NY Times - Wikipedia is in peril. In a world where trust in truth is crumbling, the grande dame of collective online fact-gathering is under threat on every front. The MAGA right, with Elon Musk at the fore, is slinging accusations of political bias and antisemitism and has even questioned the site’s nonprofit status. Artificial intelligence is raiding the encyclopedia’s resources and draining attention. Repressive governments have hauled its volunteer editors into penal colonies.
In
Wikipedia’s 25-year history, it has never had to fight this hard.
The
organization that supports the site, the Wikimedia Foundation, is increasing
its lobbying budget and advertising in Times Square. It is charging companies
like Google and Meta that gobble up the encyclopedia’s 65 million articles, and
throttling access for certain scrapers. And it is expanding its human rights
team to better protect volunteers against rising harassment, surveillance and
retaliation.
For
an organization that holds neutrality as a cardinal rule, it is a lot of
conflict, requiring Wikimedia to go on the offensive — diplomatically, of
course.
No comments:
Post a Comment