American entrepreneur Elon Musk called for people to stop donating to Wikipedia, stating that the site has been taken over by ‘far left activists’. The criticism came via a post on X, the social media platform he owns, citing Pirate Wires – an American news website. The reports claim that such editors are said to have been involved in an organized way to delegitimize Israel, present radical Islamist groups in a favourable light, and position fringe academic views on the Israel-Palestine conflict as mainstream over past years. The claimed in the report that the editors activities became more active after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7.
One editor was accused of removing references to Hamas’ 1988 charter, which looked for the destruction of Israel. Further, Pirate Wires has alleged that the editors have sidelined verified cases of human rights violations by Iranian authorities across the several entries.
Musk, who was actively supporting presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump, has been expressing criticism over the Wikipedia’s post-modern approach to editing the data, calling it Left-wing Biased and disapproving Wiki editing as all can edit anything they want.
Such complaints have also come up regarding Wikipedia, at least in the context of India, where the use of this open wiki-editing is being criticized. South Asian news agency ANI claimed defamation of its character through a ₹2 crore defamation lawsuit filed against Wikipedia’s parent organisation regarding unauthorised edit of its controversial Wikipedia page. ANI also alleged that three Wikipedia users involved in the edit remain unidentified, which led to the Delhi High Court issuing a contempt notice.
Recent comments by the Delhi High Court bear a wider discussion in regard to policies of editing Wikipedia and political bias. Some editors are also said to have locked pages to prevent further update to manipulate the situation in India’s Manipur Wikipedia sources have been accused of telling one-sided stories.
Musk’s critique and more recent controversies relate to a conversation that has emerged about the sustainability of Wikipedia’s model, with critics arguing that the platform’s anyone can edit feature might distort and exploited to push biased narratives.
