The Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor said it will fine Wikipedia up to 4 million rubles (about $49,000) if it doesn’t delete factual information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in its Russian language encyclopedia entries.
I bet that if it was the US asking Wikipedia to edit articles the media wouldn’t use the word “demand” or attribute it to the whole US. A likely headline would be: “email shows US official asked Wikipedia to censor ‘misinformation’”.
The Russian media censorship agency Roskomnadzor demanded the volunteer-run online encyclopedia take down any information on the invasion that is “misinforming” Russians, according to a statement.
The solution is real simple, don’t turn to wikipedia on matters that are politically charged. Get your news from a news outlet, instead of expecting that a crowdsourced online encyclopaedia might be up on current events.
There’s tradeoffs involved. Even when a journalist is doing a good job, they may have an editor butcher the article to suit a specific narrative (source: i have journalist friends). And most times, news outlets refuse to publish sources: even on the web, it’s rare to find an article that has actual links to more detailed information.
Wikipedia’s strength is transparency:
a lot of information is conflicting but the sources are linked to make yourself an opinion which you deem more reliable ; biased information is usually presented as such (“that person/organization claimed that…”)
a lot of information is missing due to sources not filling the admissibility criteria but more information can generally be found in the debate section
Overall, there are great articles out there on any medium. But on average, i’d choose a wikipedia article over any other media any day of the week :)
Actually, so would I for almost everything - except journalism. Why? because wikipedia was never intended to be used that way. Reading news there is like searching for a palimpsest on a roll of recycled toilet paper. Sure, it could be there, but why would you ever think to look there for it?
Wikipedia has a big part to play, but this kind of thing just brings the information war right up onto the pages of what is arguably the best reference we have.
Curation suggests that we should protect it from becoming involved in an ideological tug of war lest it be damaged in the process.
I disagree. Wikipedia has historically been a good source for gathering information about an evolving event. It should of course be taken with a grain of salt, but when you have gobs of editors reviewing and revising, misinformation tends to get weeded out pretty quickly.
Do not discount the power of sleepless obsessives. The volunteers at Wikipedia are compulsive about the rules. Facebook needs to hire them to fact check.
Yes, that’s not working so well, obviously. But there is a cynical assault on truth. It’s literally a 1984 meme today. We need to get back to journalistic standards for publishing news. For the most part, the hordes of Wikipedia contributors do a good job at it.
I bet that if it was the US asking Wikipedia to edit articles the media wouldn’t use the word “demand” or attribute it to the whole US. A likely headline would be: “email shows US official asked Wikipedia to censor ‘misinformation’”.
Close, from the article-
The solution is real simple, don’t turn to wikipedia on matters that are politically charged. Get your news from a news outlet, instead of expecting that a crowdsourced online encyclopaedia might be up on current events.
There’s tradeoffs involved. Even when a journalist is doing a good job, they may have an editor butcher the article to suit a specific narrative (source: i have journalist friends). And most times, news outlets refuse to publish sources: even on the web, it’s rare to find an article that has actual links to more detailed information.
Wikipedia’s strength is transparency:
Overall, there are great articles out there on any medium. But on average, i’d choose a wikipedia article over any other media any day of the week :)
Actually, so would I for almost everything - except journalism. Why? because wikipedia was never intended to be used that way. Reading news there is like searching for a palimpsest on a roll of recycled toilet paper. Sure, it could be there, but why would you ever think to look there for it?
Wikipedia has a big part to play, but this kind of thing just brings the information war right up onto the pages of what is arguably the best reference we have.
Curation suggests that we should protect it from becoming involved in an ideological tug of war lest it be damaged in the process.
I disagree. Wikipedia has historically been a good source for gathering information about an evolving event. It should of course be taken with a grain of salt, but when you have gobs of editors reviewing and revising, misinformation tends to get weeded out pretty quickly.
Do not discount the power of sleepless obsessives. The volunteers at Wikipedia are compulsive about the rules. Facebook needs to hire them to fact check.
Or we could just not have Facebook™ fact checkers at all. Wtf?
Because that be inconvenient for you?
No because Mark Zuckerburg obviously shouldn’t be the one to decide what is and isn’t true. Of course.
Yes, that’s not working so well, obviously. But there is a cynical assault on truth. It’s literally a 1984 meme today. We need to get back to journalistic standards for publishing news. For the most part, the hordes of Wikipedia contributors do a good job at it.