Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, says the massive open-source online encyclopedia is likely ideologically corrupted due to the efforts of its former chief executive, Katherine Maher. Maher led the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the online resource, before she was hired as the CEO of NPR.
“For the ex-CEO of Wikipedia to say that it was somehow a mistake for Wikipedia to be ‘free and open,’ that it led to bad consequences—my jaw is on the floor,” Sanger told the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher F. Rufo. He added: “I can’t say I’m terribly surprised that she thinks it, but I am surprised that she would say it.”
Maher, during her tenure as the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, told the Atlantic Council that she “took a very active approach to disinformation” and “through conversations with government” targeted what she deemed misinformation. Sanger, responding to Maher‘s claim, acknowledged that she likely worked with U.S. intelligence agencies to suppress political dissenters.
‘PROBABLY THE CIA.’
“We know that there is a lot of backchannel communication and I think it has to be the case that the Wikimedia Foundation now, probably governments, probably the CIA, have accounts that they control, in which they actually exert their influence,” Sanger said, continuing: “And it’s fantastic, in a bad way, that she actually comes out against the system for being ‘free and open.'”
He added, regarding the state of Wikipedia: “When she says that she’s worked with government to shut down what they consider ‘misinformation,’ that, in itself, means that it’s no longer free and open.”
Sanger lamented Wikipedia’s ideological capture, telling Rufo: “[It] has not just been taken over by the Left, but that it has been co-opted by and working with the government, is just—that’s not a thing I would’ve imagined happening 20 years ago.”
Concerns regarding Maher’s ideological bias and the Left’s capture of important media institutions were first raised by former NPR editor Uri Berliner. The veteran journalist resigned from the taxpayer-funded media outlet yesterday after being suspended by Maher.
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