Fwd : How Wikipedia Became the New Enemy of the US Right
Cornelius Hamelberg
https://www.dn.se/kultur/sa-blev-wikipedia-usa-hogerns-nya-fiende/
How Wikipedia Became the New Enemy of the US Right
Published 2025-11-04
Elon Musk, a well-known Wikipedia critic, has launched his own challenger, Grokipedia. Photo: Algi Febri Sugita/TT
The Trump right in the US has a new hate object: Wikipedia, the encyclopedia they see as a left-wing propaganda site. The organization is at risk of losing tax exemption, activists are testifying to harassment, and Elon Musk has created the challenger Grokipedia.
– Wikipedia is facing an existential threat, says one of the United States' remaining full-time writers.
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“Have you ever thought,” the joke goes , “that Wikipedia was built like the modern-day Library of Alexandria on the mere need of nerds to correct each other?”
A joke, but also a picture of the digital encyclopedia that was once popular: a creation of geeks and non-profit enthusiasts. Astonishingly accurate. Extremely comprehensive, with detailed articles on everything from the biggest topics to the most obscure. A symbol of the optimism of the early internet, where information wanted to be free and voluntary collaboration would create something amazing.
In 2025, the internet is dominated by a handful of giant tech companies and every open forum is at risk of being taken over by troll factories. But Wikipedia is standing firm. So far, it should be added. Because in recent years, the encyclopedia has become as obvious a target for the American Trump right as the New York Times or CNN.
Facts. Wikipedia
Founded in 2001 as an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
It is one of the world's most visited websites.
The English-language version has just over seven million articles.
One of the rules is that all information must be referable to an external, credible source. But what constitutes a credible source can be a hotly debated topic.
This was quickly noticed after Trump's election victory. When Elon Musk's "efficiency agency" Doge carried out mass layoffs at government agencies, it also hit his hate object Wikipedia. At least three government employees who had worked to provide the encyclopedia with accurate information were fired. This is called being a "Wikipedian in residence" and has become a way for authorities to disseminate accurate information, something they did during the Covid pandemic, for example.
All indications are that the three were specifically selected as a way for Doge and Musk to access Wikipedia, says Lane Rasberry, one of the few who still works full-time with the encyclopedia as an employee at the University of Virginia.
– Musk had said something nasty about Wikipedia sometime in the month. All three were fired on the same day, not as part of the mass layoffs but someone seemed to have given the order: Find all the Wikipedians at the authorities and fire them all. They probably thought they would find more than three, says Lane Rasberry.
– None of them did anything political. But they brought government information to a place that is free and open.
Lane Rasberry doesn't mince words: if Wikipedia disappears, it will never come back. Photo: Jeneene Chatowsky/University of Virginia
He explains that Lane Rasberry himself can continue because the university he works at is state-controlled, not federal.
He doesn't mince words about the seriousness: Wikipedia faces an existential threat. If it disappears, it will never rise again, he said at a recent Wikipedia conference in New York.
Wikipedia was founded in 2001. Photo: Algi Febri Sugita/TT
The attacks on Wikipedia have come from the highest echelons in Washington since Trump took office.
A Trump-loyal prosecutor threatened the Wikipedia foundation this spring, claiming that the encyclopedia had become a platform for propaganda and influence from foreign states and therefore did not meet the requirements to be considered a non-profit organization. This could lead to the foundation losing its tax-exempt status.
In August, two Republicans in the US House of Representatives accused Wikipedia of becoming a platform for, among other things, “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel information” and demanded that the organization explain itself.
Added to this are countless attacks from right-wing figures in the US. Conservative TV personality Tucker Carlson has called Wikipedia “completely dishonest.” One person who agrees with him is actually Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s founders who left early on and has been sharply critical ever since.
Attacks against Wikipedia have increased since Donald Trump took office as US president. Photo: Andrew Leyden/TT
But the question is, is there anyone an angrier and more vocal critic than Elon Musk? “Stop donating to Wokepedia,” he wrote on his own platform X, a play on the word woke , which loosely translates to politically correct. “Stop funding Wikipedia until balance is restored,” he has also said.
These days, Elon Musk released his own challenger, Grokipedia. It is an AI-generated version of Wikipedia, which according to the billionaire is guaranteed to be free from woke ideology. Many quickly noted that it is largely based on Wikipedia texts, but also piquant differences. For example, Grokipedia's article on Elon Musk does not mention anything about how he raised his hand in what looked like a Hitler salute, even though the incident is actually mentioned in at least one other article.
At the Wikipedia conference in New York, a woman who trains Wikipedia editors said she now recommends that new volunteers remain anonymous. Lane Rasberry agrees that harassment has become more common, especially against women. This is most evident around topics such as transgender rights.
“It really seems like more people are harassing Wikipedians these days,” he says.
The question is whether anyone is an angrier and more vocal Wikipedia critic than Elon Musk. Photo: Gage Skidmore/TT
This poses another risk to Wikipedia's future: if harassment scares away volunteers, the entire system could collapse. Because even though everyone can edit articles and many contribute, it is a core of significantly fewer people who do most of the work. Especially when you look at certain subject areas.
– We're talking about maybe 20 people who really keep an eye on things. And if you have 20 and one disappears, it's a hard blow. If three disappear, it can put an end to everything.
Couldn't the critics be right then, isn't Wikipedia characterized by a biased worldview?
– You'll get the short answer: Wikipedia is very bad, everything about Wikipedia is bad. It's also by far the best source of information we have, says Lane Rasberry.
– Some people like to say: Anyone can write on Wikipedia! Well, you know where anyone can write too? Twitter. And many people believe everything they see there. So Wikipedia has been poorly marketed. The rest of the internet is completely crazy.
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Storm and strike cause banana shortage
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Picked from among the bananas at Ica on Kungsholmen in Stockholm. Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
Empty shelves, or just green ones? There is currently a shortage of bananas, according to both ICA and Axfood.
But the situation is starting to look brighter.
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Håkan Sandström, fruit and vegetable manager at Ica in Mullsjö, shows off green bananas to P4 Jönköping's reporter .
“It's actually very unusual,” he notes.
He's not alone in having difficulty getting hold of ripe bananas right now.
At Ica, there is currently a shortage of organic bananas, but not of other types of bananas, according to the grocery giant's press department.
"We are trying to secure access as best we can," writes Maria Elfvelin, press officer at ICA, in an email to DN.
In recent weeks, there have been quite major challenges with banana supply, confirms Axfood's press department.
There are several reasons for this. Partly, it is about a major storm a few weeks ago that disrupted deliveries, and partly about a major dock workers' strike in Europe's largest port of Rotterdam in mid-October, which meant that container ships were unable to load or unload goods.
“This has affected the availability of bananas for all chains and throughout the country,” writes Axfood's press manager Magnus Törnblom in an email.
The strike in the Netherlands is now over, and Axfood has started to receive large volumes of bananas again, which will go to stores when they have ripened.
“The supply has already started to improve, and we should be back to normal levels soon,” says Magnus Törnblom.
Ica also hopes that the situation will improve in the coming weeks.
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How Wikipedia Became the New Enemy of the US Right ( Google)
How Wikipedia Became the New Enemy of the US Right ( Bing)
There were 815 hits for the search term Wikipedia in the USA-Africa Dialogue Series.
This shows Wikipedia's importance. Some people swear by Wikipedia, just as that little alter boy Julina Assange, Little Lord Fauntleroy used to swear on Wikileaks
I must consult Andrew Bustamante on the reliability of such propaganda sources/ resources
In the context of possible institutional bias running from the Encyclopedia Britannica to the Encyclopedia Judaica where you are free to look up the name Mohammed for example, How Wikipedia Became the New Enemy of the US Right (Yahoo) is a really a heavy subject…
For balance, I have just downloaded Musk’s Grokipedia , and, knowing full well that I’m unlikely to find the original, unalloyed Gospel truths hidden therein, I entered this search term as the litmus test : Israel , to behold what would be dredged up from the whale’s belly