Wikipedia. The online, crowd-sourced encyclopedia. It may have begun with noble goals. Who can argue that advancing human knowledge and making it even more widely available than ever before is a bad thing? But who owns Wikipedia?
One wiki owner is the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the parent company of Wikipedia (and many other related wikis). Unlike most high-profile social media operations, it is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization. That allows people to contribute cash to the Wikimedia Foundation and get a tax deduction in the process. So, rather than make huge profits like other social media companies, the Wikimedia Foundation operates on whatever monies it receives from its annual fund drives.
“Wiki,” by the way, is Hawaiian for “fast” or “quick.” Various of the other wikis are non-profits or privately owned.
In so far as Wikipedia sticks with reporting facts, it’s a useful source. However, because anyone can change content, adding or altering essentially whatever they please, Wikipedia has become largely unreliable. During my teaching career I did not allow my students to use Wikipedia as a source. It was important to show them the difference between credible and less credible sources and how to tell the difference. It was also useful to force them to read and cite books. As a result, their research writing was of a higher caliber. That was before AI, of course.
Over the years I also noticed Wikipedia, as is true with so much Internet content, swung increasingly to the left. People interested in factual, credible information at first tried to correct that obvious perversion of Wikipedia’s original intent, but they apparently, eventually, gave up. Trying to teach a pig to sing wastes one’s time and annoys the pig. The same is true of trying to convince the woke to stick with facts and provable, replicable results.
This may not be noticeable to the casual viewer. Depending on the topic one searches on Wikipedia, the information may not be substantially, obviously different that than found in less partisan sources, but anyone spending time there will surely notice the leftward tilt.
Ah, but beauty, as well as political bias, is in the eye of the beholder! Very well. Behold:
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Graphic: X Screenshot
At $51.7 million for “equity, safety & inclusion, Wikipedia spent 29.2% of its 2023-2024 budget on wokeness. One can only guess what “effectiveness” might be (being as woke as they can be?) though it’s not unreasonable to imagine it has to do with wokeness in general, and if so, that addition would comprise 51% of the annual budget.
Why would a non-profit organization purportedly dedicated to the advancement of knowledge want anything to do with partisan, woke, politics? Begin with the fact Wikipedia is based in San Francisco. Apart from the political leanings of its managers and employees, Wikipedia gets considerable money from foundations and other wealthy donors. That money is not going to be given to anyone or any organization with a differing political philosophy. While donors may not make adherence to leftist philosophy an overt requirement for donation, everyone involved understands the underlying beliefs and expectations of those who make such donations. Those beliefs surely include the expectation of friendly entries about their businesses, foundations and favored political causes, if not outright advocacy.
Having an organization focused on DEI to the tune of 29% of a $177 million annual budget also ensures the perpetuation of woke ideology. People whose hiring and continuing employment relies not on merit but on checking woke boxes are not going to suddenly develop an appreciation for the merits of merit.
Why should anyone care about how woke Wikipedia might be? Among the central tenets of wokeness is disdain, even outright hatred, for the non-woke. Such people tend to think any means to their intellectually and morally superior ends not only justified but noble. Yes. They’ll outright lie in disseminating knowledge as they perceive it, and many thinking “encyclopedia” means honest and accurate information may not understand those motivations or the results they arguably produce.
It’s little known 501(c) (3) organizations are prohibited from engaging in anything related to political campaigning. As one might imagine, this is a rather broad category, and during the Harris/Biden years, leftists could be certain their tax-free status was in no danger no matter how they violated that part of IRS code. Beginning January 20, 2025, that may no longer be the case.
For the individual, knowing what proportion of Wikipedia’s donations go toward identity politics and all they entail might tend to direct those donations to organizations more likely to uphold American values.
That’s true encyclopedic wisdom.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
