Dedemocratising Information

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The role of Western media, especially those based in the USA have been not only biased but racially motivated in their coverage of the Delhi anti-Hindu riots. While newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian have given one-sided narrative to the riots showing only Muslims as the victims, channels like BBC and Al Jazeera have been guilty of pursuing an anti-Hindu agenda. Now added to these, online portals are being used to pursue the anti-India agenda further using their acolytes inside the country. The case in point being the use of Wikipedia to push an agenda which is false and block all attempts to showcase the suffering of Hindus.

 

 

The Wikipedia page on Delhi anti-Hindu Riots is filled with partisan details alleging that only BJP leaders are responsible and the victims are Muslims only. Any attempt to add the details of Muslim leaders, who made provocative statements, have been stymied by the Wiki editors. Same goes for attempts to add Hindus as the real victims of the riots. The blatant anti-Hindu nature of the Wikipedia page has been exposed in a detailed investigative report by OpIndia at:

 

 

 

 

For example, the article mentions the attack on a mosque in Ashok Nagar and shouting of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Hinduon ka Hindustan” slogans by the mobs, but have absolutely no reference to any attack by Muslims and anti-CAA mobs. On the other hand, while there are videos showing mob shouting “Nara e Taqbir” and “Allahu Akbar”, they find no place on the page. Since the page is in semi-protected mode, any attempt to edit has to request user DBigXray, who has privileges as Master Editor III, for making changes and it transpires that it is ‘DBigXray’ who decides what information is included and what is not, on the page. The crux of the problem lies with such users who misuse their privilege and seniority to control the content on Wikipedia.

 

 

 

 

Wikipedia user DBigXray has a history of distorting facts relating to Hindus, Hindu leaders and, icons and disparaging their character using devious sources.

 

 

The OpIndia investigation revealed that DBigXray is known as Deepesh Raj as per a Reddit post. When his profile was verified online through freely available mediums, it was found that he works with Intel Bangalore and is an alum of IIT-K. To verify these claims, OpIndia then followed a trail of evidence left behind by DBigXray himself. It showed that he was behind the creation of a Wikipage for a school in April 2011, which he confirmed on his Facebook page on his account named Deepesh Raj. When one clicks on the “talk” part of the school’s Wiki page, the user is clearly shown as ‘Deepeshraj1’ as the user who created that page. The user page shows his name as Deepesh Raj but was changed to DBigXray in October 2011. He has also provided the reason for the name change as forgetting the password of the earlier username.

 

 

It is DBigXray’s previous Wikipedia edits which are troublesome and reveals an agenda. On the Delhi Riots page, he refused to allow the Jaffrabad’s shooter’s name identified as Shahrukh. He said such shootings happen often in riots and that Shahrukh was being singled out and named because he was a Muslim.

 

 

Further, he also disallowed the inclusion of Waris Pathan as one of the instigators of the riots but remained adamant on Kapil Mishra as the cause of the riots. When questioned about the reason in the conversataion page, DBigXray writes that he could not find anything provocative in Waris Pathan’s speech. Everyone knows how Waris Pathan had openly incited mobs and said that 15 crore Muslims can overpower 100 crore Hindus.

 

 

Deepesh Raj also claimed that Tahir Hussain, the AAP leader who led an Islamist mob that tortured and murdered IB sleuth Ankit Sharma, was being framed. He also says that such “allegations” cannot be made against Tahir Hussain. The Wikipedia article has also omitted the crimes committed by Muslim mobs on Hindus and any attempt to add them has been disallowed by DBigXray.

 

 

Earlier to the Delhi riots page, the same DBigXray has shown his Hindu hatred in several instances. For instance, he had removed “Pandit” from Pandit Deen Daya Upadhyay’s page. He had also removed anything positive about Deen Dayal Upadhyay on the page. He added ‘Militant’ to the article on Veer Savarkar. He had also added the false information that Veer Savarkar had a physical relationship with Nathuram Godse, the assassin of MK Gandhi.

 

 

The user also added an entire section to the article about ‘Jai Shree Ram,’ where he added the edit that says it has turned into a “murder cry”. He had changed “Martyred” to “Killed” in the Wikipedia article about Captain Saurabh Kalia, who was mutilated and murdered by Pakistan.

 

 

 

Wikimedia Foundation’s executive director held a leadership position with the Sunlight Foundation (SF) which is funded by George Open Society Foundation and other Left-wing organisations.

 

 

OpIndia’s investigation reveals the way Wikipedia is being used by anti-Hindu elements to twist facts and present a partisan narrative. However, Wikipedia as a portal is not a stranger to such allegations. Many users have indicated to the portals inherent Left bias starting right from the creators and directors of the Wikimedia Foundation which runs Wikipedia.

 

 

In May 2015, Justin Haskins, Editorial Director at The Heartland Institute states in an article titled ‘UNCOVERED: WIKIPEDIA’S LEFTIST TIES AND ITS CENSORSHIP OF THE FACTS’ that his research into Wikipedia’s leadership revealed that despite the site’s claims of being a neutral source of information, many of those leading Wikipedia have intimate ties to far-Left organisations or openly support liberal policies and candidates.

 

 

As revealed in the same article, Sue Gardner, the former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation whose influence on Wikipedia is substantial, had held a leadership position with the Sunlight Foundation (SF). SF has been funded by numerous Left-wing organisations, such as the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation and the Knight Foundation. SF even received $1 million in 2010 from the left-leaning Rockefeller Family Fund.

 

 

Also connected to SF is Wikipedia founder and Wikimedia Board of Trustees member Jimmy Wales, who serves on the SF Advisory Board. Wales is not only connected to leftist groups through his role at the Sunlight Foundation, he also has close personal ties to multiple left-wing bigshots. Wales even attended one of George Soros birthday parties, according to The New York Times.

 

 

Other Wikimedia Board of Trustees members have less extravagant ties to leftist causes but still openly admit they support such causes and politicians. Guy Kawasaki, Wikipedia’s “internet evangelist,” announced his support of Barack Obama on Election Day in 2012.

 

 

In 2012, Northwestern University’s Shane Greenstein and the University of Southern California’s Feng Zhu analyzed more than 70,000 Wikipedia articles published over 10 years related to U.S. politics to determine whether any bias existed in the material. Greenstein and Feng found there was a distinct bias favoring Democrats and their positions. Policies and approach of the Democrats in the US mirror that of the Left in India.

 

 

In a working paper released in November 2014, Shane Greenstein of Kellogg and Feng Zhu of Harvard Business School measured the political bias of Wikipedia. They found that Wikipedia is significantly more biased and a bit more Left-leaning, going by the measure of the taxonomy of partisan terms used by Democrats and Republicans in US.

 

 

 

 

Experts opine that Wikipedia is often not a reliable source of information given its biases and discredited sources. Apart from the glaring examples of Wikipedia’s Left bias numerous researches have been conducted on the articles on Wikipedia, which showcase the partisan approach of its editors.

 

 

Conservapedia has a page dedicated to the samples of bias in Wikipedia. The page alleges that a cabal of editors exists in Wikipedia who work together to bias articles and to hide embarrassing facts about left-wing political figures. Scandals involving left-wing personalities are labelled “conspiracy theories”, for example, Spygate (against Donald Trump) or “controversies” such as IRS targeting controversy or Hillary Clinton email controversy. https://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia

 

 

On August 23, 2011, David Swindle published an article at FrontPage Magazine detailing how Wikipedia has been taken over by the political left. He cited statistics relating to Wikipedia’s articles on Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann, which helped demonstrate that Wikipedia has a Leftist bias, and he discussed the liberal/Leftist cultural foundations of Wikipedia.

 

 

 

 

Despite Wikipedia being one of the most influential and most-visited websites, countless experts opine that Wikipedia is often not a reliable source of information given its biases and discredited sources. Senior and powerful users like DBigXray use their privileges to stymie alternate voices and the reader cannot be sure if what they are reading represents all sides of a debate around a topic.

 

The Delhi anti-Hindu riots seem to have opened the eyes of the average Hindu to the inherent and racist bias in the western media again.