Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia millions of people treat as an authoritative source of information, is systemically biased against conservative, religious, and other points of view, according to the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger.
Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and former philosophy professor, among stacks of reference books at a library in Columbus, Ohio, on March 26, 2007. Kiichiro Sato/AP Photo
Sanger, 57, who now heads the Knowledge Standards Foundation, believes Wikipedia can be salvaged either by a renewed emphasis on free speech within the organization or by a grassroots campaign to make diverse viewpoints heard.
Failing that, Sanger said, government intervention may be required to pierce the shell of anonymity that now protects Wikipedia’s editors from defamation lawsuits by public figures who believe the site portrays them unfairly.
In an Oct. 9 interview with Jan Jekielek, host of EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders,” Sanger discussed Wikipedia’s derailing and what could get the site back on track.
Systemic Bias
Wikipedia, launched in 2001, was co-opted by a globalist, academic, secular progressive worldview in the early 2000s, Sanger said. He added that the viewpoint monopoly accelerated following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when many media outlets began to abandon the notion of impartiality.
Though the site is overseen by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia describes itself as a self-governing project and states “its policies and guidelines are intended to reflect the consensus of the community.”
Sanger said that eventually, the site’s original neutrality rules, which he authored, were rewritten to instead forbid “false balance.”
“Basically, it’s required now, even for the sake of neutrality, that they take a side when [they believe] one side is clearly wrong,” Sanger said. “Pretensions of objectivity are out the window.”
One way this is enforced is through a color-coded rating system that favors or bans certain sources, Sanger said.
“You simply may not cite as sources of Wikipedia articles anything that has been branded as right wing,” he said. “I don’t think that The Epoch Times, for example, is particularly right wing, but it is colored red on this list.”
Information from some “green” sources is taken as fact and repeated without attribution, Sanger said.
Sanger, who has long campaigned for a restoration of free speech and accountability on the platform, said many people continue to think of Wikipedia as neutral and accurate.
“Even now, people are still sort of waking up to the reality that Wikipedia does, on many pages … act as essentially propaganda,” he said.
As evidence, Sanger listed a host of public figures, including novelist Philip Roth, journalist John Seigenthaler Sr., and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who complained to him that they were misrepresented on Wikipedia.
In 2022, Wikipedia deleted its page on U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, a Republican, saying she was not a notable person. The page was later restored.
Also read: Kushner: Trump Believes Israel Is “Getting A Little Bit Out Of Control”
