Can We Still Trust Wikipedia? – PragerU (Ashley Rindsberg)

Wikipedia is the most widely used source of information in human history.

Think about it: when you Google almost anything — from historical events to current affairs — Wikipedia dominates the results.
Google ranks Wikipedia pages in the first spot on 80% of searches, and even uses its articles to populate the “knowledge panels” that appear next to those searches.

With this kind of reach, we’d all want Wikipedia to be fair, objective, and accurate.

And if you’re researching Roman emperors, Newton’s laws, or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it usually is.
But when it comes to contemporary political and social issues, Wikipedia has become something else entirely:
a battlefield where ideology outranks accuracy.

From Information to Ideology

If you look up topics like immigration, climate change, or international conflicts, you’ll find not neutral information, but carefully crafted narratives.

Wikipedia is no longer fair, objective, or accurate.
How did this happen?

Through coordinated groups of editors who control what information stays — and what gets deleted.
Anyone who challenges their preferred narrative gets shut down.

On issue after issue, only one point of view is allowed.

Case Study: Israel

Take Israel.
Over the past few years, a group of about 40 anti-Israel editors has worked systematically to delegitimize the Jewish state and whitewash the crimes of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

These editors have:

• Erased historical ties between the Jewish people and Israel from dozens of articles.
  
  
  

• Twisted the definition of Zionism from “the call for restoration of the Jewish homeland” to “a colonization project by European Jews.”
  
  
  

• Tainted nearly every Israel-related topic.
  
  
  

For example, two editors from this group wrote over 90% of the content for an article they created called “Zionism, Race, and Genetics” — an entry comparing Zionism to Nazi race science.

Their campaign doesn’t stop with Israel.
They also whitewash Islamist atrocities.

One editor removed mention of Hamas’s genocidal charter.
Others tried to deny the atrocities of the October 7, 2023 massacre.
Working together, some deleted dozens of documented human-rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It’s Not Just About Israel

Wikipedia’s bias now extends far beyond the Middle East.
Articles on American politics, racism, transgenderism, and other sensitive subjects have been similarly manipulated.

Wikipedia wasn’t always like this.
There was a time, not long ago, when it was actually neutral.

So what changed?

2016: The Turning Point

When Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, the left didn’t just lose an election — it lost its mind.
Clinton blamed her loss on “Russian disinformation” and declared a “fake news epidemic” before Congress.

For the left, the message was clear: control the internet or lose again.

Enter the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) — Wikipedia’s parent organization.
It saw an opportunity.

Executive Director Katherine Maher declared that “Wikipedia’s neutrality is a white male, Westernized construct.”
Her solution was something called the “Wikipedia Movement Strategy.”

Its mission wasn’t subtle: transform Wikipedia from an encyclopedia into a social justice platform.

Internal WMF documents from that period — now public — show a deliberate shift toward what it called “knowledge equity.”
That meant prioritizing certain political perspectives over others.

Follow the Money

This ideological transformation required tens of millions of dollars.
They got it.

A large portion came from the Tides Foundation, funded by progressive billionaire George Soros.
His affiliates now fill Wikipedia’s leadership ranks.

They, in turn, empowered the left-wing editors who now control the site’s narrative — a narrative that is anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Western, and anti-Christian.

The Reach Beyond Wikipedia

Unfortunately, Wikipedia’s influence doesn’t stop at its own website.
That would be bad enough.

Every major AI system — from ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini — feeds on Wikipedia’s massive database.

That means the future of unbiased information is in jeopardy.
Because once Wikipedia’s bias is embedded into AI systems, it becomes nearly impossible to detect.

Every student writing a paper, every journalist fact-checking a story, every policymaker researching an issue —
they’re all using Wikipedia, whether they know it or not.

What Can Be Done

So how can we bring Wikipedia back to its original mission?
First, by calling it out.

If you see something wrong, say something — on social media, in articles, in conversations.
Expose the bias.

The concept behind Wikipedia was brilliant:
a decentralized, crowdsourced encyclopedia — countless contributors, each fact-checking one another.

We must demand a return to that model.

Until that happens, it’s up to us to seek out alternative sources and become our own fact-checkers.
We can’t outsource that responsibility — least of all to Wikipedia.

— Ashley Rindsberg, Senior Editor at Pirate Wires, for Prager University.