Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.

There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provides you a way to reasonably criticize authoritarian actions. Many authortarian regimes will "purge" as many of the country's intellectuals as they are able.

Wikipedia is absolutely the enemy of this administration and authoritarians everywhere in the world would love to see it's demise or collapse into chaos.

Whether the Wikipedia page for Israel says Gaza is a genocide or not, or that it's an ongoing debate matters. It matters because it influences what people think and therefore what they consent to or what they deem worth fighting for or applying resources to and that goes for just about any issue out there. If you can't read about the suffering that racism has caused, then how bad is racism really? If there are no examples of successful labor movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?

Totalitarian mindset is not incompatible with the notion of absolute truth. It just want to be considered the single source of truth. You can believe whatever you want as long as it leads you to always comply to the government official statements, even in your most hidden intimacy. That, is totalitarism.

> Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.

Well said.

Hannah Arendt wrote a great book about this, but it sounds like you might have already read it.

According to its cofounder, Wikipedia abandoned truth long ago.

https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

> Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.

I agree. Only thing I would add is that the 'seeking of truth' is also important. Academics get it wrong all the time, but self correction is built into the process. Finding and fixing errors is important.

Wikipedia policy is verifiability and giving the reader a first step. Truth is something that the reader decide for themselves. Wikipedia are neither the enemy nor a friend for regimes or political movements.

It is not the role of Wikipedia to authoritative say if the war in Gaza is an genocide. Their role is to say what reliable source has reported, which in this case has so much reliable sources talking about it that there is a dedicated article about just it.

There more reliable sources are talking about a subject, and the more the subject gain notability, the more likely it will be included in Wikipedia. Editors can apply some common sense, but they are not the arbiters of truth, nor should they ever be seen as such. If a readers want simple and single truths that they can believe in then they are better served by whichever news papers that can cater to their particular world views.

an encyclopedia is supposed to be broader than any other biased information source, so i think your last paragraph is false. people are supposed to make up their own mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia

Aren't you making their point though?

The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.

I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.

All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world population.

While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to materialize that truth.

To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to address its bias problem and that's best done through internal reform.

Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of equal weight.

[1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.

> provide alternative legitimacy to authority.

Authority is never legitimate. Those that claim special rights to it because they bring "truth" or "reason" are the most suspect of them all.

> Many authortarian regimes will "purge" as many of the country's intellectuals as they are able.

This is a letter not the killing fields.

> It matters because it influences what people think

That people find this a defensible position and believe that just finding the "right editors" or "true guardians" can vouchsafe this poor outcome for humanity is always surprising to me.

Shouldn't people have access to reported information and then come to their own educated conclusions?

> If there are no examples of successful labor movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?

The existence of Wikipedia is a convenience and perhaps not one that should be given tax free status. I think the selected history of labor movements will be just fine.

Even if Wikipedia died tomorrow because of one letter you could still walk into any bookstore in America and buy a book on any subject you want.

So everything wiki mods believe is truth? What about those who never even got a chance to speak out?

It's always controlled by. Winners write the history. Now Americans decide what's truth and fact