Jimmy Wales

In a recent interview, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was confronted about the site claiming Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Wales rejected this as biased and requested changes at the “Gaza genocide” article’s discussion page. Editors attacked Wales with some accusing him of ties to Israel or suggesting sanctions, such as removing his “founder” flag. Some sought action regarding a neutrality working group set up by the site’s owners, a working group he chairs.

Last week, a gunman who declared himself an “anti-contact non-offending” pedophile rushed the stage at WikiConference North America in New York City and threatened to kill himself in protest over the Wikipedia child protection policy, which bans self-identified pedophiles. A member of the site’s Arbitration Committee, often likened to a Supreme Court, claimed the gunman is Connor Weston, who was banned earlier this year under the aforementioned policy.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter Friday to Maryana Iskander, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation which owns Wikipedia, requesting information about the site’s reported political bias. Cruz cited the ongoing purge of conservative media on the online encyclopedia and other bias concerns, following a viral interview commentator Tucker Carlson did with Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger last week where they discussed the site blacklisting conservative sources, including Breitbart.

Earlier this week, commentator Tucker Carlson’s podcast aired an interview with Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger where he discussed his criticism of the online encyclopedia and introduced his “nine theses” advocating reform. Describing the site as a “mixture of oligarchy and anarchy” during the interview, Sanger criticized many issues he identified with Wikipedia since his departure from the site.

Following the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, Wikipedia editors made malicious edits about him, even as his page was locked to inexperienced editors with former members of Wikipedia’s “Supreme Court” and co-founder Jimmy Wales monitoring Kirk’s page. This included mocking Kirk’s last words and accusing him of targeted harassment campaigns, the latter staying in the page’s introduction for days.

The Wikimedia Foundation, owners of Wikipedia, formed a working group focused on neutrality policy at the end of March with site co-founder Jimmy Wales as chair. Its objective will be to study the neutrality policies in place on different-language Wikipedias and other Foundation-owned sites to develop a global standard. Although citing various left-wing concerns about neutrality, the Foundation omitted any reference to the site’s own leftist political bias.

After Acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin sent a letter last week to the foundation that owns Wikipedia raising questions regarding the online encyclopedia’s political bias, editors made repeated attacks against Martin on the site. Editors also attacked Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger and Elon Musk due to their criticism of the site’s left-wing bias.

X/Twitter owner Elon Musk slammed Wikipedia dysfunction on Monday, condemning the site for the biases of its hierarchy of elite editors, rejecting comparisons to his platform’s Community Notes feature, which does not have different tiers of editors. Musk couldn’t help trolling Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales, responding with the site’s regular plea for donations with an offer of $1 billion if it changes its name to “Dickipedia.”

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, recently gave up his administrative privileges on the online encyclopedia after a request to review his conduct was brought before the site’s Arbitration Committee, often likened to a supreme court. The request concerned Wales publicly accusing a former member of the Committee of being involved with a paid editing scam without properly vetting the claims beforehand. Wales still retains limited privileges under his “founder” role.

Wikipedia is introducing restrictions to prevent new and unregistered users from editing the article about economic recession. The “online encyclopedia,” which has demonstrated its leftist bias on many occasions, became the subject of intense criticism last week after editors made dozens of changes to the recession article to de-emphasize the broad consensus definition of recession — two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth — instead parroting the Biden Administration’s talking points.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently criticized Wikipedia by stating that the free online encyclopedia is losing its objectivity, enraging the online encyclopedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. After Musk pointed out the fact that Wikipedia editors have significantly changed the definition of a recession to protect the Biden administration, Wales replied, “reading too much Twitter nonsense is making you stupid.”

The Wikipedia entry for “mass killings under Communist regimes” is reportedly under threat of being removed from the platform over claims of bias.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has come under fire from the site’s editors over his criticism of the site’s left-wing bias. His criticism particularly cited an ongoing purge of conservative media on the site. While some editors tried to dispute his claims, others have smeared Sanger with accusations of antisemitism and trafficking in conspiracy theories to discredit him. Editors have also kept mention of his criticism of left-wing bias out of Wikipedia articles on the topic, due to such criticism being covered mainly in conservative media.

Recent allegations by former staff at the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, accusing management of bullying and other offenses including anti-union retaliation, have prompted other former staff to come forward. Aside from echoing claims about mistreatment of staff, one former staffer alleged departing employees often are pushed to sign non-disclosure agreements and questioned the practice in light of the allegations. She further alleged employees would sometimes be overworked and fired for then failing to perform.

A former staffer at the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, recently published a statement accusing high-level Foundation managers of workplace bullying based on his autism. Earlier this month, other former staff came forward with similar allegations of mistreatment by Foundation management. Some alleged they were subject to retaliation after complaining of the treatment with one suggesting it was tied to his union organizing activities.

Earlier this year, the Wikipedia page on GamerGate, the anti-corruption movement in gaming, saw extensive updates about the “legacy” of the movement and associated controversies. These edits pushed claims that GamerGate, which Wikipedia labels a “harassment campaign” due to a years-long effort by left-wing editors, helped Donald Trump become President in 2016 and that the movement even contributed to what the page called an “attempted coup” at the Capitol on January 6.

Big Tech has heavily relied on content from Wikipedia in recent years, particularly in the wake of concerns about “fake news” online. Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, announced that it is launching Wikimedia Enterprise, a commercial service catering to major corporate clients. It aims to provide the service exclusively to corporations already using site content under its free license, specifically providing easier and more reliable access than under the current free system.

Since Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 presidential election victory, Wikipedia editors have been gradually purging conservative media from the site claiming to fight “fake news” and leading to the recent suppression of the New York Post’s Biden corruption revelations. The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the site, has leaned into these efforts to tout Wikipedia’s reliability, which has been echoed by mainstream media. This messaging followed a strategy recommended to the Wikimedia Foundation in 2016 by Minassian Media, a firm run by the Clinton Foundation’s Head of Communications.

Silicon Valley has repeatedly proclaimed that Wikipedia is the best way to deal with “fake news” on their platforms. Co-founder Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation that owns the site have touted its sourcing policies in agreement and been amplified by establishment media. Yet just as Big Tech suppressed prominent conservative media following President Donald Trump’s election, most recently censoring New York Post revelations regarding alleged Biden family corruption, Wikipedia’s community of editors has done the same by slowly purging conservative outlets from use as sources.

For years, the corporate media have touted Wikipedia as a tool against “fake news” and “conspiracy theories” in line with the messaging of the Wikimedia Foundation, owners of the site. Media recently praised the site’s handling of political controversies, where editors favor establishment media narratives such as when censoring and downplaying recent Hunter Biden revelations. The media also advanced Wikipedia as a credible source on the coronavirus pandemic and even as a general medical source, prompting wide use by Big Tech and a partnership with the World Health Organization, But in reality, Wikipedia comes up short in all categories.

Wikipedia users are no longer allowed to include “userboxes” on their profile page that express opposition to gay marriage following a discussion where predominantly left-wing editors argued such a stance was “discriminatory” and against site policy. Most userboxes pre-dated a U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage and were used by hundreds of editors. This included one expressing a personal view favoring traditional marriage, but advocating for states to decide.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, recently announced that it will impose a “universal code of conduct” on the site and others owned by the Foundation to make them “safe spaces” and improve the “diversity” of the community. The move comes a year after the Foundation took the unprecedented step of banning a veteran administrator, breaching the traditionally self-governing nature of Wikipedia’s community and sparking a revolt that ultimately saw the ban overturned.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales wasted no time in criticizing President Donald Trump for his recent executive order relating to social media, calling the President a “lunatic.”

Even as the criticism of Wikipedia’s left-wing political bias intensifies, including from the site’s co-founder Larry Sanger, the major tech platforms continue to use the online encyclopedia in their services and rely on it as a model for addressing “fake news” concerns. Rather than improving their services, the integration of Wikipedia into Big Tech platforms has, instead, made them disseminate false or biased information.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, published a blog post this month declaring that the online encyclopedia’s “neutral point of view” policy is “dead” due to the rampant left-wing bias of the site. Noting the article on President Donald Trump, Sanger contrasted its extensive coverage of presidential scandals with the largely scandal-free article on former President Barack Obama.

In June, the Foundation that owns Wikipedia banned “Fram” who was one of the site’s veteran administrators, prompting an editor revolt with administrators resigning en masse and some using their advanced privileges to override the Foundation’s actions. The Foundation eventually backed down and allowed Wikipedia’s community-elected Arbitration Committee to review the ban, which they lifted, giving the revolt a notable victory — but Fram’s adminstrator privileges were not restored.

After the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, took the unprecedented action of banning a veteran administrator from the site for a year, the site’s editing community revolted with mass resignations and repeated efforts to overturn Wikimedia’s actions. The Foundation, at the urging of its board, has relented by referring the ban back to the Wikipedia community-elected Arbitration Committee for review.

In an unprecedented move mid-June, the foundation that owns Wikipedia banned one of the site’s long-time administrators for one year over unspecified complaints of harassment. Many of the site’s most influential users accused the Wikimedia Foundation of undermining the editorial independence of the traditionally self-regulating online encyclopedia and called for the ban to be lifted, including by attempting to remove the ban themselves.

Fandom, which hosts fan-run wiki sites on the Wikia domain, briefly banned the term “SJW,” an abbreviation of “Social Justice Warrior,” across its sites. Contributors to any Fandom-hosted wikis who used the term or any term containing the letters together, such as in a quotation, were unable to complete their edits. The ban was in place for several days before it was apparently lifted.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales believes the Wikipedia model can help salvage journalistic integrity, but in the year since Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, the online encyclopedia has instead proven unable to even restrain its own biased editing community.

Last month a preview article shared by WikiTribune, the recently launched London-based journalism project of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, was criticized for blatant anti-Trump bias in its coverage promoting a conference on the United Nations-linked Global Goals campaign.

Istanbul authorities have withdrawn an invitation to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to attend a major conference in the city, officials said Tuesday, after Turkey blocked access to the online encyclopedia.

In a move that social media users called censorship, a Turkish court on Saturday blocked access to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, enforcing an earlier restriction by Turkey’s telecommunications watchdog.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is opening a unicorn reserve where he will breed baby unicorns with rainbow coloured fur to spread peace and love around the world.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has announced the launch of a new online publication called Wikitribune which aims to fight “fake news” on the internet.

A Wikipedia editor who was banned from editing articles after unsubstantiated charges of “off-site harassment” says admins have changed their initial reasoning for banning him, over a year after the fact.