’; they are still mainstream. So, how on earth can such viewpoints ever be given an airing on Wikipedia? Answer: often, they cannot, not if there are no ‘reliable sources’ available to report about them.”
“In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources — and sources friendly to globalist progressivism — are permitted,” Sanger said.
Sanger concluded by arguing that “it is not too far to say that Wikipedia, like many other deeply biased institutions of our brave new digital world, has made itself into a kind of thought police that has de facto shackled conservative viewpoints with which they disagree.”
“Democracy cannot thrive under such conditions: I maintain that Wikipedia has become an opponent of vigorous democracy,” Sanger argued. “Democracy requires that voters be given the full range of views on controversial issues so that they can make up their minds for themselves. If society’s main information sources march in ideological lockstep, they make a mockery of democracy. Then the wealthy and powerful need only gain control of the few approved organs of acceptable thought; then they will be able to manipulate and ultimately control all-important political dialogue.”

Wikipedia Co-Founder Says Site Is ‘More One-Sided Than Ever,’ Only ‘Globalist’ And ‘Progressive’ Sources Are Permitted

Censorship

Conservatives have long been blowing the whistle on Wikipedia&#8217;s leftist bias. The site&#8217;s co-founder Larry Sanger apparently agrees with them.
In a <a href="https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blog post</a> last week, Sanger argued that Wikipedia has abandoned all neutrality in the name of avoiding what activist journalists call the &#8220;false balance&#8221; – the idea that not all opposing views of an argument should be given equal time. He goes through several pages to support his thesis, noting the rather charged language often employed.
When comparing the pages for former President Barack Obama and the current President Donald Trump, the differences are night and day, with the former receiving overwhelmingly positive treatment while the latter is frequently portrayed negatively.
&#8220;The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama">Barack</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama"> Obama</a> article completely fails to mention many well-known <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/list-of-obama-scandals-and-controversies-3367635">scandals</a>: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/01/02/18-major-scandals-obama-presidency/">say nothing</a> of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing &#8216;Obamagate&#8217; story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump,&#8221; argued Sanger.
&#8220;A fair article about a major political figure certainly must include the bad with the good,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;The only scandals that I could find that were mentioned were a few that the left finds at least a little scandalous, such as Snowden’s revelations about NSA activities under Obama. In short, the article is almost a total whitewash.&#8221;
Though some might claim the information is &#8220;objectively correct,&#8221; Sanger asserted that nobody can claim they are objectively neutral. In contrast to Barack Obama&#8217;s glowing treatment, Donald Trump is treated as if he does only wrong.
&#8220;The idea that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump">Donald Trump</a> article is neutral is a joke,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Just for example, there are 5,224 none-too-flattering words in the &#8216;Presidency&#8217; section. By contrast, the following &#8216;Public Profile&#8217; (which the Obama article entirely lacks), &#8216;Investigations,&#8217; and &#8216;Impeachment&#8217; sections are unrelentingly negative, and together add up to some 4,545 words—in other words, the controversy sections are almost as long as the sections about his presidency.&#8221;
&#8220;Common words in the article are &#8216;false&#8217; and &#8216;falsely&#8217; (46 instances): Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s statements are &#8216;false.&#8217; Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;You might approve of Wikipedia describing Trump’s incorrect statements as &#8216;false,&#8217; very well; but then you must admit that you no longer support a policy of neutrality on Wikipedia.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
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.
My latest: <a href="https://t.co/Lis4z93mft">https://t.co/Lis4z93mft</a>
&mdash; Larry Sanger (@lsanger) <a href="https://twitter.com/lsanger/status/1260975408167759873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
After going through several more pages, including some rather biased language in reference to the existence of Jesus Christ and the abortion argument, Sanger concludes by calling on Wikipedia to just come clean and admit it no longer practices fair neutrality.
“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. “Of course, Wikipedians are unlikely to concede any such thing; they live in a fantasy world of their own making.”
Sanger has been critical of Wikipedia&#8217;s practices since 2002.

Larry Sanger – Wikipedia

Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site’s Neutrality No Longer Exists, Favors Leftism

Media Bias

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