Wikipedia Is Badly Biased

The Uncyclopedia logo. Maybe more appropriate for Wikipedia itself now.

Wikipedia’s “NPOV” is dead.1 The original policy long since forgotten, Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy. There is a rewritten policy, but it endorses the utterly bankrupt canard that journalists should avoid what they call “false balance.”2 The notion that we should avoid “false balance” is directly contradictory to the original neutrality policy. As a result, even as journalists turn to opinion and activism, Wikipedia now touts controversial points of view on politics, religion, and science. Here are some examples from each of these subjects, which were easy to find, no hunting around. Many, many more could be given.

Wikipedia’s favorite president?

Examples have become embarrassingly easy to find. The Barack Obama article completely fails to mention many well-known scandals: Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal—or, of course, the developing “Obamagate” story in which Obama was personally involved in surveilling Donald Trump. A fair article about a major political figure certainly must include the bad with the good. Beyond that, a neutral article must fairly represent competing views on the figure by the major parties.

In other words—and this is the point crucial to evaluating an article’s neutrality—a neutral article is written not to take sides on issues of controversy. It does not matter whether one or both sides believe their point of view is totally factual and supported with incontrovertible proof. How many times, in politics and in many walks of life, have we seen controversies in which both sides can cite apparently rigorous studies, or chapter and verse, or original source material that, they claim, show their view is absolutely certain? In such cases, a neutral resource like Wikipedia is bound by policy not to take a side. Yet it does.

Political scandals are a good example where sources are carefully lined up on both sides. There were many controversies over “scandals” plaguing Obama’s presidency. But in fact, the only scandals that I could find in Wikipedia’s Obama article were a few that the left finds at least a little scandalous, such as Snowden’s revelations about NSA activities under Obama. In short, the article is almost a total whitewash. You might find this to be objectively correct, if you are a Democrat; but you cannot claim that this is a neutral treatment, considering that the other major U.S. party would, citing other ostensibly credible sources, treat the subject very differently. On such topics, neutrality in any sense worth the name essentially requires that readers not be able to detect the editors’ political alignment.

Not Wikipedia’s favorite president

Meanwhile, as you can imagine, the idea that the Donald Trump article is neutral is a joke. Just for example, there are 5,224 none-too-flattering words in the “Presidency” section. By contrast, the following “Public Profile” (which the Obama article entirely lacks), “Investigations,” and “Impeachment” sections are unrelentingly negative, and together add up to some 4,545 words—in other words, the controversy sections are almost as long as the sections about his presidency. Common words in the article are “false” and “falsely” (46 instances): Wikipedia frequently asserts, in its own voice, that many of Trump’s statements are “false.” Well, perhaps they are. But even if they are, it is not exactly neutral for an encyclopedia article to say so, especially without attribution. You might approve of Wikipedia describing Trump’s incorrect statements as “false,” very well; but then you must admit that you no longer support a policy of neutrality on Wikipedia. More to the point, Republican, Trump-supporting views are basically not represented at all in the article on Trump.

I leave the glowing Hillary Clinton article as an exercise for the reader.

On political topics it is easiest to argue for the profound benefits—even the moral necessity—of eliminating bias in reference works. As I argue in my 2015 essay, “Why Neutrality” (updated in Essays on Free Knowledge) we naturally desire neutrality on political and many other topics because we want to be left free to make up our own minds. Reference, news, and educational resources aimed at laying out a subject in general should give us the tools we need to rationally decide what we want to think. Only those who want to force the minds of others can be opposed to neutrality.

“Prior to prohibition, cannabis was available freely in a variety of forms,” says Wikipedia, helpfully.

Wikipedia can be counted on to cover not just political figures, but political issues as well from a liberal-left point of view. No conservative would write, in an abortion article, “When properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine,” a claim that is questionable on its face, considering what an invasive, psychologically distressing, and sometimes lengthy procedure it can be even when done according to modern medical practices. More to the point, abortion opponents consider the fetus to be a human being with rights; their view, that it is not safe for the baby, is utterly ignored. To pick another, random issue, drug legalization, dubbed drug liberalization by Wikipedia, has only a little information about any potential hazards of drug legalization policies; it mostly serves as a brief for legalization, followed by a catalog of drug policies worldwide. Or to take an up-to-the-minute issue, the LGBT adoption article includes several talking points in favor of LGBT adoption rights, but omits any arguments against. On all such issues, the point is that true neutrality, to be carefully distinguished from objectivity, requires that the article be written in a way that makes it impossible to determine the editors’ position on the important controversies the article touches on.

Gospel reliability is “uncertain,” Wikipedia says, neutrally.

What about articles on religious topics? The first article I thought to look at had some pretty egregious instances of bias: the Jesus article. It simply asserts, again in its own voice, that “the quest for the historical Jesus has yielded major uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus.” In another place, the article simply asserts, “the gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus’ life.” A great many Christians would take issue with such statements, which means they are not neutral for that reason alone. In other words, the very fact that many Christians, including many deeply educated conservative seminarians, believe in the historical reliability of the Gospels, and that they are wholly consistent, means that the article is biased if it simply asserts, without attribution or qualification, that this is a matter of “major uncertainty.” Now, it would be accurate and neutral to say it is widely disputed, but being “disputed” and being “uncertain” are very different concepts. It is in fact a controversial view that the historical accuracy of the Gospels is uncertain; others disagree, holding that, upon analysis, it is not a matter of significant uncertainty. In other respects, the article can be fairly described as a “liberal” academic discussion of Jesus, focusing especially on assorted difficulties and controversies, while failing to explain traditional, orthodox, or fundamentalist views of those issues. So it might be “liberal academic,” but it ignores conservative academic and traditional views. Therefore, what it is not is neutral, not in the original sense we defined for Wikipedia.

Of course, similarly tendentious claims can be found in other articles on religious topics, as when the Christ (title) article claims,

Although the original followers of Jesus believed Jesus to be the Jewish messiah, e.g. in the Confession of Peter, Jesus was usually referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth” or “Jesus, son of Joseph”.[11] Jesus came to be called “Jesus Christ” (meaning “Jesus the Khristós”, i.e. “Jesus the Messiah” or “Jesus the Anointed”) by later Christians, who believe that his crucifixion and resurrection fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.

This article weirdly claims, or implies, a thing that no serious Biblical scholar of any sort would claim, viz., that Jesus was not given the title “Christ” by the original Apostles in the New Testament. The Wikipedia article itself later contradicts that claim, so perhaps the editors of the above paragraph simply meant the two conjoined words “Jesus Christ,” and that Jesus was rarely referred to with those two conjoined words in the New Testament. But this is false, too: the two words are found together in that form throughout the New Testament.

But the effect of the above-quoted paragraph is to cast doubt that the title “Christ” was used much at all by the original Apostles and disciples. That would be silly if so. These supposed “later Christians” who used “Christ” would have to include the Apostles Peter (Jesus’ first apostle), Paul (converted a few years after Jesus’ crucifixion), and Jude (Jesus’ brother), who were the authors of the bulk of the epistles of the New Testament. The word “Christ” can, of course, be found frequently in the epistles, including very early epistles, thought to be the first texts written about Jesus.3 Of course, those are not exactly “later Christians.” If the claim is simply that the word “Christ” does not appear at all or much in the Gospels, that is false, as a simple text search uncovers dozens of instances in all four Gospels,4 and about 550 instances in the entire New Testament. If it is used somewhat less in the Gospels, that would be a reflection of the fact that the authors of the Gospels were, argumentatively, using the Hebrew word “Messiah” to persuade Jewish readers that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah. But the word means much the same as the Greek title “Christ”: the anointed one, God’s chosen. So, in any event, the basic claim here is simply false. He is called “Jesus Christ” (Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) in the very first verse of the New Testament (Matthew 1:1) and in the first verse of the gospel sometimes thought to be the first-written, Mark (1:1), as well.5

Or if the claim were that Jesus was not understood to be the Messiah or Christ in his own lifetime before being crucified, we need not quibble about that (though it is easy enough to cite the gospel claims that Peter believed him to be the Christ; see, e.g., Mark 8:29). The book of Acts and the epistles make it abundantly clear that the Apostles, setting up the earliest churches, thought Jesus was the Messiah—indeed, the Son of God.

Clearly, Wikipedia’s claims are tendentious if not false, and represent a point of view that many if not most Christians would rightly dispute.

It may seem more problematic to speak of the bias of scientific articles, because many people do not want to see “unscientific” views covered in encyclopedia articles. If such articles are “biased in favor of science,” some people naturally find that to be a feature, not a bug. The problem, though, is that scientists sometimes do not agree on which theories are and are not scientific. This point is perfectly obvious to anyone who actually follows any lively scientific debate at all closely. On such issues, the “scientific point of view” and the “objective point of view” according to the Establishment might be very much opposed to neutrality. So when certain people seem unified on a certain view of a scientific controversy, then that is the view that is taken for granted as the Establishment one, and often aggressively asserted, by Wikipedia.

Neutral information, representing a scientific consensus with no dissent, I’m sure.

The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. Indeed, Wikipedia defines the very term as follows: “Alternative medicine describes any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven ineffective.” In all these cases, genuine neutrality requires a different sort of treatment.

Again, other examples could be found, in no doubt thousands of other, less exciting topics. These are just the first topics that came to mind, associated as they are with the culture wars, and their articles on those topics put Wikipedia very decidedly on one side of that war. You should not be able to say that about an encyclopedia that claims to be neutral.

It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy). At the very least they should admit that that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one.6 It might be better to embrace a “credibility” policy and admit that their notion of what is credible does, in fact, bias them against conservatism, traditional religiosity, and minority perspectives on science and medicine—to say nothing of many other topics on which Wikipedia has biases.

Of course, Wikipedians are unlikely to make any such change; they live in a fantasy world of their own making.7

The world would be better served by an independent and decentralized encyclopedia network, such as I proposed with the Encyclosphere. We will certainly develop such a network, but if it is to remain fully independent of all governmental and big corporate interests, funds are naturally scarce and it will take time.

Here is a follow-up article (June 2021).
And here is another (June 2023).


  1. The misbegotten phrase “neutral point of view” is a Jimmy Wales coinage I never supported. If a text is neutral with regard to an issue, it lacks any “point of view” with regard to the issue; it does not take a “neutral point of view.” My preferred phrase was always “the neutrality policy” or “the nonbias policy.”[]
  2. On this, see my “Why Neutrality?“, published 2015 by Ballotpedia.[]
  3. Both in the form “Jesus Christ” (e.g., 1 Peter 1:1, Jude 1:1) and in the form “Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:2). “Christ” is found throughout three epistles widely held to be among the first written, including Galatians and 1 Thessalonians, and twice in James.[]
  4. I mistakenly conceded this false point in an earlier draft of this article, after not searching enough. Greek nominative and accusative Χριστόν and genitive Χριστοῦ can be found throughout.[]
  5. If you look at the footnote Wikipedia cites in support of its weird claim, you will find a sensible, not-misleading, and relatively neutral article by Britannica, the context of which makes it perfectly clear that the authors were not making any claim about the use of the title “Christ” but instead the two-word combination “Jesus Christ,” as applied directly to Jesus in his own lifetime. It seems likely that that two-word name was used rarely, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with his having the title “Christ,” but a reflection of the fact that “Ancient Jews usually had only one name, and, when greater specificity was needed, it was customary to add the father’s name or the place of origin.” Wikipedians copying from Britannica may have missed that bit.[]
  6. That it was Wikipedia’s original notion, see the Nupedia “Lack of Bias” policy, which was the source of Wikipedia’s policy, and see also my final (2001) version of the Wikipedia neutrality policy. Read my “Why Neutrality?” for a lengthy discussion of this notion. Both articles appear in slightly revised and footnoted versions in my recent book.[]
  7. UPDATE: In an earlier version of this blog post, I included some screenshots of Wikipedia Alexa rankings, showing a drop from 5 to 12 or 13. While this is perfectly accurate, the traffic to the site has been more or less flat for years, until the last few months, in which traffic spiked probably because of the Covid-19 virus. But since the drop in Alexa rankings do not seem to reflect a drop in traffic, I decided to remove the screenshots and a couple accompanying sentences.[]

by

Posted

in

, ,

Comments

Please do dive in (politely). I want your reactions!

290 responses to “Wikipedia Is Badly Biased”

  1. R. Miller

    I made a minor edit to the Trump Impeachment entry removing the word “falsely” in describing Trump’s claim that impeachment was a “coup.” The claim of falsehood was “supported” only by an asserted OPINION of a leftist author in an article used as the “reliable source.” Aside from the fact that this was obvious hyperbole, an opinion that can’t be proven true or false, and is actually supported by some evidence, a coordinated group of leftist activists reverted my minor edit (based on WP:NPOV) and then attacked ME as biased, partisan, edit warring.

    As had happened to me numerous times before, the leftist team claimed there was a “consensus” on the status quo which, after perusing Talk, i saw did not exist. Simply put, leftists insert their propaganda, then doggedly defend it even though it violates NPOV, RS, and numerous other rules and has no consensus whatsoever. Point out their obvious bias, and they are quick to accuse YOU of bias and attributing disputes to politics.

    Leftists routinely rely on other leftists as RS, even when they are clearly unreliable. For example, they regularly use pronouncements from the Southern Poverty Law Center to label as “racist” or “white supremacist” or “white nationalist” anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

    These apparatchiks constantly misrepresent “consensus” believing it to mean “a majority of the people currently in this conversation,” and they’ve all rang each others phones to make sure they have a majority. Consensus means that there are no reasonable disagreements about the truth or accuracy of the content. When true consensus is reached, non NPOV is virtually impossible. What will remain are objective facts that no reasonable person could dispute, i.e. an encyclopedic fact.

    Im afraid that Everipedia will fall prey to the main problem in Wikipedia: low opportunity cost editors crowding out high cost editors. Those of us with actual expert knowledge on topics, self discipline, and integrity don’t have the time to wrangle with these propagandists who win merely by outlasting you. But long before then, they’ll call an administrator to block you.

    1. tatakai

      I’m a conservative and I would have done the same thing. you can’t decide someone is “leftist’ simply because they don’t agree with you. The fact is that it was not a coup. Trump deserved to be impeached for what he did and impeachment is a valid process within the constitution. Coups are not. If you want to say it was simply an exaggerated word for “they want to get rid of me through legal means”… then it’s a rather convenience excuse for a term that could cause so much harm.

      It was in no way a coup. No responsible person would even suggest it was.

      You guys first need to separate your own biases from what you expect on wikipedia. You want to turn it into a breitbart or fox news type situation where 1+1 could be 5 if trump said it is and saying its not is “biased”.

      1. Seedee Vee

        Tatakai,

        I would say that you either do not know what the definition of “coup” is or/and you are just trying some of the same tricks that the author is addressing.

        You do not get to define the words for the rest of us – they already have a definition.

        Coup – this word precisely has a definition that fits what an impeachment is.

      2. Reliable Source

        Shill alert. “I’m a conservative” followed by ShareBlue talking points is the tell.

        The whole point of the (thoroughly dishonest) fact-check and hate group labeling sites (SPLC et al) is to police the boundaries and control the terms of discussion of the information bubble that is Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter. This includes people telling you Officially and Reliably whether or not a coup is a coup.

    2. Christopher Beland

      There’s the meaning of “coup” as simply “a takeover”, and then there’s the meaning of “coup” as “takeover by extralegal means or threat or use of force”. In his use of the term, Trump seems to be implying that the impeachment is illegitimate or extralegal; the people who consider this claim to be false are asserting that the process is constitutional and legal. Whether the actions taken justify removal as a high crime, is certainly a matter of opinion. Trump also called impeachment a “lynching”, which in a literal sense is certainly not true; no one is being killed. Even if you consider it a metaphor, as in Trump’s political career is being killed, the definition of lynching implies extralegal action, which is clearly false.

      I’m not a Trump supporter, but I agree with your questioning of the word “false” here, and your criticism of the sourcing sounds legitimate. And I think your objection has prevailed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_inquiry_against_Donald_Trump currently reads:

      Trump described the impeachment inquiry as “a coup, intending to take away the power of [the] people, their vote, [and] their freedoms”,[415] and said the Democrats were “wasting everyone’s time and energy on bullshit”.[416] He compared the inquiry to lynching on his Twitter account, saying that “All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here—a lynching! But we will WIN!”

      That’s a fairly neutral, non-judgemental treatment, that doesn’t use the word “falsely” or anything like it. If anything, I’d say it’s slightly biased in favor of Trump, because it doesn’t mention the critics who pointed out that the words “coup” and “lynchings” could be read as a false accusation that impeachment is extralegal. Based on this outcome, do I think there’s a conservative cabal that is controlling this article and forcing this point of view? No; I just think pretty much any Wikipedia article has room for improvement.

      I agree that the editing process here could be improved. It sounds like neither side is “assuming good faith” here. Individual editors are allowed to have political opinions, and are allowed to focus on fixing neutrality problems that offend their particular point of view. It is through having editors with a diversity of opinions that we most reliably get to article neutrality; it’s much more difficult to rely on any one given person to anticipate all the objections from people with perspectives other than their own. Instead of personal attacks on other editors for being biased, I’d rather see editors focus on the text of the article, share perceptions of it from different perspectives, and help each other interpret sources and separate out what gets counted as a fact vs. opinion. Believe it or not, this bad behavior doesn’t just happen with politics; it also happens with stupid disagreements over things like electrical outlets and trains. I’m still searching for ways to encourage civility; so far all I’ve come up with is having administrators and senior editors more actively admonish editors who are behaving badly. This sort of incivil conduct does discourage certain people from editing, and it does not do good things to the inclusiveness of the site’s demographics.

  2. I applaud you for writing this, and it is very correct. Wikipedia has gone off the rails, and it is dangerous because they claim neutrality and people mostly accept that at face value. That’s what makes it dangerous. Many times now they even try to literally rewrite history when they think they can get away with it!
    When I went to school, teachers would fail us if we cited Wikipedia as a source. Nowadays, I have seen even doctors (my own age) try to cite Wikipedia as a credible source in academic arguments. (Admittedly most of the time they were political, however, if they are willing to cite it for politics I cannot help but imagine they would cite it in a medical discussion.) They feel bold enough to do that cause they hide behind the alleged neutrality policy and claim, “If anybody posts anything biased or untrue/without a source, the review teams or other editors will fix it.”
    The question is, what is your Co-Founder doing over there? Does he support this kind of off the wall bias, or has he just lost all control over the editors and the review teams? And what legal rights do you have as a Co-Founder to influence Wikipedia’s policy, even though you chose to step away? These are things that need to be considered, cause if the situation continues unchecked it has the potential to poison the minds of at least another generation of people.

  3. abeauu

    Leftists can’t be out-mobbed. Mobbing is literally in their culture, strength from numbers rather than strength from individuals.

    As long as this behavior goes unchecked, it will not be stopped. However, as we all know, every single “mainstream” and “big” website on the internet is being manipulated. And why wouldn’t they be? They are great tools with power on public opinion. I haven’t seen a single big website with even the tiniest bit of right-wing leaning. And yet huge websites like Twitter are literally designed to be left wing echo chambers where you get banned for “wrongthink”.

    1. Christopher Beland

      There’s certainly a strong tradition of civil disobedience in left-wing protest, and left-leaning online mobs certain treat people unfairly sometimes if there’s a rumored or perceived offense. But right-leaning mobs do the same things. There are plenty of examples of everything from right-wing political correctness (like country music stars who have become pariahs for having liberal opinions) to the literal mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.

  4. […] prošlotjednoj objavi na blogu, Sanger je tvrdio da je Wikipedia napustila svu neutralnost u ime izbjegavanja onoga što […]

  5. Henry X

    One might also mention the “hasbara” cadres, apparently working around the clock to find, edit and/or remove any views not favorable to Israeli policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.

  6. […] a blog post last week, co-founder Larry Sanger said Wikipedia stopped trying to be unbiased in response to […]

  7. Gil Bismuthe

    In other news, the sky is blue and it’s dark at night…..

    Thank you, Captain Obvious!

  8. Hama

    NEETs (such as myself) have a disproportionate power on the internet compared to real experts. Real experts have to work 40+ hours per week, take care of their faimilies etc while I (and people like me) have plenty of time to waste on pointless internet debates. This create a bias that’s aligned with the interests of the unemployed. Social media create a kakistocracy because of the underlying economic forces in society and the time available to create hierarchies on the internet. This will only get worse because of the ongoing economic crisis caused by the COVID-19-pandemic.

    I wonder how we can get out of this mess and realign “impact” with “competence” again.

    1. NEETs such as yourself need to get a job, especially if they are capable of making interesting observations like the above.

      1. Christopher Beland

        Why shouldn’t people be allowed to be retired in their old age, or whenever they have earned enough money for their preferred lifestyle?

        1. Obviously, I was referring to the younger sorts of NEETs—basement-dwellers, of which there are many on Wikipedia.

  9. Tatakai

    I don’t really see a problem with the articles for obama, trump etc. I can understand that avoiding false balance might be problematic when the people who think they know the facts are dogmatic and potentially wrong. But with trump its pretty clear cut. so much so that an encyclopedia that didn’t point out that things were false etc, would itself be spreading lies. He has also been involved in a lot of scandals personally. Things like the IRS scandal might have happened during Obama’s presidency but it didn’t involve him as much. Obamagate is just a made up conspiracy. These things would either have their own articles and mention Obama or be elsewhere.

    Nevermind all that though.

    Do you agree that being neutral and only caring to provide accurate information could lead to articles that could, for example, upset trump supporters? If trump says something weights 50 lbs. Its weighed and comes out to 200 lbs, should the encyclopedia point out the true weight or should they just pretend 50 = 200?

    1. You seem to be confused about what “neutral” means. The core concept of neutrality is that one does not take a stand on controversial issues. Instead, one describes the different views.

      If one party to a dispute is happy with an article, and the other party is not, then, as long as both parties fully accept that the article must relate both sides sympathetically and fully and with their best representatives, it is highly likely that the article is biased. Actually, I can see the case being made for the claim that the article is not just probably biased, but certainly biased, by definition.

      The 50 lbs. versus 200 lbs. example is unrealistic and hence not the basis for any realistic conclusions.

  10. SJ Williams

    The 50 lbs. versus 200 lbs. example is NOT unrealistic in the Trump era, in fact it is quite literal in the lies he has told about his own weight. One cannot deal with knowing, deliberate disinformation that can be factually disproved in a “sympathetic” manner—that would most certainly be bias. The core of the actual problem has been that there are no longer lines drawn between fact and opinion. Print newspapers used to make this clear, with the editorial or opinion page being actually separate. All video news should have a chyron graphic identifying “news” and “opinion” for every segment, thereby also separating those. This has ceased to be a line and is now a permeable membrane.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *