Wiki-Whacked by Political Bias
Wikipedia is billed as the world's largest encyclopedia, but is it also the world's largest propaganda tool for smearing conservatives and promoting leftist views?
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
With the presidential elections looming, Americans will query the Internet to make a decision on the candidates. Now more than ever, accurate information is key. For almost any query, the chances are that the search engine will turn up a Wikipedia article — and that’s where the problems begin.
In 2001, Bernard Goldberg wrote his groundbreaking book Bias to confirm what we already knew: the media colored the news according to a liberal ideology. Today, Wikipedia, the “world’s largest encyclopedia,” has the potential of becoming the liberal left’s largest propaganda machine.
Volunteer editors scour the Internet for “reliable sources” (RS in Wiki-speak) and the typical Wikipedia article is better sourced than most subscription-based encyclopedias, according to several studies. But it’s the choice of how to source an article that really shades the news. Drawing from a mostly liberal media, a controversial figure like Senator Obama’s “spiritual guide,” the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, becomes almost a scholarly man presaging the woes of our time.
Most editors take their work very seriously, and are meticulous in following the Wikipedia rule book. But many editors pursue childish agendas with a perverted glee. Control, influence, and prestige — which escape many Wikipedia editors in the mundane brick and mortar world — are what some Wiki-addicts can establish in the virtual realm, except here they mostly remain anonymous and irresponsible.
Editors Gone Wild
“Every year a couple of editors go crazy and deface the Wikipedia main page,” says Lise Broer, a Wikipedian with over two years of experience in the Wikipedia project.
“Wikipedia has redundant systems for eliminating much of the vandalism, but the more subtle stuff can get through,” said Lise in a phone interview. “That’s where I come in.” Broer has adopted the screen name Durova, the first female Russian officer.
An historic female military figure is a fitting name because Lise Broer has involved herself with the toughest and most contentious articles on Wikipedia. Ms. Broer/Durova worked to ban an editor who claimed to be the descendant of Joan of Arc and was intent on inscribing his shoddily sourced lineage on the saint’s Wikipedia page. “Wiki-drama” is as subtle as using “sock puppets” to pretend you’re more than one editor, to outright stalking. Through hours of incessant emails, text messages, and chats, Broer has dealt with these headaches with great professionalism — and she does it all for free.
Liberal Bias?
Conservative figures are subject to both outright vandalism and the subtle hostility of activist editors with an enormous ideological agenda and no scruples. If several editors collaborate to block or stonewall an article, they can stall well-sourced information or just entirely skew the presentation. For some reason conservatives are an especially appealing target.
“Is he best known as a (political) ‘commentator’ or as a ‘TV presenter’ or a ‘lying sack of sh*t?’” asks one irate editor of the Wikipedia Bill O’Reilly article.
Conservative radio personality and activist Melanie Morgan has had her Wikipedia article defaced for several years by editors who have lobbied to have false information included in her Wikipedia article, including changing her name.
Michelle Malkin’s article is typically peppered with racial epithets.
Ann Coulter’s article is on a permanent lockdown status, where only the most trustworthy editors preside over the smallest of changes that have to reach some type of peer consensus. I can’t even reproduce much of the comments and criticisms on the Coulter article.
My article, Matt Sanchez, is one of the most hotly contested articles on Wikipedia and has been shielded from editing for the better part of a year.
There are hundreds of thousands of blogs and articles on the Internet, so what makes Wikipedia any different from much of the dubious information one can find on the World Wide Web?
“Take the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and Fox News. Put them together and the traffic going to Wikipedia is easily 10 times that amount and growing,” Durova said. If you do a search, any search, there’s bound to be a Wikipedia article among the top three results. The culture wars have found a new battlefield; it’s named Wikipedia.org.
Matt Sanchez is an international journalist and war correspondent. After a year of cooperating with Wiki-editors he is currently banned from contributing to an article based on him at Wikipedia, due to protests of bias.
| Comment |  Digg This |
 del.icio.us |
 |
 |
 PJM Home |
30 Comments
Gringo:Wikipedia is good for general information. It can be better than Google in locating relevant sources: 5 instead of 50,000. But always check out its sources.
I periodically check out the Wiki article on the high school I graduated from some years ago. There is a constant barrage of “Britney Spears is a graduate….the American History teacher is a dweeb..” type comments which are up for a short while and then corrected.
For controversial topics, it is not so good, as there are often some editors who are biased.
Take Chile and Allende, a subject I have researched intently for many years. The Spanish version of Wikipedia appears to have been written by an Allende acolyte: extreme bias. While the English version of Wikipedia also shows a certain bias towards Allende,it is much less biased. The Declaration on the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy, by which the House of Deputies voted by a 63% majority to condemn Allende and in effect invite the military to have a coup, can be found in Wikipedia, but only if one is looking for it.
With those warnings, I find Wikipedia to be a useful source. No, it is not the Supreme Being with regards to always having objective, factual information. But if used correctly, it is very useful.
May 14, 2008 - 4:29 am Mohammed the Teddy-Bear:I’ve found it to be incredibly helpful with the Mathematics articles, but I take whatever else I read with a truckload of salt.
“Mathematics, the last frontier of non-politicization”?
May 14, 2008 - 5:38 am Still-A-Neocon:According to Wikipedia, waterboarding is defined as a form of torture… not that some believe it to be torture and others (Pres. Bush) do not. So the liberal line is taken as the definition.
May 14, 2008 - 7:34 am Rubicon:Based on the patently obvious vicious bias Wiki permits, I do without any reference to it. In fact, when on quotes Wiki as their source, I immediately dismiss them & what they have to say as biased, and factually corrupted.
May 14, 2008 - 8:27 am Kevin Courtney:When enough people simply seek real truth elsewhere, Wiki will disappear into the electronic graveyard where it & its biased
“editors” (sic) belong.
I trust what the bible says about “the fallen nature of mankind” and therefore would never have thought that people would be trustworthy enough to edit online documents wothout bias or bad intent. I wouldn’t trust conservatives either but the left has long had an end justifies the means mentality and doesn’t have any respect for the meaning of words. I recently had a discussion about the meaning of words like phobia and tolerance with a progressive and found that they can do violence to our language so that you can’t even believe what they are saying because they define words in ways that are not in the accepted usage. Truth must be held sacred and it must conform to reality, not to your liking.
May 14, 2008 - 10:07 am Charlie (Colorado):Rubicon, Wikipedia is really very reliable on non-controversial topics; the math areas and the Buddhism articles are very good.
May 14, 2008 - 11:48 am mbviews:Totally agree.
1. As you mention where are the conservative sources to cite in the first place.
2.
You left out my biggest complaint.
The inclusion of a section about “controversies” or “countering views” or “opposing views”. How are there countering views to facts? It’s either fact or it isn’t.
And then where do you draw the line?
And what about issues? LGBT has gone through and added their assessment on lots of congress members. Does every organization then get a chance to say the score and views of that congress member. Can ATR list a section for every congressmember?
May 14, 2008 - 11:52 am Mark:I suspect Snoopes is liberal biased as well.
May 14, 2008 - 1:00 pm Olivia:I suspect the world is liberal-biased.
May 14, 2008 - 2:31 pm BobDog:I mean seriously folks.
It’s much easier to wait for handout than get off your tush.
And was the title of the piece a sly reference to Kriss Kross.
Am I showing my age?
Olivia:
“Bias” is a systematic deviation from a true, underlying population parameter. As such, the world cannot be biased, with respect to its policy preferences (nor can it have biased perceptions of these preferences), by definition. One could say that the mean preferred policies are overly liberal/redistributional, against a (say) neo-classical standard—but that is the point: that optimality, in this cause, would have an objective standard from which we might measure deviations.
By the same token, one cannot say that the media (or the academy) are biased, without some objective standard of “neutral”. It turns out that this is a devilishly difficult thing to do. It is not enough to say that because the members of the academy and the media are mostly Democratic (as has been shown by a number of studies), they will favor Democrats in their political coverage or classrooms. Simply “counting-up” coverage will also not get it done IN THE ABSENCE OF AN OBJECTIVE STANDARD OF WHAT THAT COVERAGE “SHOULD” BE. This is a missing link of some significance.
Tim Grosclose is likely among the most creative in attempting solve this riddle. A recent paper* is particularly clever: he uses content-analysis to connect members of the media to Congressional lib/con scaling measures—each of these measures and methods being more mature and (presumably) reliable than, say, self-identification. This paper finds great support for a liberal bias in the media—which should suit this audience great (here is the long-awaited “proof” of liberal bias, rigorously derived!).
A demand for precision is not an academic splitting of hairs. We should expect precision in elucidating our beliefs and in the empirical tests thereof; and we should demand no less from the various opinion-makers to whom we give audience. This is absolutely foundational to positivist (e.g. Lakatosian) research programs. Indeed, the “fuzzy” logic advocated by the post-modernist and ultra-liberal (and constructivist) camps, and so often derided here, is fundamentally inimical to such rigor. Unfortunately, imprecise statements, such as those by Olivia risk treading the same path—from the opposite direction.
*Tim Grosclose and Jeffery Milyo. “A Measure of Media Bias.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. November, 2005: pp. 1191-1237.
May 14, 2008 - 5:56 pm acg:I suspect the facts are liberal biased
May 14, 2008 - 6:15 pm Jason:“If several editors collaborate to block or stonewall an article, they can stall well-sourced information or just entirely skew the presentation.”
You can see little better examples of that than in articles about evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism. There is a tiny group of liberal editors who pretty much control everything on those articles. At least two of them are also administrators (who have the ability to lock articles and block users). In fact, Wikipedia has various “projects” that groups of editors sign up for in order to maintain groups of similar articles. For the Intelligent Design project, a large number of the editors are anti-ID evolutionists and their influence on the ID articles shows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_intelligent_design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_intelligent_design#Participants
May 14, 2008 - 8:16 pm Dais:“There are hundreds of thousands of blogs and articles on the Internet, so what makes Conservapedia any different from much of the dubious information one can find on the World Wide Web?”
oh, whoops
May 14, 2008 - 9:06 pm John Moore:In 2004, I was involved in the activities of Vietnam vets against Kerry. I once edited a page and gave as a reference a well sourced book on the subject. The edit was removed, with the editor stating “the book probably doesn’t even exist” - even though it was available on Amazon.
The Wiki articles on the Kerry v Swiftboat controversy are a fine study in propaganda. Although they facts are not too badly cherry picked, the framing of issues and the phrasing and adjective choices give a strong and clear message that the Swiftboaters were a bunch of partisan hacks and Kerry was a great guy. Based on my personal experience with the former, and research on the latter, this narrative is utterly wrong, but typical of Wikipedia’s bias.
Also compare the treatment of Kerry and G W Bush. Same sort of slant.
Global warming is another area where Wikipedia has a strong tilt. Reportedly, there is an editor who will take out evidence contrary to the AGW orthodoxy within minutes of when they are put in.
I have had edits rejected because the sourcing was my own experience. Apparently a reporter’s filtered, often biased and certainly second or third hand information is always ranked higher (it has, after all, a real cite one can use) than direct personal observation.
Wikipedia is useful, but like so many community purposed organizations, it is plagued with leftists, who always seem to have more time than their opponents to do battle in information warfare.
Remember O’Sullivan’s first law: ”’All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”’
May 14, 2008 - 11:18 pm Dais:“Reportedly, there is an editor who will take out evidence contrary to the AGW orthodoxy within minutes of when they are put in.”
Stooping to gossip, now…..?
May 15, 2008 - 12:52 am Gregory:Dais:
The difference is, you troll-emulating being, nobody in his right mind would use Conservapedia for any kind of serious research, not to mention that the bias is stated up front. Whereas, Wikipedia does not state any form of bias, and is used by large numbers of people blindly and trustingly as an objective online encyclopedia.
So. There’s your answer.
May 15, 2008 - 2:21 am Tom in Milwaukee:For those of you who would like to compare two wiki works to see if one is more biased than the other, I urge you to look up the same articles in each (I’m talking Wikipedia and Conservapedia). Try benign topics, biographical ones, pop-culture, science, religion, atheism, specific colleges and universities, cities and towns, and so on. The one striking difference is that Wikipedia attempts to provide multiple points of view and Conservapedia, when it even has an article on a given topic, proudly does not provide all sides of an argument. When one is an extremist, the rest of the world looks skewed. That is why Wikipedia, the press, universities, etc. are branded by extremist conservatives as “liberal.”
May 15, 2008 - 5:44 am Jason:“The one striking difference is that Wikipedia attempts to provide multiple points of view”
In which alternate reality?
May 15, 2008 - 7:37 am John Samford:“According to Wikipedia, waterboarding is defined as a form of torture… not that some believe it to be torture and others (Pres. Bush) do not. So the liberal line is taken as the definition.”
Waterboarding is the 21st century term. Before that it was called the Chinese water torture.
What you are saying is that changing the name means it’s no longer torture. That is a very debatable argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
I don’t think Wiki shows bias in this instance. They use the term torture, which would seem to be both appropriate and historically accurate. They then point out that not everyone considers it torture.
If this was put to a vote in America I think a huge majority would vote that it is torture.
Biases would be not calling it torture.
For the sake of disclosure, I am very much in favor of torture, so long as it’s not me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture
“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
Now there is bias. It seems that the UN definition of torture is anything except what the UN does. Then it becomes “lawful sanctions”, NOT torture.
May 15, 2008 - 3:44 pm Our Paul:So I suppose that once waterboarding is made a “lawful sanction” it will stop being torture.
The problem is obvious. With multiple sources of information available, how do you maintain ideological purity? Take correspondent BobDog’s posting, above. With high praise he quotes a paper by Tim Grosclose and Jeffery Milyo (“A Measure of Media Bias.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. November, 2005: pp. 1191-1237) and presents his view: “This paper finds great support for a liberal bias in the media—which should suit this audience great (here is the long-awaited “proof” of liberal bias, rigorously derived!)”.
So far so good, but an inquiring mind might do a couple of things. A Google search of the title brings up slightly over 7200 “hits”, indicating the paper is has been widely looked at. Next discovery, is that the correct spelling of the lead author is Groseclose. A Google search with the correct spelling yields about 21,300 hits. That endeavor on Google takes about a minute.
Nether Conservapedia, nor Wikepedia carries a primary listing on Prof. Groseclose, that took about 30 seconds. Back to the Google searches. What emerges, with about 5 to 10 minutes of scanning the search engine is that this paper controversial, and that its methodology (the key to any given paper claiming scientific credulity) is flawed. The old story of garbage in, garbage out seemed to have escaped the authors. Two links for those who accept the myth that the quoted paper:
http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/06.01.01.html
http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220003
and of course a bit of back and forth:
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html
It strikes me that any encyclopedia, print or Web based, is no more than the first stop for an enquiring mind. Controversy is the fuel of knowledge, and with the resources available to day only a lazy mind, or those seeking ideological purity will accept a Wiki entry as the final word…
PS: Before today, I was unaware of Conservapedia. Thank God that I found it, it explains a bunch. I have spent about 2 to 3 hours entering it’s search engine with specific queries. As a source for knowledge, other than what the Christian Right wishes to advance as fact, it is useless.
PPS: It is to be expected, but deserves comment: It is impossible to define who or how these endeavors are being funded.
May 15, 2008 - 3:54 pm Jason:“…other than what the Christian Right wishes to advance as fact…”
Oh, please… The “Christian Right” bogeyman is so overused that it’s a complete joke when otherwise intelligent people invoke it.
May 16, 2008 - 12:11 pm Mike:Dais,
You’ll find a comprehensive account of a Wikipedia editor waging war on global warming skeptics here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268
May well be the example Matt was thinking of.
May 16, 2008 - 12:38 pm Andy S.:Thank you for your insightful blogpost about bias on Wikipedia, Matthew! As you know, we at Conservapedia do not share Wikipedia’s notorious liberal bias. We consider it an honor to bring a little ray of conservative sunshine into the disgusting open sepulcher that is the liberal Internet. You’re doing God’s work, Matthew — I know He is proud of you.
“Conservapedia: Conserving pedos since 2006″
May 17, 2008 - 12:43 am John Moore:Mike,
May 17, 2008 - 10:29 am Mike:That was the one I was referring to when i said “rumored” - which Dais jumped all over.
Gringo, I am the person (and Wikipedia Editor who-is-not-yet-banned,-but-not-for-lack-of-critics-trying) who was personally instrumental in including the “The Declaration on the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy” to the various Chile, Allende and Pinochet-related articles. But aside from the paragraphs containing its reference in those articles, they are just as much “history according to the socialists” as anywhere else.
I was never able to successfully edit (permanently) the fact that Chile’s coup was NOT the military overthrow of Allende (because the Chilean armed-forces were called to do so by the Chilean legislature’s passage of the Declaration week’s earlier), but rather the refusal of Pinochet to restore government power to the legislature several days later. The coup, proper, was bloodless, and amounted to Pinochet simply saying, essentially, “My group is going to run things now, not the Chamber of Deputies.”
Jul 20, 2008 - 3:22 pm