As a writer, I always keep my audience in mind. After all, why would someone waste their time reading an uninteresting topic?
I learned this early on in law school.
As an attorney, you need to know the judge in every case in which you are a representative. While the law may be the same, each judge has a particular bias on how they operate. As such, you write any legal document on the same case differently depending on the judge you want to present it to.
Now, take this advice and translate it into Wikipedia.
As a professional Wikipedia editor, I don’t just take Wikipedia guidelines and policies at face value. I have to evaluate individual topics and see who actually edits the page to determine the best route to take when doing updates.
With that in mind, I always inform my clients that Wikipedia has a left-leaning stance. I base this on my experience and numerous studies on the topic. Even the site’s co-founder came out stating that Wikipedia has a left-leaning bias.
“If only one version of the facts is allowed then that gives a huge incentive to wealthy and powerful people to seize control of things like Wikipedia in order to shore up their power” – Larry Sanger, co-founder Wikipedia
I don’t really care about your politics or what you believe in. In fact, Conservative or Liberal, I feel people just need to be left alone to live their lives. However, when you want to create a Wikipedia page, you must take certain ideologies into consideration and write for that audience.
In this case, your audience is the Wikipedia community who ultimately will decide what a particular topic says.
Why the Ideological Bias?
Consensus governs Wikipedia. This means the majority of people who edit the site determine the type of content that goes into it.
Many of the editors have a left-leaning bias. As such, their decisions lean that way too.
According to a 2010 study, the majority of Wikipedia editors are between the ages of 12 and 29. This would be Millennials and GenZ, who, according to CNN, tend to be more left-leaning. While this alone does not prove Wikipedia bias, you can get an understanding of how it works into the encyclopedia when I start to show you examples.
Another reason for the political bias comes down to the leadership of the organization.
The majority of people in the world need a leader. Someone to follow who can show them what to do. For Wikipedia editors, this person is Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of the site.
Wales has a left-leaning view, even being publicly vocal against Donald Trump. As a result, you would expect his followers (the majority of Wikipedia editors who look at him like a god) to share those views and express them through their editing of the site.
Always look at the head of an organization to determine the type of political climate it operates under. Fox? CNN? Yes, you can trace their political biases back to their leadership. The same applies to Wikipedia.
In addition to politics, you can see the same in other areas of Wikipedia, such as medical articles. Doctors who edit Wikipedia and have a bias toward certain medicines will show it in how they edit. That’s why Wikipedia has a bias against pseudoscience, such as alternative and natural remedies.
Conservapedia is Born from Wikipedia Bias
Just like the name suggests, Conservapedia is a right-leaning alternative to Wikipedia. Founded in 2006 by Christian Conservative activist Andrew Schlafly, the site launched to help counteract the liberal bias of Wikipedia.
I’m personally not a fan of Conservapedia. Any website that gives the impression of a bias is bound to attract people with that bias. It is also an open source platform, which means people with those biases will edit it and decide what ultimately goes into each article within the site. Much like Wikipedia has a left-leaning bias, Conservapedia has a right-leaning bias.
So, why wouldn’t someone start a more left-leaning alternative instead of a right-leaning one? The answer is simple. Wikipedia already fills that niche.
Now that you understand where some of the bias comes from, let’s take a look at some specific examples of political biases you will see on Wikipedia.
Note – Since this article was originally published, Wikipedia editors have reduced the amount of information on political biases in Wikipedia. They removed the link to “liberal bias” from the “Reliability of Wikipedia” page and moved it into a new page on “Ideological bias on Wikipedia,” which only covers two left-leaning bias critiques as of early 2023.
Examples of Wikipedia’s Bias
You don’t need to believe my words. Just take a look at some of these examples. Again, your political affiliation doesn’t matter to me. But you must know Wikipedia’s biases if you plan to create a Wikipedia page.
Andy Ngo and ANTIFA:
Who is Andy Ngo? Well, not a lot of people knew of him before June 2019, when a group of ANTIFA members attacked him at a rally in Portland, Oregon.
Ngo is a journalist who many describe as a conservative. Someone created his Wikipedia page shortly after the incident, in which he suffered cerebral hemorrhaging. Editors then removed the incident from the Wikipedia page for ANTIFA, in what some claim is a continued attempt to whitewash the activities of ANTIFA.
Now, I don’t see issues with editors coming to a consensus about not including the incident, but it shows a great example of political bias, and here is why.
According to former Wikipedia editor, T.D. Adler, “All mention of the Ngo assault was subsequently removed by editor ‘Carptrash’, whose profile page includes multiple images of himself in an anarchist shirt, one time while brandishing a blunt instrument.”
So, it looks like editors who have an open left-leaning stance even show their bias visibly while editing topics on Wikipedia. Adler has many more examples of such bias, which he posts to his Medium account.
Sharyl Attkisson’s Battle with Wikipedia:
You likely know Sharyl Attkisson from her days at CBS, or more recently from her Sunday morning political show, Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. In fact, I was lucky enough to meet her for a segment she did years back on Wikipedia editing.
Attkisson has had plenty to say about Wikipedia and how it is not unbiased.
“My own battle with Wikipedia included being unable to correct provably false facts such as incorrect job history, incorrect birthplace and incorrect birth date,” writes Attkisson. “What’s worse is that agenda editors related to pharmaceutical interests and the partisan blog Media Matters control my Wikipedia biographical page, making sure that slanted or false information stays on it.”
Her career goes back to the early 1980s, but her Wikipedia page devotes more to what they call her “anti-vaccine reporting” and “computer hacking claims” than to the rest of her career. Forget that she has written numerous books and is an Emmy winner. This shows that Wikipedia editors are biased, focusing on what they want (the negative) instead of the unbiased coverage required by its neutral point of view guidelines.
Personally, I think her segment from a few years back still sticks in the heads of Wikipedia editors. As I discussed, Wikipedia editors and the Foundation itself have vindictive personalities and like to take out their frustrations on people they can target (like Attkisson).
Attkisson is just another public figure who has to face backlash from the Wikipedia community. Since she has criticized it, editors in the Wikipedia community have taken offense and will likely never allow anything positive on her page. Again, it’s Wikipedia editors’ way of proving a point and using bully tactics to show “they” are in charge.
Trump Gets the Brunt of Political Bias on Wikipedia:
During his presidency, Barack Obama issued 276 executive orders. Many on the Right complained that these orders were illegal because they created new law instead of defining how to enforce current law. Republicans hotly debated them and used them to attack the Left during the 2016 Presidential election.
Apparently, none of these orders were controversial enough for Wikipedia. Out of the 276 orders listed for Obama, only nine have a Wikipedia page as of the date of this publication. Most of them run only a few paragraphs that give basic facts about each.
As of the date of this article, President Donald Trump has issued 117 executive orders. 38 of these orders have their own Wikipedia page.
You may think that maybe people are simply writing more about the current president to keep Wikipedia up to date. However, look at each order and you would be wrong. Editors use many of these as sounding boards to introduce a narrative opposing the individual orders. Again, not an issue in my opinion, but something to keep in mind if you want to edit anything political on Wikipedia.
Media Bias Feeds the Pages
Another thought is that Wikipedia is simply summarizing what the press says on the issue. That is true as well. The only problem is that all media is biased, with the majority of it leaning left. Even the Washington Post had to report that Trump’s Wikipedia page received three times as many edits during the run-up to the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton’s page.
Call it a conspiracy, but here is another example:
Wikipedia has a list of national emergencies issued in the United States pursuant to the National Emergencies Act of 1976. Out of the 50+ listed, only one has a Wikipedia page (Trump’s National Emergency Order regarding the Southern Border). And yes, it reads as a sounding board for those who disagree with the order.
Trump’s Wikipedia page itself is a battleground. It is one of the most edited and viewed pages on Wikipedia. It’s just one of the many examples of how editors tend to lean a little left on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia and Cryptocurrency:
You would think Wikipedia would cover cryptocurrency in an unbiased way, given the amount of both positive and negative coverage it receives in the media. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.
Wikipedia has a disdain for crypto.
You can trace much of this to a single editor whose name I will not mention, as I don’t feel like giving credibility to any of his work. This editor has written extensively on the topic (off-Wiki), and editors even let him edit cryptocurrency articles despite his publicly expressed bias. Another Wikipedia editor (who has a heavy left-leaning hand) has also taken up the anti-crypto cause.
So, while they do cover crypto in detail, anything you read about it is going to be bad if editors get the opportunity. This means they will introduce anything negative regardless of coverage in the mainstream media.
Wikipedia editors have built up so much hate for cryptocurrency that they convinced the Wikimedia Foundation to stop taking donations in the form of crypto. A classic case of cutting off their nose to spite their face.
What Can Be Done to Overcome the Bias?
Embrace it.
You will not change people’s views on either side of the aisle. So, consider whether you even want to create a Wikipedia page in the first place, given that you may face such bias.
Trying to fight it only makes it worse.
People will simply try to keep negative points of view in the Wikipedia article just to prove a point. Your only shot is to keep the bias in mind when editing and make sure to write for your reader.
Final Thoughts on Wikipedia’s Political Bias
There is nothing wrong with an ideology. Our system of beliefs is what we use to guide our choices in life. Again, your political views don’t concern me. I look more at how you treat dogs and old people. With that in mind, you have to write for your audience and their ideological views.
When it comes to Wikipedia, evidence suggests more of a left-leaning bias. Keep this in mind when editing the site. You need to write in a tone that is acceptable to Wikipedia editors. Accept their views or you will not get much accomplished, even through consensus.
If you are having trouble editing a Wikipedia page due to the political bias of editors, reach out to me for a consultation. We can discuss the specific editors you are dealing with as well as the topic. We will come up with a plan to move forward with your edits.