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October 28, 2023

After a brief exchange with social media influencer Ian Miles Cheong in December 2022, Elon Musk sent out one of his craftily concise tweets directed at Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales.

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Reporter Jon Levine at the New York Post soon followed up, musing to Musk, “I wonder how much Wikipedia would cost,” to which Jimmy Wales reacted: “Wikipedia is not for sale.”

This eventually made it to the online encyclopedia’s “Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia” page, where they doth protest too much with their snide comment, “If you’re waiting for Wikipedia to be bought by your friendly neighborhood Internet giant, don’t hold your breath.”  The mantra then made its way to Wikipedia’s fundraising efforts, where a pop-up window declares, “Wikipedia is not for sale.  A personal appeal from Jimmy Wales…”

And a few days ago, in another artfully brief post, X owner Elon Musk threw down the gauntlet to Wikipedia, saying, “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”

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Laughs aside, Musk went on to question what Wikipedia is doing with all the money it raises: “Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money?  It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia.  You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone!  So what’s the money for?  Inquiring minds want to know…”

And as quickly as you can say “Dickipedia,” Vice.com published a sugar-soaked article declaring, “The Wikimedia Foundation is remarkably transparent” and accused Musk of not understanding how Wikipedia works — which was believed by no one anywhere.

Not to be outdone, Australia’s Financial Review called the “Dickipedia” comment a “Trumpian broadside” that is “just the latest from Musk against sources of information that disseminate credible information.”

The thing is, a quick look at social media discussions on the subject reveals that many people consider Wikipedia a biased website.

In my recent article, “We’re Overdue in Demanding Accountability from Wikipedia,” I examined the accuracy of Wikipedia, how it joined forces with the World Health Organization, and whether there is any hope of reinventing it without bias.

In my research, I interviewed Julie Mastrine, Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings at AllSides.com, a website that displays news from left, center, and right as well as rating news websites for bias.  I asked her why AllSides had changed its “center” bias rating for Wikipedia to “not rated.” This was her response: