With the elections in the United States round the corner, plenty of propaganda is floating around. It is a known fact that there is plenty of bias against Republican nominee Donald Trump. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man has been supporting Trump and if he were to win then the billionaire will play a very important role in the US administration.
Taking to his platform X, Musk replied to a user and said, ‘Wikipedia is controlled by far-left activists. People should stop donating to them.’
He was replying to a user Shaun Maguire, who wrote, ‘Pirate Wires doing real journalism, while the Atlantic and NYT publish Trump is Nazi propaganda pieces. He also shared a screenshot of an investigative report by the Pirate Wires, which had a story with the title, ‘ How Wikipedia’s pro-Hamas editors hijacked the Israeli-Palestine narrative.
Wikipedia is controlled by far-left activists.
People should stop donating to them. https://t.co/Cjq2diadFY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2024
Wikipedia has this dubious distinction of being far-left and they have distorted facts when it comes to India as well. While it claims that it is free and fair, the fact of the matter is that it is not.
Recently Wikipedia’s cofounder Larry Sanger warned that the website can no longer be trusted, while insisting it is now just propaganda for the left leaning establishment. He said that when he started the website in 2001, it was purely on the basis it would offer true neutrality and offer multiple points of view on hot button issues. Conservative voices are sternly warned if not kicked out if they try to add a different take on the establishments views. You cannot cite Fox News on socio-political issues. It is just banned now, he said.
Wikipedia has its shares of troubles in India as well. In 2020, a social media campaign was launched by many in India not to donate to Wikipedia. It was claimed that the Wikipedia page n the northeast Delhi riots, which took place in February 2020 was biased and described the riot as mainly Hindu mobs attacking Muslims.
Wikipedia also has a wrong description for the term Jai Shri Ram. It says that the expression was used by the Hindu nationalist BJP which embraced the slogan in the late 20th century as a tool of increasing the visibility of Hinduism in public spaces and went on to use it as a war cry for perpetration of communal atrocities against people of other faiths.
Padma Bhushan awardee Dr David Frawley said taught Wikipedia has published many questionable statements about Hindu writers, causes and historical issues. This is not an unbiased forum and Hindus should protest against its anti-Hindu views he said.
Manisha a student from Mumbai who edits Wikipedia under the username papayadaily began noticing what she said was widespread anti-Hindu bias on Wikipedia after the BJP was re-elected.
She also said that every article on Wikipedia is against the ruling party and whitewashes the Indian National Congress.
Raj Aryan another editor whose username is Factual Indian Hindu says that the page for Modi is filled with criticism, but the one Rahul Gandhi is laced with all praise.
It not just Modi or the BJP that have been victims of falsehood. Wikipedia also had an article on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in which he was labeled as a radical. Further according to Aryan, the pages on Hinduism are negative in nature, but the ones on Islam and Christianity are positive. On the pages on Hinduism, the pages stress on issues such as casteism instead of the progressive side of the faith.
Sanger had also argued about the contentious topics such as Donald Trump’s impeachment and the Hunter Biden story. He said that Wikipedia expressed a clear bias towards Democratic view points failing to present both side of the debate fairly. He also noted that scandals involving Barrack Obama are omitted, while those relating to Trump are covered exhaustively.
Ashley Rindsberg’s research for Pirate Wires, titled “How Wikipedia Launders Regime Propaganda,” speaks about the ideological bias in Wikipedia’s content, particularly on the left-leaning sources. He said that the Wikipedia editors and administrators systematically blacklisted conversation media sources and favour the left-leaning ones. He further said that Wikipedia’s reliability guidelines favour the mainstream and left-leaning media such as ABC, CBS, NBC, The Atlantic, Fox, Mother Jones and The Guardian. However conversation sources like Fox News, The Federalist and The Post Millennial are deemed as unreliable.
The research notes that a state owned media like the China Daily and Xinhua which promote government propaganda are give a yellow rating for no consensus. Al Jazeera on the other hand which is owned by an authoritarian state of Qatar receives a green rating for reliability.
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