Friday, April 28, 2006

The Wikipedia fails...

...when a large number of editors have decided they'd like to skew things.

I'd like to say the page under scrutiny here for bias is a political candidate; that's understandable and expected. But it's not... it's a corporation.

According to Richard Demsyn, Wal-Mart lobbyists work very hard to keep any controversy about Wal-Mart off of its main entry page. Discussions about its labor policies, connections with sweatshops, union controversies, benefits, protests, etc., are moved to the "Criticism of Wal-Mart" page, and there, discussion reads more like an advertisement at times. From the conclusion:

"The only conclusion I can make is that Wal-mart has used its economic power to hire lobbyists who as part of their job use Wikipedia to spread disinformation for the benefit of Wal-mart. This stands as a powerful strike against the very integrity of Wikipedia."

We already know Wal-Mart has found bloggers to be PR mouthpieces. But blogs are already admittedly biased. The wikipedia is known for attempts to be fair-minded. I'm sure these things must affect stock prices.

I tell you one thing, if I'm ever running a misinformation campaign, I'm hiring Wal-Mart.

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