Ashley Rinsberg Exposes How Wikipedia Abandoned Neutrality and Became a Political Battlefield After 2016

[00:02] Wikipedia is the most widely used source

[00:04] of information in human history. Think

[00:06] about it. When you Google anything from

[00:09] historical events to current events,

[00:12] Wikipedia dominates the results. Google

[00:15] ranks Wikipedia articles in the first

[00:17] spot on 80% of topic searches and uses

[00:20] Wikipedia articles to populate its

[00:22] knowledge panels that are displayed next

[00:24] to these searches. With this kind of

[00:26] reach, we would all want Wikipedia to be

[00:29] fair, objective, and accurate. And if

[00:31] you're doing research on Roman emperors

[00:33] or Isaac Newton's laws of motion or

[00:35] Beethoven's fifth symphony, it usually

[00:38] is. But when it comes to contemporary

[00:40] political and social issues, Wikipedia

[00:42] has become something else entirely. A

[00:45] battlefield where ideology outranks

[00:47] accuracy. When you're researching

[00:50] immigration, climate change, or

[00:52] international conflicts, you'll find not

[00:55] neutral information, but carefully

[00:57] crafted narratives on these issues.

[01:00] Wikipedia is neither fair nor objective

[01:02] nor accurate. How did this happen?

[01:05] Through coordinated groups of editors

[01:07] who systematically control what

[01:09] information stays and what gets deleted.

[01:12] And anyone who challenges their

[01:14] preferred narrative gets shut down on

[01:17] issue after issue. Only one point of

[01:19] view is permitted. Take Israel. Over the

[01:22] past few years, a group of 40

[01:23] anti-Israel editors have engaged in a

[01:25] campaign to fundamentally delegitimize

[01:27] the Jewish state and whitewash the

[01:30] crimes of Hamas and other terrorist

[01:32] groups. These editors have scrubbed ties

[01:34] between Israel and the Jewish people

[01:36] from dozens of articles. They've

[01:38] contorted the definition of Zionism from

[01:40] a call for restoration of the Jews to

[01:43] their homeland to a call for

[01:45] colonization of Palestine by European

[01:48] Jews. Almost all things related to

[01:50] Israel have been tainted. For example,

[01:52] two of the main editors from this group

[01:54] contributed over 90% of the content to

[01:57] an article they created originally

[02:00] called Zionism, Race, and Genetics,

[02:02] which attempts to smear Zionism by

[02:04] comparing it to Nazi race science. The

[02:07] group isn't just focused on taring

[02:09] Israel. It also works round the clock to

[02:12] whitewash the crimes of Islamist groups.

[02:15] One editor removed mention of Hamas's

[02:17] genocidal charter. Others have tried to

[02:19] deny atrocities of the October 7th, 2023

[02:22] massacre. Working in tandem, two editors

[02:25] went on speedruns to delete dozens of

[02:28] human rights abuses committed by the

[02:29] Islamic Republic of Iran. But this isn't

[02:32] just about Israel and its enemies.

[02:34] Wikipedia articles related to American

[02:36] politics, racism, transgenderism, and

[02:39] dozens of other subjects have seen a

[02:41] similar effect play out. Wikipedia

[02:43] wasn't always like this. There was a

[02:45] time not long ago when it was actually

[02:47] neutral. What changed? 2016. When Donald

[02:51] Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the left

[02:54] didn't just lose an election, it lost

[02:56] its mind. Clinton blamed her loss on

[02:58] Russian disinformation. She declared a

[03:01] fake news epidemic before Congress. For

[03:04] the left, the message was clear. Control

[03:06] the internet or lose again. Enter the

[03:09] Wikipdia Foundation, WF, Wikipedia's

[03:13] parent organization. It saw an

[03:15] opportunity. The foundation's executive

[03:18] director, Katherine Mah, declared

[03:20] Wikipedia's neutrality a white male

[03:23] westernized construct. Her solution,

[03:26] something that came to be known as the

[03:28] Wikipdia movement strategy. Its mission

[03:31] wasn't subtle. Transform Wikipedia from

[03:34] an encyclopedia into a social justice

[03:36] platform. Internal documents from this

[03:39] period, now public, show a deliberate

[03:41] shift toward what WMF termed knowledge

[03:44] equity, effectively prioritizing certain

[03:47] political perspectives over others. That

[03:50] would take gobs of money, tens of

[03:52] millions. They got it. A big chunk came

[03:55] from an organization called the Tides

[03:57] Foundation, which is funded by

[03:59] progressive billionaire George Soros.

[04:01] His acolytes now fill Wikipdia's

[04:03] leadership ranks. They in turn empowered

[04:07] the left-wing editors who now control

[04:08] the Wikipedia narrative, a narrative

[04:11] which is anti-American, anti-Israel,

[04:13] anti-western, and anti-Christian.

[04:16] Unfortunately, Wikipedia's influence

[04:19] doesn't stop at its own website anymore.

[04:21] That would be bad enough. Every major AI

[04:24] system from Chat GPT to Google's Gemini

[04:28] feeds on Wikipedia's massive database.

[04:31] That means the future of unbiased

[04:33] information itself is in jeopardy. And

[04:35] the source of that unbiased information

[04:37] is harder to identify because it is

[04:39] embedded in AI systems. Every student

[04:42] writing a term paper with the help of

[04:44] AI, journalist fact-checking a story,

[04:47] policy maker researching an issue,

[04:49] they're all using Wikipedia whether they

[04:51] know it or not. So, how can we bring

[04:54] Wikipedia back to its original mission?

[04:56] We must let them know that we are on to

[04:58] their game. For example, call them out

[05:01] on social media if you know they have

[05:04] something wrong. I've seen posts like

[05:06] these and done stories on them. The

[05:08] concept behind the site was a brilliant

[05:10] one. a decentralized crowdsourced

[05:12] encyclopedia, countless articles written

[05:15] by countless contributors, each

[05:17] fact-checking the work of others. We

[05:19] must demand a return to that model.

[05:21] Until that return comes, it's incumbent

[05:24] on all of us to seek out other sources

[05:26] of information. We must become our own

[05:29] fact checkers. We can't outsource that

[05:32] responsibility to anyone, least of all

[05:34] Wikipedia. I'm Ashley Rinsberg, senior

[05:37] editor at Pirate Wires for Prager

[05:39] University. Thank you for watching this

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