WIKIPEDIA & ITS BIASES
A CIRCUMFERENTIAL ESSAY
Exploring Wikipedia's Bias: The Tension Between Neutrality and Human Nature
Is Wikipedia biased?
Of course. I’ll start
with the definition of ‘bias’ by Wikipedia…:
“Bias is
a disproportionate weight in
favor of or against an
idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial,
or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned.”
I was inclined to
browse the topic by a recent article in the N.Y. Post titled: “Wikipedia bias
influences how ones perception of reality is perceived.”
Disclaimer: I was so
far, a charitable contributor to the Wikimedia
Foundation that is the not for
profit organization owning Wikipedia. Thus, I realized some questions about the
organization over time.
The answer to
Wikipedia biases question isn't a simple "yes" or "no." The
core tension of Wikipedia is a battle between a neutral ideal and the messy
reality of human nature.
Below is a tabulation
of some evidence, gathered from policies, historical controversies, academic
studies, and internal community discussions.
The Wikipedia Bias & Accuracy Ledger
|
Wikipedia is Never
Biased (The Ideal & The Mechanisms) |
Wikipedia is
Sometimes Biased (The Reality & The Challenges) |
The Pursuit of
Accuracy ("Wikipedia is Always Right?") |
|
Core Policy: Neutral Point of
View (NPOV) |
Systemic Demographic Bias |
Self-Correction is Extremely
Rapid |
|
The foundational principle.
NPOV mandates that articles must represent "fairly, proportionately,
and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the Significant views
that have been published by reliable sources." It's not about finding a
middle ground; it's about describing the full spectrum of sourced views and
giving them due weight. For example, on the topic of the Earth's shape, the
scientific consensus is given overwhelming weight, while the flat-Earth view
is presented as a fringe belief, which is a correct application of NPOV. |
Studies consistently
show the editor base is overwhelmingly male (around 85-90%), white, and from
North America and Europe. This "systemic bias" results in
predictable outcomes: • Coverage Gaps: Far more detailed articles on topics
of interest to this demographic (e.g., military history, video games) than on
topics like feminist art, African literature, or traditional crafts. • Subtle Framing:
Biographies of women are more likely to mention their marital status or
family than biographies of men. |
A famous 2005 study
by the journal Nature found that Wikipedia's
accuracy on scientific articles was "surprisingly good" and
approached the level of like the Encyclopædia Britannica. While errors existed in
both, Wikipedia's power was in its ability to fix them. Vandalism and simple
factual errors on popular pages are often corrected within minutes, sometimes
seconds, by automated bots (like ClueBot NG) and vigilant human editors. |
|
Policy: Verifiability, not
Truth |
Coverage Bias &
Notability Standards |
The Power of Citations |
|
This is a crucial,
often misunderstood, policy. Editors are forbidden from adding their own
opinions or original research. Every substantive claim must be attributable
to a published, reliable source. This acts as a powerful brake on individual
bias. An editor cannot simply write "Politician X is corrupt." They
must write, "The New York Times
reported that Politician X was under investigation for corruption," and
provide a citation. The bias is thus shifted from the editor to the source,
which can then be evaluated. |
The
"notability" guidelines (what merits an article) often favor
subjects well-covered in Western, English-language media. A groundbreaking
scientist from a non-Western country whose work was published in non-English
journals may fail the notability test, while a minor reality TV star with
numerous articles in English-language tabloids gets a lengthy page. This
isn't malicious bias; it's a structural bias baked into sourcing requirements. |
The requirement for
citations means an interested reader can always check the sources for
themselves. This transparency is a key part of the "accuracy"
model. A statement in a traditional encyclopedia must be taken on faith; a
statement on Wikipedia can be traced back to its origin. This makes it a
fantastic starting point for research, if not the endpoint. |
|
Mechanism: Talk Pages &
Consensus Building |
Conflict of Interest (COI)
& Paid Editing |
Biographies of Living Persons
(BLP) Scrutiny |
|
Every article has a
"Talk" page, a forum for editors to debate content, sources, and
wording. Contentious edits are often discussed at length. The goal is to
reach a consensus based on policy, not to win a vote. This
process forces editors with opposing biases to find a neutral way to present
information that all can agree on, or at least accept. |
Despite policies
against it, undisclosed paid editing is a persistent problem. PR firms,
corporations, and political campaigns have been caught "scrubbing"
articles of negative information or inserting promotional content. This is a
direct injection of extreme bias. Wikipedia has volunteer groups and policies
to combat this, but it's an ongoing battle against well-funded actors. |
Following the 2005
John Seigenthaler controversy (where a user falsely implicated him in the
Kennedy assassinations), Wikipedia instituted extremely strict sourcing
standards for information about living people. Un- or poorly-sourced
contentious material in a BLP article is subject to immediate removal. This
makes articles on living people some of the most scrutinized on the site. |
|
Mechanism: Transparency &
Edit History |
Ideological Edit Wars |
Errors are Inevitable, but
Not Permanent |
|
Every single change
made to an article is publicly logged and attributable to a user (or an IP
address). Anyone can view the entire history of a page, see who added what
information, and when. This radical transparency creates accountability and
makes it difficult for a single biased viewpoint to take hold secretly. |
On highly
contentious topics (e.g., Israel-Palestine conflict, U.S. politics, GMOs),
articles can become battlegrounds. Groups of
ideologically-motivated editors may try to "own" an article,
systematically removing information that contradicts their worldview and
emphasizing information that supports it. This leads to
biased "forks" of in article or long-term stalemates where the page
reflects the view of the more persistent editing faction, not a true neutral point
of view. |
No encyclopedia is
perfect. The key difference is the speed of correction. A factual error
printed in a book in 2020 will still be there in 2025. A factual error on a
high-traffic Wikipedia page is unlikely to survive a day. However, errors on
obscure, low-traffic pages can and do persist for years. Therefore,
"accuracy" is highly variable depending on the article's
popularity. |
Now, I return from the
review journey with these impressions:
1.
Is Wikipedia Never
Biased? The answer is false.
Wikipedia is written by biased
persons. The writers/authors/scribes
use sources that are themselves biased, and are subject to the systemic
biases of the society the sources emerge from. The very structure of what is
considered "notable", worthy of inclusion as an entry, or in the
text, is a form of bias.
2.
Is Wikipedia
Sometimes Biased?
This is demonstrably true. Wikipedia is sometimes biased. The evidence of demographic,
coverage, and conflict-of-interest bias is overwhelming and acknowledged by the
Wikimedia Foundation itself, which works to combat it through initiatives like
edit-a-thons focused on underrepresented topics.
3.
Is Wikipedia "Always Right"?
This is false. Wikipedia is not a source of ultimate truth, and it contains errors. However, its model is built for the pursuit of accuracy.
Its strength is not infallibility but correctability. The
open model, of transparency, the dedication of its self-administered community,
create a system trying to detect falsehoods and vandalism that sometimes fail.
Concluding
Questions:
·
Back to my opening
disclaimer, being a financial donor to Wikimedia Foundation, I wonder if my
name, and the many other donor names deserve mention as an entry somewhere in
Wikipedia. As of today there is no published list of donors to Wikipedia or
Wikimedia.
·
Moreover, who decides
what is item in Wikipedia is “notable”? And what is not notable for Wikipedia?
Who decides or appoints the “notability decision officers” on Wikipedia?
·
Omission
by Wikipedia is a form of bias in and by itself.
In In the end, maybe that Wikipedia should be treated like an
ongoing conversation.
LiLike in many other human conversations the loud more vocal speakers get noticed.
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