Mediaboss Marketing

We live in a post-truth world where the facts often get lost in the cacophony of emotional wails and motivated narratives. One website which has occupied the drivers seat in the information-warfare era is Wikipedia. Wikipedia has become the agent of misinformation and propaganda. In a post-truth world where facts are relegated to the right-wing imagination and the Left narrative is considered as the Gospel truth, Wikipedia reigns supreme. OpIndia coverage of the Wikipedia misrepresentation of facts started right after the Delhi Riots 2020, where Islamists coordinated and executed violence across the national capital.

After OpIndias extensive coverage of the inherent bias of the platform, we also interviewed the co-founder of Wikipedia, who explained in detail why the platform is a cause lost to Lefts propaganda. Almost vindicating everything that Larry Senger told us later about the functioning of Wikipedia, the platform had blocked OpIndia from being referenced in Wikipedia almost immediately after our Delhi Riots coverage and the reportage on how Wikipedia editors are heavily biased towards the Left.

The Left was not too happy with OpIndia and it was evident. Jimmy Wales himself went on a tirade on Twitter, but more on that later. Since the Delhi Riots have become a propaganda flash-point for the Left, sympathetic media has now decided to presumably pick up the issue to ensure that Wikipedias credibility, which has been on the slide, is maintained, if not improved.

Presumably to that end, Caravan Magazine, that was recently counting the caste of the soldiers who laid their life down at Pulwama in defence of the nation, reached out to OpIndia saying that they were doing a story on OpIndias coverage of Wikipedia and wanted to ask us certain questions.

The Left has not exactly covered itself in glory, considering how they conveniently cherry-pick facts and misquote the people and organisations that they wish to malign. Hence, OpIndias responses to Caravan Magazine are being reproduced here in the spirit of transparency and honesty, tenets long abandoned by not just Wikipedia, but also the Left media that it seems to rely on heavily.

The questions asked by Caravan Magazine are in bold, and OpIndias response to them follow each question.

OpIndia started its coverage of how Wikipedia was biased in its coverage of the Delhi anti-Hindu Riots 2020 on the 26th of February. It is pertinent to remember that the Delhi Riot itself started on the 24th and lasted in the wee morning of 26th February.

Here are some of the issues we raised regarding the Delhi Riots page of Wikipedia.

Our detailed first report can be read here.

Since repeated attempts of getting the page rectified did not work, it was on March 2nd that an OpIndia report investigating who was editor DBXray, was published.

In the report, we relied on publicly available information and at no point was personal information not on the public domain was released. Some of the information, like the Editors real name, was already published in a Reddit thread at the time. OpIndia embarked on a journey to verify publicly available information, much of it, was already in the Wikipedia archive and his Facebook profile.

Interestingly, the anonymity of Wikipedia editors is a part of the problem that Caravan, at least by the tone of the question, seems to be defending. Wikipedia editors are increasingly functioning as Mainstream Media editors where they decide what information should be included in an article and which information should not be included. No longer is Wikipedia a purely publicly sourced platform, as was proved during the Delhi Riots fiasco where the page was locked and peoples counters were dismissed with derision. When the Editors of Wikipedia behave like MSM editors, they should not be granted the luxury of anonymity. What is even more interesting is that while the editors of Wikipedia mirror Left editors, who deride anonymity and consider it a yardstick on which authenticity should be measured, they are more protective of their own identity while peddling the very same agenda.

OpIndia believes that any editor, whether on Wikipedia or otherwise, who decides which fact is worth communicating to the public and which isnt, based on their own world-view and narrative, does not deserve the shield of anonymity. Just like you have the means to reach out to the Editor of OpIndia to pose questions to us about our coverage, editors of Wikipedia who are now functioning in the same realm, have no right to claim anonymity while spreading falsehoods about sensitive and important events of India.

While Caravan Magazine uses the word dox to define what OpIndia did, thankfully, reputation does not indicate that it is, in fact, the truth. There was no attempt made by OpIndia to compromise his personal details like his address, phone number etc. The information that was investigated by OpIndia was publicly available information available on Wikipedia and his own Facebook profile. We take exception to this being called doxxing since Caravan Magazine seems to believe that being protected while spreading falsehood was his right. It was not.

Further, unlike the Left, OpIndia has no documented strategy to investigate more editors. In our coverage, if we feel that other editors need to be investigated, we will take that decision on a case to case basis. However, if the question posed is inquiring whether we will stop investigating Wikipedia, its antecedents or its Editors, the answer is certainly in the negative.

OpIndia again takes exception to the Caravan Magazine journalist calling the investigation doxxing. While we put this on record, we are sure that in their article, Caravan will use this word since we abandoned our expectations from the portal a long time ago.

Instead of OpIndia opining on its blacklisting from OpIndia, we would like to add some quotes by Larry Sanger, who is the co-founder of Wikipedia on how the platform really functions:

There are several such quotes and explanation by the co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, which if the journalist or the magazine really wants to understand the issue instead of doing a shoddy hit-job, could go through.

Here is the link to his interview by OpIndia.

We dont agree with the adjectives used or the characterization of our work, but we plead guilty to treating journalists the same way journalists treat others. Celebrity journalists are often the object of our articles, which upsets the Omert that is there exists in the media where they dont take potshots at each other. This Omert was broken for at least Arnab Goswami by the rest of the media, while we broke this code for entire media years back.

Perhaps you could read an example of that in this article, where Caravan Magazine allowed blatant lies to be published against Arnab Goswami without due diligence or basic journalistic investigation:

Anvay Naik suicide case for which Arnab Goswami was arrested: Letters exchanged, the closure report, and unanswered questions

A 5000-word email was sent to Jimmy Wales on the 5th of March after Mr Wales had, messaging OpIndia editor Nupur Sharma personally, claimed that he can be an ally in solving issues and that the editor must help him with people who were questioning him on Twitter. No help was offered, however, a detailed email was sent to him focussing on the misrepresentations in the Delhi Riots page. Other than his strange rant on Twitter, we have not received a response from him yet.

OpIndias coverage of Wikipedia has increased not after the ban on OpIndia but after its biased article as far as the Delhi Riots 2020 is concerned, which was a case investigated extensively by OpIndia.

I understand why Caravan Magazine would want to impugn the ban as a motive, but it must understand that OpIndia works differently from the Left media.

Here is a list of the articles OpIndia has published with regards to Wikipedia after we reported on its bias as far as the Delhi Riots were concerned:

Ranging from child rape videos to an FBI complaint about paedophilic content, changing history of the Noakhali genocide and a global bias against conservatives, OpIndia has covered a range of issues that ails Wikipedia.

We would like to understand from Caravan if the magazine believes that these issues do not deserve coverage simply because Wikipedia seems to pander to the ideology that Caravan follows.

Further, Wikipedia, for most issues, is the first result that Google throws up. Any bias or misinformation in that regard becomes crucial since the platform seems to be re-writing history from a Left prism and furthering blatant misinformation as we speak. Perhaps issues like the truth, propriety, transparency, an accurate representation of history and current events etc are not issues that the Left likes to concern themselves with, but is certainly something OpIndia holds dear and will continue to report thereof.

See the original post here:
Caravan Magazine asked us about our coverage on Wikipedia and its Left bias Here is our detailed response - OpIndia