Elon Musk has been vocal in his criticism of Wikipedia, accusing the platform of bias and even offering $1 billion to rename it "Dickipedia." Amid this controversy, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger asked the Tesla CEO to investigate which branches of the US government have employees who are paid to edit, monitor, update, or lobby on Wikipedia—and suggested that such departments should be defunded.
Hi @ElonMusk. Wikipedia co-founder here. May I ask you to determine what branches of the U.S. government—if any!—have employees paid to edit, monitor, update, lobby, etc., WIkipedia?Such operations should be defunded, if any. If there are *none*, we’d like to know. Agree?In a follow-up post, Sanger said that Wikipedia is biased, the process is opaque and he left Wikipedia in 2022.
For people who don’t know me:- I left WIkipedia in 2002.- I have been a critic since 2004.- The Wikipedia process is almost as opaque to me as it is to you.- Yes it’s biased, I’ve said so for a long time. See my blog (http://LarrySanger.org).- I do http://Encyclosphere.org.Musk wants people to stop donating to Wikipedia
Last year, tech billionaire Musk took aim at Wikipedia, accusing the platform of being “controlled by far-left activists” and urging people to stop donating. “Wikipedia is controlled by far-left activists. People should stop donating to them,” Musk said.
This isn’t the first time Musk has criticised the platform for alleged bias. In 2023, he launched a series of attacks on Wikipedia, even offering $1 billion to rename it “Dickipedia” while accusing it of having a “non-trivial left-wing bias.”
Responding to Musk’s remarks, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said, “I mean, he’s had a war of words with me; I just ignore him. So I didn’t really respond to that.”
Sanger’s request to Donald Trump
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