Wikipedia – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

You would have to live under a rock if you haven’t looked something up in Wikipedia before. In short, almost every person uses it as reference source, much like the Encyclopedia Britannica was used in the past.

What started off as being a system that gravitated towards the truth, by allowing anybody to go in and add, edit or delete any information on a particular subject, is now of mixed value when you are researching. This splendid article explains the inner workings of Wikipedia and links to big technology companies at the moment. So you see, it is a business. Large sums of money are involved. It is now open to abuse, manipulation and serious bias.

Given that it is such an extensive information resource, I will still always use it as a first stopping point when I want to find something about a subject.

Only then do I take off my glasses and look “under the covers” to see if the subject appears to have been sanitised.

Here is why:

• If a topic is controversial, then it is guaranteed to have a high degree of bias, depending on the number of individuals arguing for, or against the subject.
• If the topic is in relation to big businesses then you can almost guarantee that the business employs a person to monitor the content and change the text back as soon as information is added by the public to correct the claims.
• If the topic is in relation to reference material that is currently banned, censored in any, or all countries, then you can guarantee that the “dictionary of hate” is used to describe the content. In addition, people are paid to scrub the evidence that the subject may in-fact not have really have a sound basis. We saw a exponential increase in this being done during the Covid era.
• If the subject is not currently “mainstream thinking”, it is highly possible that the information is deliberately written to undermine those who are challenging the mainstream thinking. A prime example can be found if you look up any alternative health care subject. Given the amount of money involved in the pharmaceutical and fast food industry, it is no surprise that they have a financial interest in keeping counter arguments to their philosophies, or product offering, out of this resource.

So in summary, Wikipedia is great resource and should not be ignored. However, the information you find has the potential to be completely biased, or inconsistent with current evidence or research, especially when the discussion is relation to largest companies on the planet, or your local government.

Use it with great care and engage your inquisitive brain to process the information.