Since the launch of Wikipedia in 2001, it has faced several controversies. Wikipedia's open-editing model, which allows any user to edit its encyclopedic pages, has led to concerns such as the quality of writing, the amount of vandalism, and the accuracy of information on the project. The media have covered controversial events and scandals related to Wikipedia and its funding organization, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Common subjects of coverage include articles containing false information, public figures, corporations editing articles for which they have a conflict of interest, paid Wikipedia editing and hostile interactions between Wikipedia editors and public figures.
The Seigenthaler biography incident [2] led to increased media criticism of the reliability of Wikipedia. The incident dates back to May 2005, with the anonymous posting of a hoax Wikipedia article containing false and negative allegations about John Seigenthaler, a well-known American journalist. In March 2007, Wikipedia was again the subject of media attention with the Essjay controversy, which involved a prominent English Wikipedia editor and administrator, who claimed he was a "tenured professor of religion at a private university" with a "Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law" when in fact he was a 24-year-old who held no advanced degrees. [3] [4]
The 2012 scandals involving paid consultancy for the government of Gibraltar by Roger Bamkin, a Wikimedia UK board member, [5] [6] and potential conflicts of interest have highlighted Wikipedia's vulnerabilities. [5] The presence of inaccurate and false information, as well as the perceived hostile editing climate, have been linked to a decline in editor participation. [7] Another controversy arose in 2013 after an investigation by Wikipedians found that the Wiki-PR company had edited Wikipedia for paying clients, using "an army" of sockpuppet accounts that purportedly included 45 Wikipedia editors and administrators. [8] [9] In 2015, the Orangemoody investigation showed that businesses and minor celebrities had been blackmailed over their Wikipedia articles by a coordinated group of fraudsters, again using hundreds of sockpuppets. Controversies within and concerning Wikipedia and the WMF have been the subject of several scholarly papers. [10] [11] This list is a collection of the more notable instances.
The nature of Wikipedia controversies has been analyzed by scholars. Sociologist Howard Rheingold says that "Wikipedia controversies have revealed the evolution of social mechanisms in the Wikipedia community"; [10] a study of the politicization of socio-technical spaces remarked that Wikipedia "controversies ... become fully-fledged when they are advertised outside the page being debated"; [11] and one college discusses Wikipedia as a curricular tool, in that "recent controversies involving Wikipedia [are used] as a basis for discussion of ethics and bias." [12]
Despite being promoted as an encyclopedia "anyone can edit", the ability to edit controversial pages is sometimes restricted because of "edit wars" or vandalism. [13] To address criticism about restricting access while minimizing malicious editing of those pages, Wikipedia has also tried measures such as "pending changes protection" which allows open editing of contentious articles, with the caveat that an experienced editor must approve new users' edits before they become visible to the public. [14] [15]
Politician | Editing undertaken | Sources |
---|---|---|
Marty Meehan | Replacement with staff-written biography | Congressional staffers edit boss's bio on Wikipedia |
Norm Coleman | Rewrite to make more favorable, claimed to be "correcting errors" | "Web site's entry on Coleman revised: Aide confirms his staff edited biography, questions Wikipedia's accuracy". St. Paul Pioneer Press(Associated Press). Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2013. |
Conrad Burns Montana | Removal of quoted pejorative statements the Senator had made, and replacing them with "glowing tributes" as "the voice of the farmer" | Williams, Walt (January 1, 2007). "Burns' office may have tampered with Wikipedia entry". Bozeman Daily Chronicle . Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved February 13, 2007. |
Joe Biden | Removal of unfavorable information | Congressional staffers edit boss's bio on Wikipedia |
Gil Gutknecht | Staff rewrite and removal of information evidencing broken campaign promise. (Multiple attempts) | In 2006 the office of Representative Gil Gutknecht twice tried to replace a section on his Wikipedia article – which referenced his promise to serve a maximum 12-year term, despite running for re-election – with a more flattering entry from his official congressional biography. ("Gutknecht joins Wikipedia tweakers" Archived August 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine , Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, August 16, 2006. Retrieved August 17, 2006). |
The once-derided open-source encyclopedia is the closest thing the internet has to an oasis of truth. Now a single-user ban has exposed the deep rifts between Wikipedia's libertarian origins and its egalitarian aspirations, and threatened that stability.
Wikipedia tried to declare a cease-fire in the war of words by restricting its "Recession" page so that unregistered users couldn't edit it. At one point, the page claimed there was "no global consensus" on the definition of a recession. There is a rule of thumb, which is that two successive quarters of declining gross domestic product—such as the first two quarters of 2022—indicates a recession.
[...] a group of committed Wikipedia editors have been promoting a skewed version of history [...] Wikipedia's articles on the Holocaust in Poland minimize Polish antisemitism, exaggerate the Poles' role in saving Jews, insinuate that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), blame Jews for their own persecution, and inflate Jewish collaboration with the Nazis
Online encyclopedia bars 3 editors from working on articles related to Holocaust in Poland, but avoids stance on underlying dispute over Polish antisemitism and complicity
Associate Professor of History Shira Klein writes about how she learned about the potential for disinformation on the crowdsourced information site, and the viral response that followed.