Wikipedia Sucks and is Maybe Anti-Semitic?
Wikipedia is probably right to be suspicious of the Anti-Defamation League, but wrong not to apply its standards evenly.
Wikipedia, the open edited online encyclopedia, has become an essential part of society’s knowledge structure as many of us (myself included) look up things on the fly on this convenient source. Hell, to get data on Wikipedia, I looked it up…on Wikipedia (did you know it’s consistently ranked one of the ten most visited websites?)
Only, since its founding in 2001 (yep, looked that up on Wikipedia too), it’s always been a source of controversy regarding its reliability. How reliable is Wikipedia you ask? Well let’s look that up in the Wikipedia article Reliability of Wikipedia! That article suggests that Wikipedia’s reliability is mixed at best. But can we trust the reliability of a Wikipedia article suggesting Wikipedia may not be entirely reliable? I feel like I’m caught in some kind of dorm room metaphysics question conducted under the influence of marijuana.
Part of the issue seems to be (and I’m parsing some stuff both from the Wikipedia article, other news articles I’ve read over the years, and my own personal experience) that, although Wikipedia is open to being edited by anyone, in practice certain super-obsessed quasi-autistic (or often otherwise mentally ill1) individuals rule over Wikipedia pages like personal fiefdoms, engaging in edit wars, revenge editing, politicized editing, etc. Articles may be written by people who don’t know what the hell they are talking about and, given their often aggressive, obsessive nature, and the citing of obscure Wikipedia rules most normal people don’t have the time to learn, can even shut out scholars who do research on the relevant topic. The best thing one can say about Wikipedia is, apparently, that “official” encyclopedias are often wrong too, but that’s hardly reassuring. From the Wikipedia article itself: “Because Wikipedia cannot be considered a reliable source, the use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper, and some educational institutions have banned it as a primary source while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources.” That’s probably about right.
Which is to say, Wikipedia kinda sucks, but because it’s convenient and other encyclopedias suck too, we keep on using it, hoping for the best.
So why are people shocked, shocked I tell you! to learn that this obsessive group of highly politicized ubereditors might be a wee tad antisemitic? Last week Wikipedia came under fire for listing the Anti-Defamation League as an unreliable source as relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In and of itself, I don’t necessarily find this sketchy. The ADL is an activist organization, after all, so of course they’d have a politicized viewpoint. To be honest, from my own experience, I actually kind of agree. In my own realm, the ADL has used weak studies to promote the hysteria that white supremacy is surging in online games (teaser: I have data coming soon on this. Hint: White supremacy is not surging in online games). So do I think the ADL is a particularly reliable source: No. I think Wikipedia is fine to put them on the suspicious list (Rolling Stone magazine is on there too, I was amused to see, which given they promoted a false rape story a few years back, I guess I’m fine with).
That said, I do find some of the ADL’s criticisms of Wikipedia’s decision to be credible as well. This includes Wikipedia editors’ lack of transparency, often reliance on politicized and unconfirmed claims about the ADL, and potential pro-Palestinian political bias in their decision-making process.
I was more curious about whether the standards applied to the ADL, which may be reasonable, were applied to pro-Palestinian sources or advocacy groups. I know I read something claiming that wasn’t the case, but didn’t save the article and can’t find it now, sadly. So…I consulted Wikipedia’s page on Wikipedia and the Israel-Palestine conflict! That mentioned that the Arabic version of Wikipedia changed its logo to the colors of the Palestinian flag and suspended editing for one day to express solidarity with the Palestinian people. That Arabic folks tend to lean pro-Palestine is hardly a revelation, and this is only one part of Wikipedia but, still, doesn’t exactly look like political neutrality one might hope for in, say, an encyclopedia.
I looked up Wikipedia’s rating for al-Jazeera, the Qatar-state news organization that is often criticized for anti-Israel (as well as generally left-wing) bias. Wikipedia rates al-Jazeera was “generally reliable”. Granted the ADL and al-Jazeera are only two examples and there’s apples to oranges in comparing and advocacy group to a news organization (albeit, Wikipedia considers some other state run news organizations, such as those in Russia to be unreliable). Still, this feels a bit sketchy to me.
The Wikipedia page on the conflict also cites, for instance the Human Rights Watch, despite their own page on HRW noting “HRW has been accused of evidence-gathering bias because it is said to be ‘credulous of civilian witnesses in places like Gaza and Afghanistan’ but ‘skeptical of anyone in a uniform.’ Its founder, Robert Bernstein, accused the organization of poor research methods and relying on ‘witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers.’" To be clear, Wikipedia isn’t taking a stance here, merely reporting on (credible) criticisms that aren’t much different from the (credible) criticisms of the ADL. Also, Wikipedia’s bibliography for the Israel-Palestine conflict includes Norman Finkelstein who, to me, seems mainly to be an ideological bomb-thrower. So, I have some sense of an unreliable, possible double standard at play.
This goes to other issues as well beyond Israel-Palestine. Wikipedia rates Fox News as unreliable (fair), but The Guardian and MSNBC as “generally reliable”? Come on.
My point is not that the decision on the ADL is wrong, but more that I have little confidence that it was done in a neutral and transparent way, and Wikipedia appears to enforce its own rules and guidelines selectively. Under such an unreliable system, do I think antisemitism could explain part of Wikipedia’s position on this? Sure, I think it can.
I’m not saying every single one, for the record, just a much higher per capita density than one would expect to find by chance.