Conservative author defends House Oversight Committee’s probe into bias on Wikipedia

A conservative author has defended the House of Representative’s decision to launch a probe into bias on Wikipedia, arguing in the New York Post that, despite presenting itself as an unbiased source, the site is “a sophisticated channel for activism and distortion.”

Bethany Mandel, the author of Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, said in a Aug. 29 New York Post op-ed that, because Wikipedia is used as a source of information by virtually all Americans, the government should be concerned about who, precisely, controls the content on the website.

“Wikipedia has become the reference library of the modern world, but without the oversight, accountability, or intellectual rigor that a library is supposed to guarantee,” she wrote.

She argued, “On a range of topics including cultural controversies, political debates, even biographies of relatively obscure figures, the site reflects the worldview of a small but determined class of editors.”

Mandel described how her own Wikipedia page reads like a series of “curated ‘greatest hits’ collection of my worst moments, or more precisely my critics’ worst caricatures of me,” rather than any kind of objective report of her life.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee opened a probe into alleged attempts to influence Wikipedia’s political bias, The Hill reported last week.

Mandel argued that the probe “is not an attack on free information,” but rather is “an overdue recognition that information is power, and that when a handful of anonymous ideologues — and possibly foreign actors — exercise such power unchecked, democracy itself is put at risk.”

Mandel is not the only person to welcome the House’s probe; one of Wikipedia’s founders, Larry Sanger, has long criticized what he perceives as the site’s left-wing bias. Sanger, who recently became Christian, said that he is glad the House is investigating Wikipedia, and that he is particularly concerned that foreign governments and Democratic American politicians have funded Wikipedia in order to influence the encyclopedia’s political bias.

Mandel also wrote that, although the probe was opened by Republicans, it should not be a partisan issue. Everyone “should be concerned about the unchecked power of a website that shapes so much of what we think we know,” she argued.

“Our shared understanding of history, politics and culture depends on ensuring that the sources we rely on are not captured by bad actors, foreign or domestic,” she concluded. “If this investigation succeeds in pulling back the curtain, perhaps we will begin to take seriously the question of who controls our information — and ask seriously whether the story of the world we are handed is the one that is actually true.”