Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-15/In the media

Glenn Greenwald on Wikipedia's neutrality
Glenn Greenwald is one of the three journalists who broke the Edward Snowden story that won The Guardian a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2014. Living as an expat in Brazil, he has been a vociferous critic of many things over the years, including both major United States political parties, and was one of the founders of The Intercept – a publication he left in 2020, saying that its editors had demanded he redact an article about media coverage of that goddamn Hunter Biden laptop thing.

In a video on YouTube – an excerpt from a much longer (almost two hours long), paywalled episode Greenwald has published on Rumble (transcript here, also mostly paywalled) – Greenwald talks with Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, and says that his Wikipedia biography changed in surprising ways after he angered the libs:

It is certainly true that his biography in late 2015 was by and large celebratory, and today is considerably less so. The early life and career sections preceding the discussion of what many people would consider Greenwald's finest hour and his main claim to fame, the Snowden story, today run to a huge 1,720 words (versus 1,043 words back then).

Here are a couple of the passages that have been expanded:

Boy, what a go-getter! The 2023 version reads very differently:

Sure, it is a neutrally phrased expansion from reliable sources, but doesn't he sound like kind of an asswipe?

Here is another section that has been expanded:

Another difference between the 2015 and 2023 versions is that the 2023 version contains a prominent, 400-word paragraph titled "Israel and accusations of antisemitism". Even though this paragraph is based on sources dating as far back as 2012, the word "antisemitism" did not occur in the 2015 article, which merely noted that –

Patriotic hero, or despicable scum?

The answer is really a matter of opinion. Greenwald's own writing has shifted tone in the last few years. So has the tone of much journalistic output. While it's clear the article in 2023 takes a few jabs — and maybe unfairly so — who's to say that the article in 2015 wasn't unfairly pulling punches? Maybe this is bias and maybe it isn't. Ultimately, Wikipedia processes derive their just powers from the consensus of the governed, et cetera, which means "who the hell knows?"

Certainly, the distinguished editors of the Signpost (hopefully) have better things to do than get dragged into spittle-flecked noticeboard threads about American Punchfest 2, so not us.

The Australian 's Adam Creighton picks up on Greenwald's video and adds a few Wikipedia criticisms of his own that are again likely to inflame the noggin and stir the passions. – AK, AC, JG

Portuguese lawsuit
Techdirt and the Wikimedia Foundation report on a lawsuit in Portugal brought by Caesar DePaço. As the Wikimedia Foundation's article says:

Techdirt's Tim Cushing defends Wikipedia in his piece:

However, Cushing's statement that the Wikimedia Foundation has never been successfully sued is incorrect. There have been European court decisions ordering the Wikimedia Foundation to remove content from Wikipedia – examples from the German Wikipedia include the Kessler cases (court documents 1 and 2) and the Waibel case (see also English-language case summary by the plaintiff's lawyers). – AK

In brief

 * "Egregious" plagiarism: Salon writes that Anthony Sabatini's college thesis on Friedrich Nietzsche was full of "egregious" plagiarism of Wikipedia and other online sources. Perhaps he can get out of it by "writing" an article on academic fraud.
 * Creationism isn't taken seriously on Wikipedia, says creationist, invokes co-founder: David Klinghoffer writing in the Discovery Institute blog claims that Larry Sanger supports Intelligent Design, and fought to make Wikipedia handle it more favourably. Larry Sanger has described himself on Wikipedia as "an agnostic who believes intelligent design to be completely wrong", but is indeed a longstanding critic of the way Wikipedia implements its neutral point of view policy, especially when it comes to presenting fringe theories as untrue (he feels they should be presented as equally valid, then let the reader decide, as per previous link and pretty much all his writing on the subject).
 * Wikipedia turns man into racehorse, and back again: The biography page of British TV personality Les Dennis was vandalized around 9 August to indicate the celebrity was half horse or some such, and people noticed, including the Bristol Post.
 * Sensitive topics: The Guardian reports on topics of particular PR interest to the United Arab Emirates, whose climate change-related Wikipedia editing has been in the news of late (see previous Signpost coverage).

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