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In the media

Relying on Wikipedia: voters, scientists, and a Canadian border guard

US elections

"Hail to the Chief" has been associated with both the U.S. President and the President of the Confederacy (Hail to the Chief#History)

Media recognized Wikipedia's role in providing neutrally sourced information to citizens preparing for the U.S. November elections. In particular, Wikipedia's community-based model (versus the top-down control of other social media platforms) was shown as an effective way to forestall potential problems by adding extra protection to elections-related topics. It wasn't all positive, though, with some sources pointing out continuing issues around women's biographies, and potentially politically-motivated vandalism. B

Wikipedia@20

Reviews and extracts of Wikipedia@20, a thick book of essays about Wikipedia's first twenty years, have started coming out. The essays are written by academics and by Wikipedians and are aimed at the same groups.

  • The book column in The New Yorker, titled "Wikipedia, 'Jeopardy!', and the Fate of the Fact" explores Wikipedia's history and intellectual foundations with reference to the book, especially to the chapter by Yochai Benkler. The author, Louis Menand, is a colleague of Benkler's at Harvard. Menand pulls out an amazing range of facts and examples – from Hegel and Hayek to Dick van Dyke and Duck à l'orange by way of Siri, copyleft and Pierre, South Dakota. You should avoid the detour to Jeopardy! unless you are an Alex Trebek fan. The use of all the cute facts almost seems to be the point of the piece, but the author does squeeze in a lot of information about Wikipedia in between them. More likely Menand is illustrating his thesis – at the same time he is making fun of himself and of Wikipedia – "There is no longer a distinction between things that everyone knows, or could readily know, and things that only experts know" because of Wikipedia and the internet.
  • How 9/11 Shaped Wikipedia, by Brian Keegan in Slate is an updated version of his Wikipedia@20 chapter about how news stories are covered on Wikipedia.

The creation, rejection, and disappearance of the Sept. 11 memorial wiki’s content remains an underappreciated cautionary tale about the presumed durability of peer-produced knowledge: This content only persists when it remains integrated with the larger common project rather than being relegated to a smaller and more specialized project. Wikipedia’s peer production model is not immune from "rich get richer" mechanisms.

  • Science (paywalled) reviews Wikipedia@20 in "The ascent of Wikipedia". "Anyone interested in the history, current constitution, and possible future development of a singular contemporary global phenomenon will be stimulated by this anniversary collection." S

Don't mess with a Canadian border officer armed with Wikipedia

Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei was detained at the Vancouver airport on December 1, 2018 with the help of a Canada Border Services Agency officer who prepared for an interview with her with an "open-source query" – reading Wikipedia for 5 or 10 minutes. Meng is facing possible extradition to the U.S. and her detention soon became a major international incident. In "Wikipedia was source of security concern questions for Meng: Border officer", The Canadian Press reported on the in-court testimony of Sanjit Dhillon, a CBSA supervisor at Vancouver International Airport.

Before Meng's plane landed, Dhillon said she was flagged in an internal database for an outstanding warrant in her name.
Anticipating her arrival, Dhillon testified he found a Wikipedia page about Huawei that said the company doesn't operate in the United States because of security concerns and that Huawei was suspected of violating U.S. economic sanctions with Iran. [...]
Dhillon asked Meng what she did. She said she was the chief financial officer of a global telecommunications company, he told the court.
He asked where the company did business. When she listed countries without including the United States he asked her why.
"She said we don't sell our products in the United States," Dhillon said.
He asked if there was a reason why and Meng responded she didn't know. Dhillon said he then reframed the question.
"Since she's the chief financial officer of this telecommunications company, I would assume that she would know why her company isn't able to sell its products in one of the most lucrative markets in the world," Dhillon said.
"She was quiet. She didn't respond right away. And eventually she said there was a security concern with the product the U.S. government had."
He testified Meng didn't say what those concerns were.
Dhillon said his questions were based on his own online search and he was not directed by anyone to ask her questions.

The South China Morning Post reported the story similarly, adding the detail that "Dhillon said he spent five to 10 minutes reviewing the Wikipedia article."

Business in Vancouver added that Wikipedia was the only source he used!

The Signpost can confirm that on December 1, 2018 the Huawei article contained a large section about Iran, espionage, and security concerns in the US, consistent with Dhillon's testimony. S

Lockdown 1.0 – following Wikipedia?

BBC Two reportedly had an excellent hour-long documentary "Lockdown 1.0 - Following the Science?" airing on November 19 about the UK government's handling of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately those of us outside the UK cannot view the online version due to licensing restrictions.

The Guardian provided a detailed review of the documentary, giving it 4 stars, and surveying the many facts presented, including one about Wikipedia:

"The public may be surprised to hear we were using data from Wikipedia very early on – but it really was the only data publicly available." — Dr. Ian Hall of Manchester University, deputy chair of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling

Several UK tabloids have featured this quote in their reporting on the documentary. B, S

In brief

Anarchisch und chaotisch



Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next month's edition in the Newsroom or leave a tip on the suggestions page. For a listing of more news stories about Wikipedia, please see Wikipedia:Press coverage 2020