Brenton
Is Wikipedia Biased?
January 10th 2008 10:32
Some People See Wikipedia Like This - But is it Really True?
Shinzo Abe and Geoffrey Blainy have one thing in common. History. And the desire to express it in a way that is more beneficial to their own personal ideal world views.
George Orwell once lamented today’s view of an exclusively subjective truth. While he acknowledged their would always be discrepancies to popular belief and fact, he stated that there was value in the belief that there was such thing as an objective truth, and, more importantly, it was a truth able to be found and known.
An Encyclopedia is a collection of factual information ranging over a range of subjects (or a detailed look at a specific topic – encyclopedia botancia for example looks at plants) Wikipedia attempts to be an encyclopedia of everything worth knowing about. That Wikipedia purports to provide factual information demonstrates the acceptance that Orwell’s proposal – that an objective truth exists and can be known – is true. So if there is an objective truth to be presented by Wikipedia, who controls what that truth is?
Despite Wikipedia’s democratic nature, it is estimated that a majority of articles are created and maintained by a highly active minority of users. The question we have to ask – of those minority who write for the majority – do they have, in general, an agenda?
Conservapedia is a Wikipedia substitute. Now, it has bugger all credibility, however, the story behind it is worth a look. The rationale behind the creation of Conservapedia is that is it a well needed antithesis to Wikipedia’s Left wing bias.
Ignoring the fact that dipping small children in ink and letting them run around on giant hills of paper would make more intelligent content than one finds on Conservapedia, is the sites criticism of Wikipedia fair? Is it widely overrun with biased left wing criticism?
As far as I can see, yes. And no. There is a slight left lean in Wikipedia, but this is consistently being straightened out be editors. More importantly I don’t see this as a systematic process of disinformation, but a reflection of a number of the editors of Wikipedia.
For one thing, Conservapedia criticises Wikipedia for a lack of Patriotism. This is true. Wikipedia is made to represent a world view. To represent a world view, one simply cannot take a patriotic stand, where one view is dominant above others. If one is to remain neutral, one must accept all different countries and culture as having neutral values. The same can be said of Conservapedia’s criticism of the non Christian focus of Wikipedia. If we accept Christianity as the only truth, that marginalises all other views, rather than exploring them.
There are some matters aside from Wikipedia’s intentional lack of content promoting one group’s view as superior. First of all, the very concept of Wikipedia gels more with left wing philosophy than with right wing. Left Wing philosophy often promotes grassroots democratic action, relying on communal action, working together for a better future. Right Wing philosophy tends to support more of an Authoritarian rationale where those whom possess power and ability create or facilitate the creation of high quality material in a controlled environment. Logically, if you attract people whom are impressed by the left leaning 'Grass Roots' Democratic rationale of a project, you are likely to attract left leaning people.
Secondly, Wikipedia is dealing in truth, and by its nature is compelled to dispel untruths and distortions of fact that have been produced by powerful authoritarian figures. As anti-authoritarianism is generally regarded as a left wing thing, this could explain some of the association of Wikipedia as a ‘lefty’ thing.
Ultimately the critics of Wikipedia are more entertaining their own prejudice when they accuse it of overwhelming bias. When anything that does not define a strict allegiance to your belief is ‘biased’, balance in itself is regarded as dangerous. While Wikipedia is in itself filled with issues that may warrant criticism, I can happily suggest that systematic left wing bias is not one of these.
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