So, I agree with this on its face. Wikipedia is absolutely a source of information that’s couched in liberal rhetoric, biased towards liberal media sources, and heavily pruned to conform to a liberal reading of history and modernity.
The initial response conservatives made to address “liberal bias” was to introduce “Conservapedia” and other conservative-branded alternative publications. And that did work in the sense that it gave them a (more biased, less enthusiastically edited) alternative source of information. The problem was nobody taking it seriously.
Just like Twitter (which was also overwhelmingly biased towards liberal users, content, and advertising) the problem wasn’t that conservatives couldn’t compete. It was that Twitter was broadly considered a source of truth even by other conservatives. Elon’s buyout was necessary to capture and eliminate an alternative popular narrative. And that has largely been successful.
Web encyclopedia is too free in sourcing actual information.
That’s not really the critique, though. Conservatives regularly complained that their news media and their editors were being silenced. They couldn’t post long-form articles about Black Crime or fill up the Criticism section of liberal politicians with right-wing critiques and allegations. They couldn’t simply throw an army of their own editors into an open sandbox. The existing editors had administrative control over what is still a privately owned and operated environment.
Wikipedia wasn’t something they could control purely by weight of financial resources. And that’s unforgivable.
So, I agree with this on its face. Wikipedia is absolutely a source of information that’s couched in liberal rhetoric, biased towards liberal media sources, and heavily pruned to conform to a liberal reading of history and modernity.
The initial response conservatives made to address “liberal bias” was to introduce “Conservapedia” and other conservative-branded alternative publications. And that did work in the sense that it gave them a (more biased, less enthusiastically edited) alternative source of information. The problem was nobody taking it seriously.
Just like Twitter (which was also overwhelmingly biased towards liberal users, content, and advertising) the problem wasn’t that conservatives couldn’t compete. It was that Twitter was broadly considered a source of truth even by other conservatives. Elon’s buyout was necessary to capture and eliminate an alternative popular narrative. And that has largely been successful.
That’s not really the critique, though. Conservatives regularly complained that their news media and their editors were being silenced. They couldn’t post long-form articles about Black Crime or fill up the Criticism section of liberal politicians with right-wing critiques and allegations. They couldn’t simply throw an army of their own editors into an open sandbox. The existing editors had administrative control over what is still a privately owned and operated environment.
Wikipedia wasn’t something they could control purely by weight of financial resources. And that’s unforgivable.
Bring. Back. Blogging!