Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has raised concerns about bias in the platform’s coverage of controversial topics amid controversy surrounding an investigative report that alleged manipulation of content related to the Hindu American Foundation.
His remarks came during an exclusive interview with NDTV’s Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul.
The NPOV Media report claims that a group of four anonymous editors altered and vandalised the Hindu American Foundation’s Wikipedia page, raising concerns about how information related to India and Hindus is presented on the platform.
Responding to NDTV’s questions about whether Wikipedia can be trusted on issues concerning India and Hindus, Sanger said the encyclopedia generally performs well when presenting straightforward and undisputed facts. However, he argued that problems arise when topics become part of cultural or political disputes.
“Wikipedia is good at stating uncontroversial facts about the land area as long as that isn’t politically disputed. But when it comes to issues that are disputed by people on different sides of a culture war, as in India between Hindus and Muslims, Wikipedians unfortunately have a tendency to take a side,” he said.
Concerns Over Volunteer Editing And Propaganda
According to its co-founder Jimmy Donal Wales, Wikipedia’s content is created and monitored by volunteers. In an earlier interview with NDTV, he said, “This is user-generated. There are volunteers that come into the picture and Wikipedia has nothing to do with that,” when asked about misrepresentation and fake news.
However, Sanger pointed to the issue of paid editing, where ‘paid propagandists’ allegedly attempt to influence content to promote specific viewpoints.
“I have no doubt that that actually happens. In fact, that’s not really in dispute that that happens. The extent to which is another question. It seems to me that you don’t even need to talk about paid editors. The fact that somebody is a volunteer, if they if they’ve got a lot of their friends and they have the dominant point of view, the fact that they’re volunteers certainly doesn’t prevent that the encyclopedia from being biased. Because it obviously is,” he added.
India And Kashmir
The discussion also touched on how Wikipedia covers issues related to India, including Jammu and Kashmir, cross-border tensions and terrorism.
Sanger suggested that one of the key challenges lies in Wikipedia’s heavy reliance on what it considers “reliable sources”. According to him, “A lot of Hindu sources are essentially blacklisted. One is not able to use them on Wikipedia. And this is not just a Hindu thing, either. The same is true of a lot of Israeli nationalist sources or just Christian confessional sources. These things are ruled out. And then there are other policies that matter.”
‘Weaponised’ Against Certain Groups?
Asked whether Wikipedia was being used to target organisations such as the Hindu American Foundation or to promote narratives against India and Hindus, Sanger said “I think that’s fair.”
However, he stressed that the alleged activity appeared to involve only a small number of accounts. Referring to the findings cited in the report, Sanger suggested that critics should actively participate in the editing process rather than simply complain about perceived bias.
“Don’t complain. Fight back. That’s the real thing that needs to happen,” he added.
Western Media Influence And AI Concerns
Sanger also linked the debate over Wikipedia’s neutrality to wider concerns about media representation and artificial intelligence. He argued that because Wikipedia relies heavily on Western media sources, it can end up reflecting a Western perspective on global events and issues.
The problem, he said, extends beyond Wikipedia itself. Since many artificial intelligence models are trained on publicly available internet content, including Wikipedia, any biases present in those sources can also be reflected in AI-generated responses.
According to Sanger, ” India has got a lot of smart people and should have no trouble actually including all of the Indian media as training data in local versions.”
