In an interview with Jan Jekielek of the Epoch Times that aired this week, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger announced plans to circulate a letter of protest among prominent individuals and groups harmed by Wikipedia before sending to the Wikimedia Foundation that owns the site. He further suggested such a letter could be sent to U.S. government officials and other governments to press for reform at the online encyclopedia.
Two weeks ago, Sanger published his “nine theses” proposal for reform on his blog and Wikipedia itself. He discussed them initially in an interview on commentator Tucker Carlson’s podcast where a discussion about Wikipedia’s purge of conservative media, including Breitbart News, went viral on social media. Consequently, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced “Grokipedia” as a competing encyclopedia and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation in his capacity as Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee inquiring about the blacklisting of conservative media among other bias concerns.
Sanger has participated in several additional interviews to discuss the proposal along with his criticism of Wikipedia. He has long criticized the site and has increasingly focused on left-wing bias. Sanger has previously claimed the site’s neutrality policy was dead and that Wikipedia had become leftist propaganda. He has been smeared and attacked for his criticism with editors recently responding to his theses by attempting to delete the copy on Wikipedia, censoring its contents, and locking the page so it could only be edited by administrators. A few editors even suggested potential sanctions against Sanger for the contents of his essay. Sanger took to X to call out these actions:
At the beginning of Sanger’s interview at the Epoch Times, Jekielek mentioned how he was originally a big backer of Wikipedia and loved the idea. He stated the article on Epoch Times was originally acceptable, but “turned into this gross distortion” in later years. Breitbart has reported how editors smeared the Epoch Times, particularly following an NBC News hit piece, and eventually added the outlet to its sourcing blacklist. The attacks came as Epoch Times became increasingly supportive of President Donald Trump during his first term and specifically responding to the outlet’s critical reporting of the ultimately discredited Russiagate investigation.
Discussing Wikipedia’s bias, Sanger described how he saw the site first show real signs of abandoning its original neutrality when they began taking sides on the issue of climate change around 2005 to 2006. He stated by 2010 to 2012, it had a similar “establishment center-left” bias to the New York Times or BBC. However, it got substantially worse after Trump’s election in 2016 and deteriorated even further following the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He described Wikipedia as “one of the controlling institutions of modern civilization” yet lamented it was also a “black box” with behind-the-scenes organizing and “astroturfing” by its anonymous contributors.
He argued that if the Wikimedia Foundation refused to act, then Congress and the general public can bring pressure to Wikipedia to achieve change. Part of this pressure Sanger mentioned working on was organizing a letter of protest he would circulate among “a lot of prominent people who have been wronged, in various ways, by Wikipedia.” Sanger said he believed there were a lot of people who have been maligned by Wikipedia who would sign it. The letter would be sent to the Foundation, Congress, the White House, and other governments.
Last week, Sanger had put out a request on X for the names of any people or groups “who have been defamed or outrageously treated by Wikipedia”:
Sanger clarified he did not want government imposing anything on the site or taking action threatening free speech and said it would be a disaster to have Wikipedia generally regulated, stating he was still generally libertarian. However, he noted many problems resulted from the law, citing Section 230, which limits online platform liability for user contributions. Stating Wikipedia’s owners had money to solve the site’s problems, he noted anonymously-contributed content is presented as factual and neutral and often perceived as such by the public. Reiterating concerns expressed in his sixth thesis regarding anonymity of site leaders, Sanger argued this meant no one can be sued for site contents.
Repeating a point raised in his interview with Carlson, Sanger mentioned dozens of people have come to him previously, some reasonably famous, complaining about Wikipedia making false claims about them and harming their reputations. They noted Wikipedia’s smears made it difficult for them to get elected or sell products and there was nothing they could do about it. Sanger noted his proposal for a carve-out of Section 230 stating “if the combination of the law and the irresponsibility of the Wikimedia Foundation has created a situation where Wikipedia is functionally an engine of defamation” and they refuse to do anything, then Congress would have to act.
Believing a letter of protest would help, Sanger argued it was increasingly necessary to “make some noise” regarding Wikipedia. Pointing to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Wikipedia focusing on foreign influence, he stated this also reflects the more general problem of the site becoming an “engine of defamation” where it is not possible to sue anybody over its contents. He stated “where there is a tort, there must be a defendant” and mentioned speaking directly to the Wikimedia Foundation would have some effect, especially for members of Congress. Sanger believes for legal purposes people need to understand what is going on behind the scenes better.
On Musk’s proposed Grokipedia competitor, Sanger expressed concerns Grok often takes a left-wing establishment view. Jekeliek suggested it was more neutral than other AI platforms, which Sanger agreed may be true. He stated he has worked with some AI platforms and found they can be reasonably good, but still required human input to be reliable. He acknowledged that Grokipedia could surprise him and prove to be more neutral than Wikipedia. Sanger also discussed changing attitudes towards free speech since the 1960’s, stating the left originally advocated it to get the full range of opinions, but in the last 15 years this came to be treated as right-wing.
Proposing a “season of participation” over the next weeks and months, Sanger encouraged people — including centrists, libertarians, conservatives, and Republicans — to contribute to Wikipedia to affect internal change. He noted that while some forms of organizing are prohibited there are events where editors are organized on particular topics with these often paid for using funds from the Wikimedia Foundation. Asked about the best-case scenario for his proposals, Sanger stated it would be the Foundation convening a democratic editorial assembly and adopting some of his proposed reforms.
He noted the Foundation could make some decisions themselves, such as ending the anonymity of site leaders. Sanger also mentioned certain proposals received some community support. He also mentioned his proposed letter of protest and the possibility of meaningful public pressure being part of such a best-case scenario, potentially helping those involved with Wikipedia to realize there is a problem and a need for reform. Noting there could be other ways than his proposals, Sanger said he would favor any suggestions for improving the site.
Growing pressure on Wikipedia over bias has come from numerous government inquiries. Aside from the Oversight Committee investigation and Cruz’s inquiries, a bi-partisan group from Congress requested information regarding anti-Israeli bias on the site and then-Acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin similarly submitted a request inquiring about bias on Wikipedia, which prompted retaliation from the site’s editors. This pressure has recently sparked controversy within the community that edits Wikipedia and related sites after several candidates in community elections for the Foundation’s Board of Trustees were rejected with some blaming Israeli and U.S. government pressure, sparking a community revolt.
T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.
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