London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Tech Tent - what next for Wikipedia?

Tech Tent - what next for Wikipedia?

It's the go-to site for information on just about everything but until recently Wikipedia has mostly avoided the battles over abusive behaviour and fake news that have plagued the social media giants.

Now, just as a new chief executive takes over, a bitter dispute has erupted between volunteer editors of the online encyclopedia's Chinese language edition over how events in Hong Kong are portrayed.

This week's Tech Tent asks whether Wikipedia can continue to prosper in the era of misinformation.

The dispute over Hong Kong centres on a key principle of Wikipedia, as Selina Cheng, of the Hong Kong Free Press, explains to the programme: "Wikipedia does not allow original reporting. So whoever wants to add or edit content on Wikipedia articles has to cite existing sources, for example, government releases or press reporting."

But those sources have to be designated as reliable - and here there was violent disagreement between one group of volunteer editors who saw the Chinese government as a reliable source and another, mainly based in Hong Kong, which preferred to rely on the accounts of protesters.

The row centred on who to use as a source of information - the Chinese state or Hong Kong protesters

Selina Cheng says there was a lot at stake because some editors had access to sensitive personal information which could be of interest to the Chinese authorities: "There were fears that, because there was this increasing tension among editors from these different geographical locations, some administrators might abuse their access to use that personal information against certain editors."

This week, the Wikimedia Foundation banned seven editors linked to a mainland China group, which it accused of trying to advance the interests of the Chinese state by infiltrating the encyclopedia.

The move came as the foundation, which oversees the non-profit encyclopedia project, announced the appointment of its new chief executive.

Founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales has previously told Tech Tent the tech giants could learn a lot from how Wikipedia handles disinformation

Maryana Iskander, according to her Wikipedia entry, is an Egyptian-born American social entrepreneur and lawyer who currently leads the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator in South Africa.

When we asked her how she might approach challenges like the one in China, she was careful to stress that the Wikipedia community is largely self-governing: "One of the very early things that I've learned in this process is that certainly the Wikimedia Foundation does not play a role in setting editorial policy and that these are the debates that happen in communities."

But she said the foundation's first job was to protect the safety of its volunteers and the other key principle was transparency about how Wikipedia was run. She pointed to the way Wikipedia had handled the 2020 US elections as an example of its content being "transparent, verifiable and accurate".

After coming under fire for inaccuracy in its early years, it seemed that Wikipedia's self-correcting system where volunteers constantly monitored articles, and discussed and implemented changes when new information arrived, could provide an example for the less reliable social media platforms.

The polarisation of debate and the determination of certain governments to see the encyclopedia reflect their view of the truth have put the system under strain, with increasingly bitter edit wars over entries on everything from climate change to Donald Trump..

But Maryana Iskander still believes in Wikipedians, as the volunteers like to call themselves: "What's been really interesting for me is to see how this is a community of humans that are organising and getting interested in these exact big debates, whether it's women's rights, whether it's climate change."

The mission, she says, is to provide accurate and verifiable knowledge on some of the most contentious questions of our time. Now let's see whether in the era of alternative facts that mission is still achievable.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×