Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site’s Commitment to Neutrality Is ‘Long Gone’

An article about Wikipedia published last Thursday on the Fox News website examined the left-wing bias of the online encyclopedia. Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, stated in an interview for the article: “The days of Wikipedia’s robust commitment to neutrality are long gone.” Fox also interviewed economics professor Bryan Caplan regarding the slanted coverage of communism and socialism on their Wikipedia pages, notably the omission of atrocities carried out by communist governments.

Fox cited other critics of the site and its biased handling of left-wing ideologies. Sanger previously published a blog post criticizing Wikipedia for its left-wing bias, declaring the site’s neutrality policy “dead” due to bias.

In the Fox piece by Maxim Lott, Wikipedia is noted as having received less scrutiny than the other Big Tech firms. However, the piece further notes these tech firms, such as Google, also rely heavily on the site and Wikipedia itself is one of the most popular sites globally. The report follows this by reporting: “critics – including Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger – tell Fox News that many Wikipedia pages have become merely left-wing advocacy essays.”

Sanger is quoted by Fox as stating: “Wikipedia’s ideological and religious bias is real and troubling, particularly in a resource that continues to be treated by many as an unbiased reference work.” Sanger also told Fox “the deck is too stacked on Wikipedia for it to ever be salvaged” and he has instead focused on helping facilitate the spread of alternative online encyclopedias through his Encyclosphere project. Those efforts are complicated by Big Tech’s reliance on Wikipedia in their campaign against “fake news” online in keeping with messaging suggested to Wikipedia’s owners by a public relations firm run by the Clinton Foundation’s Head of Communications.

Fox News cites the Wikipedia articles on socialism and communism as examples of leftist bias. While both delve into leftist theory, they also covered each ideology’s history almost completely ignoring the brutality and authoritarianism of many proclaimed socialist or communist regimes. Regarding the Soviet Union, one section states Soviet rule “saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century” with only a brief mention of “the excesses of Stalin’s regime” not mentioning the famines and mass-killings it entailed. On Asia, Mao’s reign in China is essentially unmentioned, while mentioning Indonesia’s Suharto killing hundreds of thousands to suppress leftists. (Read more from “Wikipedia Co-Founder: Site’s Commitment to Neutrality Is ‘Long Gone’” HERE)

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