CIA-edited Wikipedia has become propaganda tool – co-founder

Wikipedia has become a compromised propaganda tool, the online encyclopedia’s co-founder-turned-critic Larry Sanger has said, warning that its content is now increasingly informing AI.

In an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung published on Friday, Sanger argued that Wikipedia’s lack of an adequate governance structure allowed “specific ideological viewpoints” to shape its content, turning the online encyclopedia into a “globalist, academic, secular and progressive” consensus.

“Wikipedia was recognized early on as an important propaganda organ,” Sanger told the outlet. He argued that while the platform’s anonymity policy makes it difficult to determine who edits its content, “what we know as fact, based on all sorts of evidence, is that the CIA has already edited Wikipedia.”

Evidence of CIA and FBI edits first emerged in 2007 after programmer Virgil Griffith created WikiScanner, a tool linking anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations’ IP addresses. The tool attributed edits to the CIA, FBI, corporations, and government agencies, including changes to Iraq War casualty figures.

“Wikipedia is already compromised. That’s clear,” he said. Sanger argued that any ideological bias embedded in Wikipedia is now being amplified because large language models increasingly rely on its content as a reference source when answering factual queries.

To address the problems, he proposed sweeping reforms, including public identities for senior functionaries, due-process protections in disciplinary cases, public article ratings, and elected officials responsible for setting Wikipedia policy.

Sanger is not the only prominent critic of Wikipedia. Conservative commentators have long accused Wikipedia, which relies on donations, of betraying its promise of neutrality on contentious topics. Elon Musk mocked the platform as “Wokipedia” and once offered $1 billion if it agreed to rename itself “Dickipedia” for a year.

Russian officials have accused the platform of political bias. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in 2024 that Wikipedia almost always reflects a Western-centric interpretation of events and contains outright fabrications.