Weaponizing Wikipedia

Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD

Progressive Radio Network, February 10, 2020

 

"It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you for it was the illusion they loved."  -- W. Somerset Maugham

"He who despises his own life is soon master of another's. Beware, for such a man can become master of souls." -- 17th Century Irish Proverb

These quotes share something in common. Both take us behind the scenes of what on appearance are presumed to be objective and factual for anyone to believe. Both quotes also define the duplicity hidden in the editorial world of the world's largest so-called encyclopedia, Wikipedia. But very few people have the background or scholarship to spark the suspicion as to whether or not the information Wikipedia' provides on many subjects is accurate or not.  Popularity and hype trumps the reality of what Wikipedia really is. And almost no one really knows anything about the encyclopedia's parent organization, the WikiMedia Foundation.