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. 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.
Larry Sanger
Founder of Wikipedia
June 30, 2021
Wikipedia Is More One-Sided Than Ever
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
I knew Wikipedia was biased and leaned pretty strongly left. I admit I hadn’t looked into or realized they ban “conservative” information sources (this might explain the “[citation needed]” mark present in so many articles — if the article was written before the source was banned, it would leave a broken link).
It is ridiculous that they would ban those sources, because as Mr. Sanger said, often they are the only organizations covering major breaking news stories.
Then again, they can maintain their claim of “neutrality” … within the Overton Window they allow.
It reminds me of some of the class debates my high-schoolers had to participate in in their “social studies” classes. On the topic of abortion (for example), the students were expected to research and debate on the merits using cited sources. Sounds great and neutral — and my oldest was excited for it; he’s one Hell of a debater! — until we found that no pro-life organizations were considered cite-able sources. Planned Parenthood, National Organization for Women, and other “pro-choice” organizations were valid sources; Oregon Right to Life, Michael the Archangel, and other religious or “pro-life” groups weren’t.
Needless to say, the class reached the foregone conclusion: the “pro-choice” side is right and good and supported by science, and the “pro-life” side doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
That’s what’s happening on Wikipedia. By limiting valid sources to those that support The Narrative [TM], readers can “make up their own minds” that The Narrative [TM] is correct and true (why wouldn’t it be, with all these source links supporting it?) and any information to the contrary is “baseless conspiracy theory”.
“Democracy cannot thrive under these conditions.” Well that’s the one thing I can agree with the communist about. (Using democracy to destroy democracy.) Democracy has been used like a cheap hooker at a Bill Clinton party, By almost every group of tyrants since it’s invention. Used only to destroy liberties/gain power.(If watching Saddam Hussein get re-elected wasn’t enough, the Biden/Harris lie should certainly have driven the last nail in it’s coffin.)
The idea of democracy should be as repugnant to US citizens as communism. And viewed as the last evil to be tolerated in a just society.
To me it should be used like nuclear weapons. Controlled at every point. And used only as needed to maintain a safe society.
The idea of democracy is an oxymoron. And those that think we can live in one are fools at best. Traitors at worst. Both deserving to be made examples of. Ghastly examples.
As for Wikipedia. Larry, you didn’t see that coming?
“…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.”
Well Duh! Of course. And so the wealthy and the powerful will therefore seek to control those few organs of “information” and thought. It’s quite brilliant how they’ve done it this time around, even using free speech to limit free speech!
It’s the use of tolerance to exercise intolerance, race reparations to promote racism, free speech to limit speech, democracy to destroy democracy, women’s rights to enslave women, safety measures to endanger us, etc., etc., etc.
It’s all right in step with an old term, “Repressive Tolerance”. Look it up.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it– Once the truth is known, it will have turned out to be wilder and crazier than the wildest, craziest conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard.
“And all the world wondered after the beast.” That’s telling us that the entire world will go along with the crazy (the evil, actually, for the evil can possess a kind of great wisdom, and intelligence, and can coordinate and plan far more effectively than crazy people). We’d best pay attention then, if for no other reason than the fact that we’re seeing it happen.
There’s InfoGalactic, which is a Wikipedia fork run by different policies. Perhaps better ones; I’d have to look more closely to form an opinion.
I have contributed to Wikipedia (technical content). With one exception I haven’t run into any content police issues. The one exception was an odd one: “frequency modulation” which Wikipedia claims was invented by Edwin Armstrong in the 1930s, when in fact it is easy to see it was invented in 1919 by H. Idzerda of the Netherlands. The content police stopped me from making that change using spurious arguments about “frequency modulation” vs. “wide frequency modulation”. Bah.
Maybe I should join the InfoGalactic contributors community and fix the article there. 🙂
One very nice feature of Wikipedia is that it has articles in many languages. If you want to see samples of the less common world languages and scripts, Wikipedia is one of the best places to find significant quantities. This https://nv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diné_Bizaad and this https://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᎤᎵᎮᎵᏍᏗ are examples I like to point to. InfoGalactic does not seem to have this, it appears to be English only. Strange; I wonder why.
I’m not very up on tech. But seems to me when Vox started InfoGalactic. That he was calling for volunteers to be in the “Burn Unit”. To help fill in the blanks.
I’m pretty sure they would welcome someone of your expertise into their community. I mean, with all your spare time right?
I would usually say this is the result of Wokism, but that is too simple. Our culture is undergoing a transformation that is attacking our foundations on all fronts – everything including the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Self Defense, Justice, Sex, Religion, Education, Race, Math, Science, Equality, Private Property, Money, Infrastructure, History, and Language.
It is imperative that we understand what we are facing. Like Wikipedia this is a Western Civilization movement not confined to the USA. To call it socialism, communism, or fascism is understating the transformation that is taking place even though there are similarities. And it is important to note that this transformation has already taken deep roots in our culture. It now controls the machinery of our governments, its institutions and many companies. As for numbers we need to assume that half the population is on board with the transformation.
Our dilemma is that it looks like we are not going to use logic or vote our way out of this mess. The transformation is too deep to achieve anything other than a pyric victory at best. For example, is it even possible for us to correct a Wikipedia article and have it stay corrected? What about the entire Wikipedia? What about the media? And those are just words. And if we cannot even deal with Wikipedia or media, what are the odds that we can do even more? What would happen if we elected another Trump? Would the institutions and companies fall in line?
I do expect that it will eventually self-destruct, but that is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. In the meantime, our options are limited. To try to live with the leftist is folly. We need to flee the leftist areas and regroup as Dan Bongino is saying.
FaeceBook, Twatter, Gargle, WikiPOOdia…..all of them are “BIG TECH” and
all of them are owned outright by the communist left. They are protected by the
commies in power and they exist for the SOLE PURPOSE of aiding the left in it’s
never ending quest to expand and cement their grasp on power over all of us.