Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, published a blog post this month declaring that the online encyclopedia’s “neutral point of view” policy is “dead” due to the rampant left-wing bias of the site. Noting the article on President Donald Trump, Sanger contrasted its extensive coverage of presidential scandals with the largely scandal-free article on former President Barack Obama.

Sanger also criticized Wikipedia’s coverage of religion and other controversial topics. After Fox News reported on his blog post, many Wikipedians ignored the bias Sanger identified and instead responded by attacking the conservative outlet as well as Sanger.

View Comments (2)

On May 14, Sanger published a blog piece titled “Wikipedia Is Badly Biased” and started by declaring Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” policy dead. Having founded the online encyclopedia with Jimmy Wales and having been involved in the original drafting of the policy, Sanger offered particular insight into its development and its practice in recent years. On the current policy’s rejection of providing “equal validity” to different views, Sanger stated this went directly against the original policy’s intent and that “as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science.”

Providing examples, Sanger noted former President Obama’s article excludes most notable scandals during his Administration, such as the bungled ATF Fast and Furious operation that armed Mexican cartels who killed a U.S. border agent or the targeting of Tea Party groups by the IRS. By contrast, Sanger pointed to Trump’s article containing overwhelmingly negative sections on the President regarding his “public profile” as well as investigations and impeachment. The sections critical of Trump and his presidency are nearly as long as those dealing with his presidency overall. He further criticized Wikipedia repeatedly saying Trump makes false statements rather than attributing such characterizations to sources.

Wikipedia’s coverage of other contentious political topics such as abortion were also criticized with Sanger singling out Wikipedia claiming abortion is “one of the safest procedures in medicine.” He pointed out how articles on legalization of drugs and gay adoption were focused on positives with little to no mention of criticisms. In the latter case, Sanger noted the section on “debate” about gay adoption only included arguments in favor rather than any against it. Sanger also criticized Wikipedia’s coverage of religion describing the article on Jesus as “a ‘liberal’ academic discussion” focused “on assorted difficulties and controversies” without explaining “traditional or orthodox views of those issues.”

Further criticism was directed at Wikipedia’s handling of scientific issues, where Sanger acknowledged some would consider a “bias towards science” to be desirable. However, he noted that it is not always clear what constitutes a legitimate scientific view and Wikipeda tends to “take for granted” and “aggressively assert” the views of the scientific establishment despite scientific minorities rejecting or criticizing these views such as on global warming. In the end, Sanger called on Wikipedia’s community to concede that they have abandoned neutrality, while stating this was unlikely as Wikipedia editors “live in a fantasy world of their own making.”

After his post was covered by Fox News, editors on Wikipedia posted about his remarks on a discussion page for the site’s other co-founder, Jimmy Wales, where users bring issues to his attention and seek his comments. While Wales has yet to respond to Sanger’s criticism, many other editors responded to the news, though most avoided addressing his concerns about political bias. Instead, editors mainly focused on criticizing Fox News with one of the first editors responding stating “fact and neutrality have their own bias, and one largely at odds with Fox.” One cynically suggested Sanger’s criticism was him angling for a position at the network.

Editors on Wikipedia often dismiss criticism of the site’s history of left-wing bias, despite repeated incidents such as editors burying information about CNN’s blackmail controversy, an editor running a smear campaign against then-nominee for the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh, or Antifa supporters downplaying the far-left group’s violent conduct including by censoring mention of the attack on journalist Andy Ngo. Smears of President Trump have included listing him and various prominent conservatives as advocates of a “Neo-Nazi conspiracy theory” for talking about South African farm attacks. Editors contrarily defended then-incoming New York Times editor Sarah Jeong’s bigoted anti-white commentary.

(Excerpt from Breitbart. Article by T.D. Adler.)