Centralized Power Narratives Vs. Open-Source Truth Reporting

The Wikipedia War: How Influential Figures Try to Shape Their Own Legacy With Edits

Centralized Power Narratives Vs Open Source Truth Reporting

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• Elon Musk has launched attacks on Wikipedia, mocking it with names like "Wokipedia," discouraging donations, and attempting to delegitimize it after it documented his controversial actions.
• Wikipedia serves as a counterbalance to corporate and political media control, making it a crucial tool for maintaining decentralized, democratic access to information.
• Protecting Wikipedia requires stronger safeguards against bribery, enhanced transparency in edit tracking, and continued public donations to ensure its independence from powerful interests.

They've been asking for donations since I was in high school, but I just got free help with my homework without donating. I was a broke kid, what are you going to do? The decentralized open source encyclopedia has helped countless students write their papers, democratized access to information, and operate almost entirely on donations.

Wikipedia isn't just a casual website. It's a cornerstone of personal liberty, and responsibility to accurate information collaboratively. And naturally, Elon musk has a massive problem with that.

I.

Why is Elon mad? Mostly because people on the internet are talking about his actions. Wikipedia hosted an image of him doing the Nazi salute on their Elon Musk page. Personally, I think people should be more concerned about the toxicity of their actions rather than how many people will discuss what they did wrong. The man shows no remorse over resembling a Nazi. He just has a problem with people talking about it like it's a bad thing. A perfectly understandable emotion for an innocent person to have. If I did a Nazi salute at a presidential inauguration after growing up in Apartheid South Africa, I wouldn't appreciate folks sharing my picture either.

Musk resorted to 5D chess name-calling referring to the democratized information platform as "Wokipedia". Wikipedia has not commented whether they'll need skin grafts for that burn. The emerald mine inheritor added insult to injury diagnosing Wikipedia with "woke mind virus."

Then the billionaire from Apartheid South Africa went for blood. And by blood I mean, their wallet. Not the precious Wikipedia donations! They've spent over a decade putting those pennies together the whole time I was pretending I didn't see their notice! Nonetheless, Musk called upon his 200 million eager incels to halt donations to Wikipedia. Which may seem brutal at first. But statistically Musk's crowd occupies the states with the lowest literacy rates, so they may not be losing out on too many donations.

Musk really thought he ate with this post. But what's being called out is corruption from a powerful person to edit Wikipedia. Which is exactly what he's doing. I have issue with not just what's happening to Epstein's page, but the way Musk wants to do the same with his. I don't think there's any reason for Wikipedia to delete Elon's Nazi salute, or his time in Apartheid South Africa, or his disdain for multiculturalism, or his advocacy for Nazi ideas like Great Replacement theory. All of which are probably reasons he's harassing Wikipedia. But if he doesn't want people talking about his actions like this, then he should start by making better actions instead of commanding people to stop talking about it.

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Derek GuzmanDerek Guzman

Frustrated with the democratized information platform, Musk mocked the website by jokingly offering $1 billion to rename it to "Dickipedia" in an effort to attack their credibility. His hostile moves are parroted by his 200 million strong following who seek to delegitimize leftist or mainstream sources and ideas.

But we have to have an open mind. Has Wikipedia been sliding a left-wing bias under our noses all these years? And does the organization have any mechanisms to prevent misinformation and bias from slipping into their files?

II.

Well their three-fold protection policy offers semi protection, extended confirmed protection, and full protection. That's when edits are only allowed by auto confirmed accounts, have been confirmed for an extended period of time, or the account has administrator access, respectively. Sources must be verifiable, pertain to existing knowledge instead of theories or interpretations, and reliable--preferably high-quality secondary– sources. And editorial oversight is run by the community, transparency such as the edits being publicly logged, and flagged revisions for for high-profile pages where review is required.

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Derek GuzmanDerek Guzman

Crowdsourcing is a hell of a drug. And Wikipedia inhaled deeply. Which is a challenge for traditional control over our collective narratives usually managed by histories winners. The Information Age let's us subvert that wherever we can avoid state-issued algorithms. The integrity of values like decentralization and neutrality are threatened by celebrities, politicians, and companies that want to sanitize their image at the convenience of their careers.

Which is why you don't want your editors to be paid as a conflict of interest. But they may not disclose they've been paid. Not exactly the cyberpunk fantasy I had in mind. So there is room for the kind of stuff Musk is talking about. As long as celebrities like himself are trying to force Wikipedia to sanitize their image. So he's basically the type of person he's talking about corrupting the open source information platform.

III.

And he wouldn't be the first. In 2012, Newt Gingrich's campaign communications director, Joe DeSantis, edited Gingrich's page to clean up Wiki mentions of his extramarital affairs, ethics charges, and controversial positions. But after being given notice of Wikipedia's conflict-of-interest (COI) rules, DeSantis pivoted to suggesting edits on Talk pages. Which was more warmly received by the Wiki community compared to his first campaign.

In the same year a Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported almost 10,000 edits were made from within U.K. Parliament. They were removing details related to the 2009 expenses scandal among other controversies. Some MPs admitted to editing their own pages if they weren't having staff doing it. Of course they cited reasons like "misleading information."

IV.

Wikipedia is more than a useful tools for last minute homework. It's a symbol of cyber democracy and free open source information. It's a countercultural tool against the misinformation led by corporate and celebrity powers who are used to traditional media platforms where they're able to control the flow of information. The loss of such democratic freedom online is an erosion of our freedom.

We the people deserve an alternate source of information collaboratively edited and curated instead of being left with mainstream sources gardened by relationships that represent a conflict of interest to neutral information reporting. The three big demographics trying to bribe admin editors on Wikipedia are celebrities, corporations, and world powers. Ironically, Elon Musk is the overlap of all three major demographics representing sanitizing bias on Wikipedia.

History is written by the winners. At least when truth is manufactured under centralized power. The decentralized democratic process of Wikipedia makes it a priceless tool for sourcing information collaboratively, and curated democratically. It's just free information baby! So what can we do to protect it from folks like Musk that want to delegitimize it, removing a priceless cornerstone of cyber democracy?

V.

Wikipedia needs to defend its admin editors from being potentially corrupted by bribes from celebrities, world powers, and corporations. Nothing a bit of elbow grease can't solve. And by elbow grease I mean simple protective measures. By enhancing the websites version history, tracking edit trails can be more accessible to the public making it harder to cover up sanitization efforts. Stricter governance structures around trusted long-time editors with increased moderation powers might help prevent them being seduced by bribes. Create channels for senior editors to report abuse anonymously. And expanding automated moderation tools to flag potential policy violations more quickly can help public oversight.

But they're not in this alone. Providing a free public service, Wikipedia is a non-profit that relies on donations to continue operating. Small donations instead of large bribes help protect the priority of accuracy over commercial interests. That means our small donations protect the integrity of what information appears on the website. You can donate today through this link. Try joining as an editor and contribute to the massive reservoir of shared public information. Promote protections for editors like the ones I mentioned before. Raise awareness about the importance of open source information, and how it protects democracy, with your friends and encourage them to donate as well. Together we can defend a free and open internet with information channels immune to the centralized authority of oligarchs like Elon Musk.

by Derek Guzman

Independent journalist in tech, art, and philosophy

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