The Tucker Carlson Show - Wikipedia Co-Creator Reveals All: CIA Infiltration, Banning Conservatives, & How to Fix the Internet

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Larry Sanger built Wikipedia as an unbiased repository of the world’s knowledge, and then stood helplessly by as activists and intel agencies turned it into the most comprehensive propaganda op in human history. There’s nothing more corrupt. (00:00) The Origins of Wikipedia (04:27) Wikipedia’s Dangerous Policy Changes (14:01) Who Is Responsible for Corrupting Wikipedia? (27:39)  How Does Wikipedia Actually Work? (37:28) Is Wikipedia Controlled by the Intel Agencies? (43:16) Sanger’s Request to Elon Musk and Donald Trump to Help Fix Wikipedia (1:01:41 ) How Wikipedia Can Be Saved Larry Sanger is co-founder of Wikipedia. With a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Ohio State, Sanger's career moved from academia to educational and reference projects online. He is now president of the Knowledge Standards Foundation. He has been blogging at LarrySanger.org for twenty years, where he posts influential pieces about the internet, philosophy, education, and most recently theology (his conversion story went viral in February 2025). He also plays Irish fiddle and homeschools his boys. Paid partnerships with: Byrna: Go to https://Byrna.com or your local Sportsman's Warehouse today. PureTalk: Go to https://PureTalk.com/Tucker to and save 50% off your first month. GCU: Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Learn more at https://GCU.edu Last Country Supply: Real prep starts with the basics. Here’s what I keep stocked: lastcountrysupply.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tulsa is my home now. Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King. His distillery is a very interesting business. And we've got to know the enemy. From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman. What are you saying? I'm going to ride it.

If you think you're going to take me out, it's going to be really difficult. Tulsa King, new season, now streaming, exclusively on Paramount Plus. Larry Sanger, thank you for doing this. I think about you all the time. Literally, I know it's a little creepy. Because I think that Wikipedia is,

you can't overstate the importance of Wikipedia in shaping our collective memory. And a collective memory really is a culture, a civilization. Who are we? And Wikipedia is the answer to that question. Like, who are we? Oh, it's on Wikipedia. And it's so embedded in search that, I mean,

it shapes America. Wikipedia shapes America. And because of its importance, it's an emergency, in my opinion, that Wikipedia is completely dishonest and completely controlled on questions that matter. So thank you for coming back. And I'd love to start the beginning. Like you created Wikipedia. How did that happen? And what were your intentions when you did that?

So Jimmy Wales had registered nupedia.com, the domain name, and simply had the idea of a free public contributed encyclopedia. and he hired me. It was like my assigned job to get it started. That happened in early 2000. So I worked on Newpedia for about a year, and it was going very slowly. And so a friend told me about wikis,

and it was a revelation, this idea that, somebody could just put up essentially a bulletin board, a blank bulletin board, invite other people to edit the text in real time, and it would become something actually useful, and it wouldn't be just a lot of curse words and graffiti and so forth. What does wiki mean? It actually comes from a wiki, wiki web, and that in turn comes from the wiki-wiki taxis at the Honolulu airport, I guess.

Oh, what? Really? Yes. Like headed to Waikiki? Yes, I didn't come up with this. It's Ward Cunningham. He invented the first wiki in 1995, I believe. So basically,

a friend told me about wikis. I was amazed at the basic idea and just the thought that it could work. And I thought, well, this would be a way to make the problems with Newpedia go away, be a lot more articles coming into the system. And then Newpedia could be like the, you know, beat them

into proper shape. But it didn't work that way. Wikipedia, the Nupedia editors wanted nothing to do with the wiki, anything that was so uncontrolled, essentially. So it took on a life of its own. We launched it. Originally, it was the Nupedia Wiki. And then on January 15, we relaunched on-

Of what year? Of what year? January- launched under wikipedia.com so I coined the name Wikipedia and a lot of the other sort of basic jargon like Wikipedia and then various other things I came up up with with a lot of the original policies like the neutrality policy which actually started with Newpedia and the requirement that original research may not be you know published for the first time

in the encyclopedia um and a number of other things of course what i should say for those who don't know you come from a philosophy background yeah you're a philosopher um which is a kind of a great background uh for this job why why these policies for example why would you ban the publication of original material on wikipedia it's supposed to be a summary of what we all take ourselves to know, essentially. And especially if it's a neutral encyclopedia, then it's supposed to canvas all of the views that can be found in humanity on every question, essentially, at a very high level, generally speaking. Of course, specialized encyclopedias can get into the real nitty-gritty. And my hope with Wikipedia in the beginning was that eventually would become

that specialized. So it would be the equivalent of, you know, bookshelves' worth of articles. And, well, I guess it did work out that way. It replaced libraries. It replaced books. It replaced everything. To a great extent. I think you're right.

For a lot of people. Yeah. Basically, for a period until LLMs came out a couple of years ago. people used Wikipedia to look up quick answers about practically everything. I actually, I would say until Siri started giving Wikipedia answers quickly, but it was still using Siri. And for that matter, LLMs, you know, AI chatpots, are also trained on Wikipedia now. So it continues to be relevant.

Well, not just relevant. And, I mean, of course, its power expands exponentially once it's tethered to this new technology, AI, right? I think that's a very, that's very safe to say. I think that's true. LLMs are trained on a lot of different data, not just Wikipedia, of course. But there's a lot of questions, because I use LLMs all the time now. And I can tell you, I've looked up, you know, specialized questions about. Large language models.

Exactly. I've looked up a lot of questions in theology because I'm into theology now. And there are some places where I just know the only source for that particular factoid that I could find online outside of the LLM itself is Wikipedia. Right, right. So it's institutionalized it. Google, of course, did that in the most profound way when it tied its search to Wikipedia, put Wikipedia at the top of its searches.

So these questions, these core questions like, you know, what do you put on Wikipedia? What do you exclude? Questions that you wrestled with 24 years ago. These are like questions that affect every human being on the planet now. Kind of scary thought. Yeah. It's scary, but it's true. Yeah. And so few things matter more than this from my perspective. How we understand ourselves in the world around us. That's like the central human task. Like that's what we're here to do is to figure that out and to act accordingly. And Wikipedia controls that more than any other force. Right, right. So I'm not blaming you. Some people do. So, but walk us through like how you, how Wikipedia went from what you created it to be to what it is now. Like, when did you start to see changes?

What were the debates? Yeah. In the early years, we really did take neutrality seriously. And it wasn't just a requirement of being. unbiased, right? It was, the aim was to bring people together and enable them to work together, even though they were from all parts of the world, different religions, different viewpoints, and then to essentially record their knowledge. So I intended it, and I think Jimmy Wales is on the record in a few places saying that he intended neutrality as being a way of bringing people

together. Yes. Right? Which it is. Well, but I want to read the current definition of neutrality to show you what it has evolved into, which it did very gradually, right? So here's how the neutral point of view page begins. All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view, N-P-O-V. So far, so good, which means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible, without editorial bias, so far, it's great, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Okay, so I see two modifiers in that sentence.

Two modifiers that are very important. Significant and reliable. Yes. Yes, and let me go on, because if you look farther down on the page, they go on to discourage giving equal validity to, quote, minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claims, right? So, and that such views should be labeled that way. So the neutral point of view policy essentially dictates that Wikipedia's must write, articles in a biased way of course we're starting to say it but this is not a very safe country walk through oakland or philadelphia yeah good luck so most people when they think about this want to carry a firearm and a lot of us do the problem is there can be massive consequences for

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From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Land. What are you saying? I'm going to ride it. If you think you're going to take me out, it's going to be really difficult. Tulsa King, new season now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. Tulsa is my home now.

Academy Award nominee Sylvester Stallone stars in the Paramount Plus original series, Tulsa King. His distillery is a very interesting business. And we've got to know the enemy. From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Land. What are you saying? I'm a rat.

If you think you're going to take me out, it's going to be really difficult. Tulsa King, new season, now streaming, exclusively on Paramount Plus. Well, the inclusion of the term fringe tells me right away that you're a freaking liar. A liar, if you use that word. Because it's a word like terrorism and so many words, racism, that we can't really define and don't care really to define. Like, what does that mean? And if the whole policy turns on the word,

then it's fair to demand a precise explanation of what it means, but we never get one. What is fringe? They can't tell you. Fringe is what I don't like. Fringe is hate speech. Yes, yes. Or it's simply a new view

that is going to become dominant in 10 years or something. Like, Galileo, fringe character. Happens all the time in the history of ideas. No. Right. So that's so obvious. Even a child understands that.

Right. The key is the definition. definition. And if you can't come up with the definition, then we have to take the word out because it can only about lying. So how did that get in there? Well, I think it happened like this. I think Wikipedia developed in sort of in tandem with the development of media. So basically, as media from the founding of Wikipedia 2001 to about 2012 or so became solidified in a center-left establishment standpoint. So if you were to read Wikipedia from 2012 or so, 2010, it read a lot like the New York Times or the BBC. I remember saying that at the time.

And then, especially around about 2016, and maybe a few years before that, the media landscape changed almost overnight so that once stayed mainstream sources became totally biased. They stated in their own voice that the president was lying and so forth. Kind of racist. Racist, exactly.

Racist. Tucker Carlson is a conspiracy theorist. So, for example. And that, of course, then, was echoed in Wikipedia. So Wikipedia feels perfectly free to say that Donald Trump is telling lies and that various pundits are conspiracy theorists. here's my question. I mean, so Wikipedia became a weapon of ideological, theological war used to, you know, destroy its enemies. Of course, and that's what it remains.

But someone had to allow that. And that's so far from what it was created to be. In fact, it's the opposite, the mirror image of what it was created to be that you have to ask, like, was there a fight over that? Who allowed it? Like, if you're getting at the point where you're disallowed. quote, fringe theories or conspiracy theorists or some other term made up by the CIA to hide its secrets. Someone has to like okay that. What was that process? It's a good question. You can look at it from an organic point of view. I can't tell you what was going on behind the scenes if there were any,

you know, puppet masters that were controlling the process. I don't know. What I can tell you is that Over the years, conservatives, libertarians were just pushed out. They, in many cases, well, there is a whole, you know, army of administrators, hundreds of them who are constantly blocking people that they have ideological disagreements with. And that's not new. So if somebody really does become a problem from their perspective, then they can be simply gotten rid of on a pretext. It's very difficult now. It's possible.

It's possible. But it's very difficult for conservatives to get into Wikipedia and actually play the game. But you have to play the game. And that means you have to walk on eggshells. So the point is, it wasn't always like this. Over the years, basically, the left consolidated its power. The way I like to put it is that, you know, the left has its march through the institutions. And when Wikipedia appeared, it was one of the institutions that they marched through.

The difference is it's brand new. Yeah. So, like, I'm, you know, I grew up in this country. I've never believed in Harvard. It's absurd. I've always thought it was absurd. I really believed in Wikipedia. I sent money to, I'm on, I mean, you can check the records.

I have sent money, like significant money to Wikipedia because I was so thrilled by its existence. So thrilled. And so it wasn't always this. And now it's like the leading source of dishonesty or I would say disinformation. I mean, most topics in Wikipedia seem totally straight to me. But if you go to anything that intersects, any topic that intersects with theology, politics, ideology, power, and you know something about the topic. And in my case, a couple of topics I have first-hand knowledge, direct knowledge of it. They lie. They leave out key information.

They load up the top of the entry with either superlatives or insults that are not, they're totally subjective and insane. Far-right conspiracy theory. I mean, with a straight face. Like, if you're calling someone a far-right conspiracy theorist before even explaining to me who this person is, then you're a propagandist, you're a liar. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree. I described it as propaganda beginning around 2020. Before that, I don't know that I would have given it that word. It was already emerging, you know. I agree. No, no, this has happened before our eyes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when did you leave, and why? Oh, a long time ago, yeah, 2002. So no, yeah, I was only there for the first two years of the project.

I got it off the ground. I said a lot of the original policies. And then, so the company that launched Wikipedia, Bomis, Inc. So Jimmy Wales was the CEO of that. And he had a couple of partners. So it was my job to start it.

And I did. And then the bottom fell out of the tech market. that you know that that's true yeah back in 2000 um so they lost a big contract with i think it was google um and so they they weren't able to pay people anymore i was laid off um and i decided i made the decision to you know just step back from my role i was i would have been welcome to continue on but i decided not to basically devalue my professional labor but with Distance in 2002, I saw that Jimmy Wales was essentially allowing troublemakers, leftists, really, to take over. And they did. As early as that, it took them time, I think, to really consolidate their power and create sort of internal processes and institutions and policies that really consolidated their power.

but yeah who is jimmy wales and what's he like jimmy wales um is the other co-founder of wikipedia he's got a finance degree um let's see he comes from alabama he went to a private school in alabama i think i knew him from um you know online debating forms Ayn Rand in the mid-1990s. I actually met him face-to-face on a little junket that I took to visit my uncle. So I just made a stopover in Chicago when he was living there. So I met him before he hired me to start Wikipedia. But he's a very personable person, actually, if you meet him for the first time and you don't know anything about him. What are his views?

I don't know, actually. That's a good question. I'd like to know. They used to be broadly libertarian. Yes. But he's now associated with the left. He has got a lot of lefty pals. And so I think he would probably say he still is, you know, a believer in classical liberalism or something like that. But I don't know if I believe it. Well, look at the results. Right.

I mean, it's an authoritarian enterprise. And it's a property, you know, it's his vestia. And but with much greater reach and a much more profound effect. And it's one of the worst things about our society, actually. But let's be fair to Jimmy Wales here. It isn't clear that he approves of the current approach that Wikipedia is taking into information. I've never spoken to Jimmy Wales other than to send him money years ago. And let me ask you about the money.

So is it a, it's a nonprofit, correct? Yes. Can you make money from it? Oh, of course. You know, just like any big nonprofit that's really, raising hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, you can essentially transfer money through grants, and now they are a grant-making institution. So, I mean, I certainly don't need to explain to you how really big foundations work, right? But money can change hands, large amounts

money can change hands through institutions like the Wikimedia Foundation. That's the name of the legal entity that owns the platform. So the First Amendment is the one truly distinctive thing that makes America America. It makes this country great. You are a citizen. That means you can speak openly and honestly without fear about what you actually believe. The government doesn't own you. You own the government.

That's the premise. 50 years we've lived it. We hope to keep living it. Our sponsor, Pure Talk, understands how important this has how central it is. So if you want to support brands that defend freedom and American values, we recommend switching your wireless service to Pure Talk, which is way cheaper and uses the same towers the other guys use. It's the best. We know what you're thinking. Of course, giving business to companies that share your values sounds nice, but at the end of the day, you don't want to spend more for the privilege of buying products from a company that loves America. Well, you don't have to. Pure Talk's plan started at just $25 a month,

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Tulsa King. His distillery is a very interesting business and we've got to know the enemy. From Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of Landman. What are you saying? I'm a rat! If you think you're going to take me out,

it's going to be really difficult. Tulsa King, new season now streaming, exclusively on Paramount Plus. So can you describe how the process works. So we've got, you know, Wikipedia entry on you, let's just say.

How is that, and I haven't actually read your Wikipedia entry. I'm sure it's hostile in a subtle way, but... It's actually okay. It's okay. I've never read my own Wikipedia entry, not one time, because I don't want to... I don't want to go crazy. Because I am an expert on that subject, so I feel like I, you know, could probably compare their description to what I know to be true.

just make me angry and I don't want to be angry. But I have no doubt that it's hostile, right? It would piss you off. Oh, is that true? Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure. Have you read it? I think I've read the first paragraph anyway.

Pretty tough, huh? I think so. You know what? I'm not just saying this. Anyone who knows me knows it's true. I've never done this before. But I'm going to look it up right now and I'm just going to read the first paragraph. That should be good.

I promise I've never. I don't even know where it is. Oh, there it is right there. Uh, uh, huh? Oh, I knew I was going to,

this is the first paragraph. It basically just says, I'm a conservative political commentary. Okay. But I'm a leading voice of white grievance politics. White grievance politics. Okay, I thought I was going to be mad. I'm amused.

I don't even know. know what that is. White grievance politics. Okay, so then you click on white grievance politics and it cites columnist Michael Gerson, who I happen to know. It's like not someone, I think has passed away. I'm sorry. I don't want to make fun of him. But he's not a real, I mean, he was an ideologue, okay, big time ideologue. And it quotes his quote, non-primary source needed, it says in brackets, that the Republican Party has been swiftly repositioned as an instrument of white grievance. I guess it was a column attacking me.

I have no doubt about that. So they call me in the first paragraph a leading voice of white grievance politics. Not how I described myself. I've never thought of myself that way. Right. I don't really care. And in order to call me, basically they're calling me a Nazi, of course. They cite a Washington Post columnist who hated me.

Right. And that's the citation. right yes that's that's pretty much it if they were following a genuine neutrality policy then they they might say that if they if that was what your detractors were really focused on and perhaps it is but they would certainly certainly quote you in response to that and they would give examples i mean it wouldn't be ad homonym it would be you know quoting me saying white people are angry. We have a lot of grievances and they're justified. Okay. There he is, you know, espousing white grievance politics. Right. Yeah. I don't think I've done that,

though I do think that, by the way, so maybe I am a white grievance politics. But whatever, I don't even care. But it's just interesting, they don't care either. The point is to make you sound scary and Hitler-like. Right. No, that's right. Yeah. I don't know what white grievance politics is. I'm pretty sure you're not into it. I'm actually not into it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do think white people have been completely mistreated and they have every reason to be mad about it,

but I don't want anyone to be mad about anything. And I definitely don't want racial conflict. I've never wanted that. Yes. So, but whatever, but that's not about me and I'm sort of sorry, even brought that up. And that's all I'm ever going to read in my Wikipedia entry. But that's kind of the point.

How is it allowed to use, subjective terms with no clear definition in someone's entry, that's a political term, that's a term of propaganda. Yeah. It's a term designed to discredit, not to illuminate or explain, but to attack. That's very common in political language, if that is political language, but how is that, how is no editor like, wait a second, we don't even define white grievance politics. How can we accuse someone of engaging in it?

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of history there, and we could take it in many different directions. I mean, we've already talked about the policy that permits it. We could also talk about the sources that are permitted. Like, if you look at only the sources that are permitted to be used in Wikipedia, So mostly secondary sources, and they are mostly left-wing or center. Generally speaking, there is now a blacklist called the Perennial Sources page that contains lists of dozens of conservative sources that are just not allowed. And so if the only defenders of Tucker Carlson can be found in those other sources,

then you won't be defended in the article about you, and they will call the article about you neutral. That's quite amazing. Who makes the decision on the blacklist? So there is a reliable sources group essentially that debates it. Now, there are people who spend the most time, you know, probably are working full-time for somebody on Wikipedia. They build up a lot of clout. What does that mean working full-time for somebody on Wikipedia?

Well, there are PR firms, just for example, that do nothing but edit articles on Wikipedia. on Wikipedia in order to be able to insert desired factoids according to how people pay them, essentially. So it's a thing. Oh, yes, Wikipedia PR firms, essentially. And this is not allowed officially. It's called paid editing, a big no-no. And if you do do it, then you have to announce yourself.

A lot of people do it and they don't announce themselves, of course. So my point then, to answer your question, is that there are a lot of people who have built up clout over the years in the Wikipedia system. And a lot of them have been made into the leaders of the project. There are 833 administrators, as they're called. So these are sort of the rank-and-file cops. Then you've got 16 bureaucrats who can name the cops. And you've got 49 check users, and these are accounts that can identify the IP address of accounts. And then there are 15 members of an arbitration committee, which is sort of like the Supreme Court of Wikipedia,

deals mostly with behavioral issues as opposed to editorial. So now, here's an interesting... Do we know who these people are? That's what I was about to answer. Of this power 62, because if you add up all of those accounts and those overlap, there's 62 such accounts, only 9.14.5% are named. So 85% of the most powerful accounts on Wikipedia, on the editorial side, are anonymous. So, wait a second. No, it's true.

So again, these are the people who are shaping Americans' understanding of the world of their own country of themselves, of reality itself. And we don't know who they are because their identities are hidden? That's correct. Yes. They can libel people with impunity as they do you. And there is no legal recourse because they're. are anonymous. And the Wikimedia Foundation enjoys Section 230 immunity, which means it can't be sued in the United States. So we've done a lot of segments over many years attacking college.

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230 immunity so they can't be sued into better behavior right but presumably they can be shamed and reasoned with and the first so the first step in that is just asking a question on what grounds are you keeping the identities of some of the most powerful people in the country secret why can't i know who's making this decisions who's blacklisting entire news organizations on the basis of their politics, for example. Who's responsible for the slander? Why can I know their names? What would Wikipedia, the foundation, say, if I asked that question?

They would say that according to the policies of the editorial side of their organization, which they're not responsible for, people can participate anonymously at all levels, right? So you could be the most powerful person on the editorial side, and you don't need to reveal your identity. It's a matter of policy. Now, you know... Talk about a non-answer. They're hiding their identities because they're allowed to.

Okay, God. Well, yes. But why are they allowed to? Okay. So I think the answer is basically, it goes back to like the zeitgeist of 1990s, hacker culture when people went on like these funny names, nicknames, handles, not their real names.

And that has continued. It never stopped all across Wikipedia. People use these sort of cutesy names. And they like to portray themselves to the public as just, you know, mop-wielding janitors of the site. And of course, it's ludicrous, right? But it's just as far as I can tell. It's a game that they're playing. They're putting on the air of being like harmless college students that are only interested in comma placement and that sort of thing. So why do you need to know my identity and so forth?

But I'll tell you, people, they just haven't pressed them on this question. And they should be pressed immediately. And I mean, because just in practical terms, as you said, it's ludicrous. Who has more effect on Americans or the world's understanding of history, the seven history departments of the Ivy League or Wikipedia? It's not even close. It's not even close, not in the same universe. Yes. But if all of a sudden every history professor at Harvard, Yale, Prince and Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, etc., decided, I'm not telling you my name as I teach your kids about the Renaissance or whatever, we would say that's freaking nuts. Of course, I have to know your name.

Right, right. And, you know, traditional media organizations, they name their editors and their journalists, of course. They have real world reputation to live up to. And if they do bad reporting, then they can be fired. They can experience career consequences. And that simply doesn't happen on Wikipedia. Now, you know, people, they can mess up on Wikipedia and be kicked out. They can. lose their administratorship, whatever, that happens, I suppose. But it's not real world consequences, is it? Not really. No, it's not. And I, so here's, okay, so I'm sort of getting to one of my core concerns. Yeah. Which you've made me think is something to be concerned about,

which is the influence of intelligence agencies on the work product of Wikipedia. It's very obvious to me having been around that world a lot that they're influencing some of the answers. some of the entries in Wikipedia, it's super, super obvious. It's part of the propaganda campaign, which is the real war, the info war. And, like, you must have thought of that when you're building this thing. Like, man, you know, the intel agencies could get involved and start changing the way people understand what they did, for example. No. You didn't, you never thought it?

No. I had no such idea. Not in 2001, in 2000. 2002, no. I mean, I was a babe in the woods. Yes, it wasn't until, like, I think it was 2006, 2007. Virgil Griffiths did master's research. He came up with a tool called Wikis scanner that enabled people to look up the IP addresses of people who, had done edits and like who had edited which articles and so they were able to find a whole bunch of edits coming from Langley. Oh, I didn't even know that.

No, it's true. Not to brag, I could just tell by reading it. Like, because I know what that is, right? I since have learned differently and learned much better. I don't have the background that you have. But it's also very clear to me what we are told about the way that intelligence works now is that, of course, there's the old-fashioned cloak and dagger spying going on. But a large part of the remit of intelligence today is to manipulate public opinion in various ways.

And Wikipedia is like just a gold mine for the intelligence agency. of the world because it's like a one-stop shop. You know, you can just, like, type in the things that you want people to believe, I suppose. Now, how that works, like, which agencies are involved? How the heck should I know? Well, you can tell by reading it. You can tell instantly by reading it, some of what's going on. I mean, you never know the whole story, of course.

But it's super obvious to me, some of the players in this, very obvious. And they're the big ones, of course. So, but my question. question and everything you've said makes sense. My question, however, is, like, how is this allowed? So if you're not allowed to edit Wikipedia for pay on behalf of, say, a PR agency, how are you allowed to do it on behalf of an intelligence agency? That's a good question. I actually asked Elon Musk and president and the president to, you know, know, use Doge or other government resources to investigate what United States employees

were actually editing Wikipedia and, you know, perhaps stop that. I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe there's reasons, legitimate reasons for government employees to do this. But at least Elon Musk did retweet that. And it got a lot of support. So... Did anyone do anything about it?

What's that? Did anyone do anything about it? Not to my knowledge, except now there is a congressional investigation. I don't know if my tweet had anything to do with the start of that. I don't think so. I think it had more to do with the reporting of Ashley Rinsberg. And, well, of course, Israel, and I would add, Hindus are very bothered with the way that their ethnic groups are treated in Wikipedia, and both of them, both, both a whole bunch of Jews and a whole bunch of Hindus have been after me in the last couple of years saying, you've got to speak out, you've got to help us. you know and I've said I don't really know a lot about the situation I mean there isn't a whole lot that I could do will they be accused of Indian or Israeli grievance politics probably not what's it no sorry I'm just thinking like no I that was a bitter sardonic aside I no excuse me I take that back I don't want to be a grievance person um you know of course but the answer what you're really saying is people who are organized have a way to push back against the line

For sure. For sure. I think that if, like, Israeli intelligence, for example, got together and made a real concerted effort to fight against this group of 40 Muslim activists that Ashley Rinsberg identified. they might be able to make some inroads. Oh, you think? You think they might be able to do that? They might. It's possible. I'll just throw on that out there. Here's the thing.

I actually think concurrently, we're going to talk about the nine theses here, I assume. So I would like to encourage people to at least test the waters. Don't go to Wikipedia and be a jerk. and get yourself kicked out right away because they will kick you out for sure if you're if you are not playing by the rules but go there and maybe not all at once but you know over the next few weeks make some some real efforts to do to make good faith edits to Wikipedia and build up some credibility within the community you can make a difference there I think it's a good idea for to give it a try, you know.

One thing that has never been tried is to simply get all of the libertarians and all of the conservatives and the Jews and the Hindus and the Christians and whoever else has grievances against Wikipedia, organize them. Yes. And descend on Wikipedia and actually try to make a change. Remember this name, Last Country Supply, the World Conflict. change at any moment. Pretty obvious at this point. Could be a power outage, a hurricane, a supply chain breakdown, a pandemic. And God knows what else. Literally, only God knows what else. Are you ready to

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It's horrible. Me too. I hate these people. And this is my internal monologue. And if I'm mad enough, we should start something better. It never occurs to your average conservative to take back the institution that's been perverted and corrupted. It never occurs to them. Well, maybe I should, I don't know, try to join the faculty at Harvard and stop lying.

you know what I mean? Or why don't I fix Wikipedia? And I think that's you're right. Yeah. So I think it was either the first or second interview that you did of me was in 2019 when I started something called a social media strike. And it actually went pretty well. But it always struck me that, first of all, I could have followed it up. And second of all, it could have been much bigger. like if I had organized it properly, but it was mostly just me and my blog, you know, and still there were like a half a dozen or 10 different media sources

that covered this social media strike. So maybe we should organize something similar with regard to... I think part of the problem is that most non-liberals have just no patience for bureaucracy. Right. And liberals because they, you know, as Ted Kaczynski famously wrote,

the whole point of liberalism is safety and numbers. These are people who are hollow and afraid inside. And so they seek each other out and they create these institutions so they can feel safe. And non-liberals just don't feel that at all because they're not, you know, because they believe in something and they're not ruled by fear. And so the average conservative, when told to sit through like a PTA meeting or join the Wikipedia, you know, editor's process or something like, goes crazy, can't deal with it. Right, right.

Do you notice this? Yes, and there's another sort of practical problem that stands in the way of this. There's, you're not allowed to do what's called brigading on Wikipedia. So brigading means organizing, editing of a particular article off the wiki. So if you're caught doing this, then you can be blocked. So if I were to tell everybody to go to the article about Larry Sanger, please don't do that. But if I were to try to organize that on this show right now, then I might be blocked for brigading.

But it's cool for like Saudi intelligence or Mossad or the CIA to do it. For sure. I mean, this is so bonkers. For sure. Okay. No, it's true. Yeah, got it. And it's so obvious.

I mean, it's an obvious thing for them to do. They wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't doing it. Right. Right. I mean, they're supposed to be shaping public opinion. That's part of their remit is the Intelligence Committee or community now, right? Yeah. And the way to shape public opinion.

One of the main ways is to make sure that Wikipedia reads the way you want it to read. And yes, then they can organize secretly behind the scenes, and they do. Yeah, there's such a lot. I mean, I just happened to know some of the topics. Like, I was there for not many things, but some things, and you read about, you know, something that you just happen to have direct knowledge of, and the account of it is so intentionally distorted. It's such a lie.

And then people you know, you read about, it's like, wait, I remember when you had a DUI arrest or whatever, and it's gone. If they can't even keep the paid PR people out, then that suggests to me that the people who edit Wikipedia are probably making money on this. Like the fastest way would just be to bribe them, right? If you are really good at playing the Wikipedia game and you're like one of this power 62 and you're not in the pay of somebody, then you're just leaving money on the table. That seems obvious to me. Well, and if we can't even know their names, then what would be the disincentive? And that would be one of the reasons why we don't know their names. And that actually is one of the main reasons why I say we should know their names.

So I'm just calling on WikiLeaks, you know, or. He's Julian Assange. Where are you? I cannot, I cannot agree. I don't, I don't, I don't think that we should dox the power 62. This is what I call them. By docks, what do you mean? Does that mean like home address or does that just mean name? Name. Name is enough. That would be doxing them. Okay. In the Wikipedia system, they are, basically anyone who reveals.

their name and if they don't want their name revealed would be immediately blocked for doxing and it would be a permanent block for sure. So it's a very serious offense on Wikipedia. So I am not encouraging people to do this. Okay, that's fair. I respect the fact that you've thought about this a lot and much more than I have and you're decent. And so you're probably right. I'm just frustrated. But I wonder, is there, it seems to me, knowing the names of the people making these decisions is in the public interest. That's for sure. These are not just random Twitter users, okay? They're shaping history. They are the authors of history. Certainly the gatekeepers of history. So... And they're libeling. We need to talk about that.

Well, they are, obviously. And I say this as Mr. Wake Grievin's politics. They, I can't, yeah. They certainly have labelled a lot of people I know. Yes. Literally libeled, like saying things that are untrue about them, yeah. And there's no recourse, right? So this is the problem, right? John Seagenthaler, Sr., called me up in 2005. He was a newspaper editor from Tennessee. Exactly. He was a longtime publisher and editor of the Tennessean, one of the founding board members, I believe, of USA Today. So very important newspaper man.

And kind of as center-left liberal. I would say. Right. And he, the article about him said that he had been under suspicion of being responsible in some way for the assassination of RFK. And he was livid, of course, because he had actually, like, worked on RFK's campaign and things like that. and he blamed me and like I kind of didn't you know blame him for doing so and he opened my eyes to just how reputations can be harmed by people's Wikipedia articles

and I have heard from dozens and dozens maybe over a hundred different reasonably famous people since then with grievances about the Wikipedia articles and they're like at their wits end they know I'm long gone from Wikipedia and they don't know what to do right so I've kept abreast of this issue on Wikipedia quite a bit and it bothers me because I take sort of personal responsibility I feel personal responsibility which is one of the reasons why I came up with the nine theses in the first place. But was just so, like, what did Siegenthallor do? Like, was he able to get that off Wikipedia?

He was able to get satisfaction. I don't think he got an immediate response and immediate reversal, but reasonably quickly. But I can't remember if it was before or after they had changed his article that he called me, but he wanted me to know, right? And I don't blame him. And another time, Philip Roth, the famous journalist. Philip Roth, the novelist?

The novelist, yes. He contacted me also and was complaining that the story of the origin of the inspiration of the human stain was wrong on Wikipedia. He had gone to the Wikipedia talk page and said, hi, I am Philip Roth. And you've got the story wrong. and here's the real story, and they said, sorry, we can't use that. You're a primary source. I mean, it's ridiculous, of course.

I mean, just what kind of person do you have to be to like to take that sort of disrespectful stance to somebody like Philip Roth and to twist your own. rules in that way for almost petty reasons. There's a lot of petty power players on Wikipedia, I find. I believe that. The people behind this, they hide behind their anonymity. So there is no legal recourse when somebody is seriously libeled so that their career is damaged. I've heard from people whose careers were materially damaged. Oh, well, I'm sure I'm one of them. My Wikipedia. Yeah.

Yeah. My recourse has just been to, you know, stay cheerful, focused on God and my family. You know, like not get mad, I think is kind of the only, that's the only thing I've been able to do about it and not read it. Don't marinate in that. But I don't think it's just petty power. It's like global power because they're aligned with Google. The biggest search engine, the search monopoly that dominates English language search completely. has a monopoly on it,

and they have somehow made a deal with Google that allows them to be the top search result. So, for example, I just Google myself for the first time ever. And Wikipedia is the first result. Now, why would Wikipedia be the first result of me? I still work. I still have a job. So, like, why would that be number one?

Why would a bunch of anonymous editors get to be the first result on my name because they have a deal with Google? Well, I can explain it. You very well could be right. I bet my house on it, but... Right. Well, look, in the early days, Wikipedia was the only source of information on a whole bunch of topics.

For sure. Okay. And then the way that the Google algorithm worked back then, if you ended up being the first source for a lot of topics, then your Google page rank score was higher. And so Wikipedia just shot to the top of Google's page rank algorithm, or at least this is the story they tell, right? And so one of the reasons why Google or Wikipedia, rather, took off so quickly is this feedback loop that it had with Google, right? So, you know, Wikipedia would write 100 articles that never had any coverage by Google, before, they would appear on Google, people would search for those topics, and they would come to Wikipedia, and then the number of contributors would expand, and lather-witz repeat, and

there was exponential growth. Well, so I think we're saying the same thing. I mean, you're describing the mechanism by which Wikipedia is the guaranteed first response to any query on a fact about a person or history. Right. I mean, that's to say. It doesn't matter. kind of what the mechanism is, the results is the same. Yes, yes, yes. And they know that. Yes. And I guess what I'm saying is, if there was an actual deal from the beginning, it would be from the beginning.

And I wouldn't rule that out. I'm enough of a conspiracy theorist to say that's not totally impossible. In fact, how many startups can you say were the first reviews by any. news source was the New York Times and MIT technology review. But those were the first reviews that were published by any mainstream source of Wikipedia. Amazing. Yeah, that was in September of 2001. So we were immediately on the establishments.

Of course. Well, I mean, Wikipedia is a servant to the ruling class, obviously, which is corrupt. So Wikipedia is itself corrupt, the most corrupt. Yeah, you can't over. I must say my last editorial comment that I want to get to what we can do to make this better, but, and you've written extensively about it. But my last comment is that when people grouse about the media or corrupt news media, they're always referring to, like, companies that really don't matter, like CBS or NBC or CNN or Fox News.

It's like, who cares? They're all going away. They're totally discredited. Everyone knows that, and they won't even be here in 10 years. Wikipedia has a much greater effect on how people understand the world than any of those media outlets. Wikipedia is a media outlet, and it's never included in the list of corrupt media outlets, and that just bugs me. Well, could it push back slightly? Of course.

People our age and older still do take CNN and NBC. all the rest very seriously. So, no, not the conservatives, but basically centrists. My mother votes Republican, and she still watches, you know, the mainstream media. And it still defines her reality, essentially, you know. So it's a generational thing. It is. I'm just saying that the actuarial tables tell us that this has a limited shelf life.

So that's right. That's it. And just looking for, extrapolating forward. we're, you know, 10, 15, 20 years, you know, that stuff is not, it's not meaningful. Digital media is very meaningful and Wikipedia is the most meaningful. That's my only point. And I just think that someone should say that out loud. I agree. No, I think that's true. It's probably Wikipedia by itself is more influential, more influential than the New York Times or any other single media source.

And it works in tandem with the New York Times. Right. Any chance of getting the New York Times blacklisted at Wikipedia? So you laugh. I don't think so. Well, I know for a fact that I'm more honest than New York Times. I mean, take a light tech test. I really believe that I am.

But I'm blacklisted and they're not. So, like, I just think that's not neutral. Whether I'm right or wrong. Okay. You have, you know, following the example, of our beloved German monk 500 years ago written some theses that you want to nail to the front door of Wikipedia.

That's right. What are they? All right. Let's go through the list. All right. This should take about five minutes maybe. So take it up. This is, I just want to restate

if you're coming to the video right now. Right. This is the creator of Wikipedia explaining how Wikipedia can be saved from corruption. Yes. Nobody has ever actually made a thoroughgoing reform proposal of Wikipedia. This is the first time anybody has done that, and it's certainly the first time I have done that. There's been a lot of piecemeal of reform proposals, but this

is thoroughgoing. And I'm trying, just as Luther did, I'm trying to start a conversation, right? So this is not a... I hope this starts a reformation. I do. I hope this starts what Luther started. Right. A return to honesty. We'll be the Protestant Wikipedians. Okay. So the nine theses begin this way. Number one, end decision making by consensus.

So Wikipedia pretends to make difficult editorial decisions based on a process they call consensus. But it's a sham because this allows ideologues. to silence dissent by falsely claiming, in effect, unanimous agreement. But, of course, there isn't unanimous agreement. So the scientific consensus on climate change would be a perfect example of this. It would be a very good example. So the consensus, I say, as a description of how they arrive at difficult editorial decisions should be abandoned.

Now, what they replace it with, that's a good question, but let's begin there. And decision-making by consensus, because it allows an aggressive faction to overwhelm the skeptical faction. Exactly. It's really a cynical institutional fiction. It has to end.

They can't call what they're doing consensus anymore. That's not a consensus at all, especially if they claim to be an open global project. Period. Right? Period. Thank you. I agree. Number two. Enable competing articles. So this is a little bit out there, but I think it's a good one. Since true neutrality is impossible, as we've been discussing, under the current editorial monopoly, Wikipedia should allow, multiple competing articles written from different declared perspectives, each striving for neutrality within its own framework. So let the people write alternative articles. And for this, let me quickly tell you about what I think. That's not far out? No, it really shouldn't be.

That's a great idea. Yes. I mean, why not just allow, you know, there can be multiple articles titled Donald Trump, right? So you could have, you know, special report on Fox News or you could have the CBS Evening News, then you could also have Joe Rogan, because that's what alternative media is. Right, right, right, right, why not? And people can decide what they believe. Yes. So, fine.

Number three, abolish source blacklists, which we've already talked about this quite a bit. Wikipedia maintains a list of perennial sources. which serves as an ideologically one-sided blacklist of media sources. All right. So you can I ask what the, what is the justification for that? And like internally, we just don't believe them. They're not real. What are the criteria for determining authenticity of a news source?

That's pretty much it. No, I mean, my opinion. They, well, they don't say it's just their opinion. they say as a matter of objective fact we have right um i gotta start doing that you know studies show the new york times lies therefore you know i'm just banning it well you would think that that that that would hold some weight with an objective analysis boy definitely i can tell you yes yes yes yes okay um so you can't cite the new york post fox news or you on Wikipedia

as a source so I am making the modest proposal that this blacklist should be abolished it was established in 2017 it's fairly new right after Trump the year Trump gets inaugurated

that's right they decide that we're just not going to hear from certain news organizations just because because objectively they're bad Wikipedia may not cite the well for example, the New York Post, and we should actually investigate whether that decision was made at about the time that the Hunter Biden laptop story was breaking, right?

Is this public, by the way? Can I go on the Wikipedia site and find out what's blacklisted? Sure, just type in perennial sources, Wikipedia, into any search engine, and the first result will be this page. And it names them, the blacklist. Oh, of course. Yeah, it's all color-coded. Green.

Do you have the list? Do you mind if I do that really quick? Go right ahead. Okay, so let me just do. I'm testing your thesis, so it's perennial. I don't know. Source list, Wikipedia, right? Well, you're doing that.

I'll give you some fully approved sources. New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, The Nation, Mother Jones, glad. Come on! These are all green-lit, fully green-lit. Okay, the blacklisted sources are Breitbart, Daily Caller, Epic Times, Fox News, New York Post, The Federalist. So you can't use those as sources on Wikipedia. Oh, wow. Well, they've got, of course, so is red, I'm looking at it now.

Yes. Red means it's blacklisted. You cannot cite it as a source of facts. Maybe as a source of opinion, but generally that works out. Anti-defamationally gets a green light. Only for some. Yes, if you're actually reporting about the Arab... That's really conflict?

Yes, yes. Okay. you may not cite them interesting so you can't you can't find the jewish perspective on the war so easily anymore on wikipedia uh yeah catholic hierarchy celebrity this is interesting yes there's a serious academic encyclopedia of christianity um that is uh not allowed on wikipedia i was a to find that one. Counterpunch is not allowed. Oh, they're naughty. They're naughty. Daily call not allowed. Of course. Oh, you started that. Daily mail, not, yeah, I did start it. I've got nothing to do with it now, but I did start it. That's interesting. Well, this is kind of incredible. Okay. I never hear about this. And we don't know who made this decision.

Mr. X is the name of his account. Now, it's edited, of course, as Wikipedia pages are, by a whole bunch of other people. Life site news, not allowed. Right? Of course, the pro-lifers. Yeah. That's interesting. I'm going to see if this.

Okay. Well, why does no one talk about this? Oh, Sputnik, of course, not allowed. Talk about. Search me. I don't know why people aren't talking about it. It's obviously huge news. I think it's simply embarrassing for the left. And so the left aren't going to report about it. And the right has been reporting about it. TV guide, allowed. The Unz review, not allowed. TV guide. Totally. TV guide. Totally. cool unns vder not allowed it's so funny this is amazing okay all right you've amused me deeply okay i'm so sorry i just had i'm sorry for the uh it's it's all so incredible to me okay uh so number three right all right shall i go on then yes and i will not interrupt i just can't so

But to conclude the discussion of number three, the blacklist should be abolished. Diverse sources should be cited with acknowledgement of how different groups assess their credibility, if necessary. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Number four, revive the original neutrality policy. Wikipedia must return to genuine neutrality by refusing to take sides on controversial issues. even when one view dominates Wikipedia, well, academia, and mainstream media.

So, I suppose that one is fairly straightforward, and we've already discussed it quite a bit, that the neutrality policy right now defines neutrality in terms of what are called significant. views and the reliable sources. And significant views are significant views according to, you know, the faculty members of Harvard and things like that. And if your view is held only at, you know, conservative seminaries, for example, or other bastions of conservatism, then they're not significant.

Or at least that's how it's treated on Wikipedia right now. So that needs to be, Wikipedia should be a big tent as it used to be, enabling many, many different people to come together, you know, in a big, I just think of it as like old-fashioned liberal kumbaya, you know, people should be able to come together and talk to each other from radically different points of view and just make sure that their views are all respected on the same page. yeah it shouldn't just be the most reactionary views NBC Harvard you know only the most kind of stalwart defenders of this broken project um yes right it shouldn't just be the college of cardinals voting here right so in my opinion okay yes yes there's a good way to characterize the currently um only permitted viewpoint on Wikipedia uh and that is with a with the acronym GASP, which stands for globalist, academic, secular, and progressive. And each one is necessary. And together, they just give a perfect picture of the viewpoint of Wikipedians today, of most Wikipedians. Do they know that they're like representing and selling the views of, say, the Aspen Institute or the Atlantic Council or the CIA? or the Washington Post editorial board,

like it's such a tiny minority of the globe's population, but the most powerful people in the world. Like, they are the Praetorian Guard protecting the powerful. Do they see that? I think they do. I think a lot of, of course, it's a fairly big group of people, you know, in the single digit thousands of regular editors these days.

I think a lot of those people do know that. They take pride in it, frankly. Wow. Yeah. In oppressing the rest of the population on behalf of the richest and most powerful. They don't think they're doing that. But yeah. That's exactly what they're doing.

Yeah. By lying to people you oppress them. Yeah. All right. All right. Then number five. So just a little throat clearing here. A short little proposal.

Repeal ignore all rules. So there is a policy called ignore all rules. which I came up with in the first few days of the project. Originally, I meant it as a joke to encourage newcomers, right? So, like, if rules make you nervous and, like, you're not sure what to do, then just ignore them and go about your business. That's essentially what I said. Yeah.

Okay. It's a good rule for responsible, honest people. And this became essentially a cargo cult, you know, over the years, people started using this to shield insiders from accountability. So I made this rule, and so I now declare that it should be repealed. How has it been used to protect corruption? Well, generally what happens is if somebody can't think of a covering rule in a special case, but it just seems plausible to the people who are working on an article.

Right. This really ought to be against the rules, but whatever, just ignore all rules, and they'll just say that. And they usually say in a kind of tongue-and-cheek way, but in a way that's serious enough to actually have an effect, right? But, you know, a lot of lesser contributors, they wouldn't be able to get away with that sort of thing. So there is one guy who said at the height of COVID, if there is one serious application of ignore all rules, it should be now. We should be able to ignore all the rules regarding whatever in order to get people to believe. that COVID is serious and they should be jabbed and the vax is the only answer to it yeah so basically we should if you when you ignore all rules after a while you're ignoring all principles

and they're doing it again in the selectively yeah selectively in the in the service of like the most powerful people in the world right okay um number six reveal who wikipedia's leaders are Why is that number one? I like that one. Yes. So Wikipedia's most powerful editors remain overwhelmingly anonymous, despite wielding enormous influence over one of the world's most powerful media platforms. These leaders must be publicly identified for accountability and given liability insurance

as volunteers of nonprofit. it's often are. So there's no reason why they shouldn't do this. If you're wielding real power, I think it's, and by the way, I like anonymity online a lot of the time because I think it helps the underdog tell the truth. And so I am for anonymity on social media, for example. I don't think you should have to register with the government to give your opinions, just to be clear. But if you're wielding real institutional power, I think it's fair to require people to say who they are. Just like Supreme Court justices have to give their real names. Right?

Right. It's a no-brainer. If there is one thing that might get the attention of the mainstream media, it seems to me it might be this one. I don't think it's widely known that 85% of the most powerful accounts on Wikipedia are anonymous. How is that allowed? No, I know. I couldn't agree more. It's just disgusting.

And by the way, there are consequences to having your identity known, I can tell you. And they're not great. On the other hand, you know, that's the price that you pay for having influence. I don't know. That's fair. Right. And by the way, I don't want those people to be doxxed. I'm going to say it again.

And I'm not saying that the people who are there should be forced to reveal their identity or anything like that. They can resign. I agree. And then new people can be brought on board. And then maybe, if necessary, you could pay them a little stipend for their trouble. They've got, they're raising, I think, something like $200 million a year now, right? It's a huge amount of money. As I said, I was a donor.

Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah. Okay. Let the public rate articles. That's number seven. Wikipedia should implement a public rating. and feedback system allowing readers to evaluate articles. They can't do that now.

We call it that that's the comment section, but they don't have a comment section. They don't have a comment section. They don't have any sort of rating section. There are no metrics that they can use. They've metricized everything, you know, books on Amazon and, you know, thumbs up on X and, you know, YouTube and whatnot, but not Wikipedia. And if there's never thought of that.

What's that? I've never thought of that. That's so smart. Yeah. Well, and look, if there's one place where an actual rating system would matter and actually be important, it would be Wikipedia because we, I think you and I agree that Wikipedia does have some decent articles. That's great articles. Yeah. And you want to learn about the Falkland Islands? You want to learn about some bird species? Yeah, it's amazing. That's why it's so frustrating. Yes. So, I mean, wouldn't it be nice if there were some independent reviews, independent of Wikipedia, that would, you know, give the public an notion of whether they can actually trust the information. And I actually think that you should be able to identify and even rate the raters and say, okay, these accounts who have rated the Trump article very high. are mostly Democrats, and those that rate the article very poorly are mostly Republicans.

And then there should be a system that would enable you to go and learn what the best articles are, especially if they're competing articles, again, from anybody's point of view. Yes. I love that. Would be nice. Let's see. thesis number eight, end indefinite blocking. Wikipedia's practice of blocking accounts permanently is unjust and ideologically motivated. So I did a little personal investigation last June in a period of two weeks,

47% of the blocks that had been done by Wikipedia were indefinite, which means permanent. And you can sort of understand some of them because you're re-blocking the same people who have already been blocked because they made new accounts. Those are called sock puppets. It's still a very, very high number, right?

And they do, as I have said, block willy-nilly. And they will block permanently. I mean, there are people online who complain that they were blocked for making great. grammar corrections, you know, I've seen, I don't know, three or four cases of just that. I quote a few in the essay. So each of these theseses, by the way, has a whole essay to go with it, which I very carefully

wrote over the last nine months. And where can interested people find that? They can find it on my user page on Wikipedia. So just go there. I don't know if it'll be on the user page or maybe it will be linked from the user page, but it'll be on Wikipedia itself. So I actually want to take the debate to them. You know, I still have an account in good standing for now.

We'll see if they block me over this. I'm not sure. But I would like to start a debate there. So that's why I've posted it there. I also have a version of the nine theses. on my blog, and it's identical, but it also has links to archived versions of all the resources that I cite, so they can't like to take anything down without people knowing. Let's see.

So I think that basically indefinite blocks should be extremely rare. They should require multiple administrators to agree. Because right now, one person can, for arbitrary reasons, practically, block another account, an account in good standing that might have had like thousands of edits without really any meaningful recourse, right? So at least let's have a panel of people convened if you want to block somebody permanently. And, of course, you should be able to appeal your permanent block, if you are permanently blocked every maybe three, six, maybe 12 months, right? So the idea is it's only fair to give people the opportunity to say, well, I've reformed, I'm not going to do what I've done before. people you remember the movie Escape from Alcatraz and there is a character in it who's befriended by Clint Eastwood's character who's this great painter and he makes a painting of the warden the warden sees a copy of this as he's snooping around in a cell and it's an unflattering picture of the warden So, that man's, his painting supplies are taken away by the warden.

And they have so few joys in this place. It's like living death. And so the painter then commits suicide. A lot of people feel very strongly about Wikipedia because it is a significant hobby, In some cases, you know, in the way that like I play Irish fiddle, that's like one of my big hobbies and I don't know, you're fly fishing, I guess. If you were to take this away from people forever, you know, just disallow them, then, you know, it can be really upsetting to people. One person, there's a story, I quote in the essay of a guy who came close to suicide when his account was blocked. And you know how they responded.

They responded, Wikipedia is not therapy. There's an essay to this effect, you know, Wikipedia is not therapy. No, it's cruelty, obviously. That's basically what they're implying. Yeah. Okay. Right. It's a way to hurt people.

So that should stop. They should be nicer, frankly, to the people who are spending so many hours on the system. Number nine, adopt a legislative process. So if you take all eight together, you might very well ask, how can these changes be made? So Wikipedia is extremely institutionally conservative. It's hard to change from within. It's the DMV, I noticed.

Yes. So what I propose is that because they lack any method of, major reform. There is nothing like an editorial counsel on Wikipedia. Because it needs major reform now, especially, it needs an elected

editorial legislature with real powers to implement reforms established through Wikipedia's first constitutional convention. So Wikipedia should

treat itself as a kind of polity, which until now has been a strange mixture, for years and years, I have said this. It is a strange mixture of oligarchy and anarchy, right?

Like America itself. Right. So, and what they really need to do is have a serious constitutional convention. Take their own governance, editorial governance, seriously. And I'm not saying this would be run by the Wikimedia Foundation. It would be run by the volunteers. Of course, the Wikimedia Foundation would pay

for the constitutional convention and also for, you know, the travel expenses of people who later come together in an editorial assembly, which would meet face to face, right? Because these people have to be identified one person, one vote. And for that matter, I also say that if you vote for the people in such an editorial assembly, then you have to be identified, not necessarily publicly, but to someone to ensure that there is indeed only one person, one vote. Because right now, that's one of the big problems about voting in the Wikipedia community, because Wikipedia is anonymous, it's only too possible for people to run multiple sock puppets or they run separate accounts that they pretend belong to different people, right? And then that gives them more than one

vote. That's not fair. No. Yeah. So it should be, the editorial assembly, I'm saying, should be run face to face, you know, can meet in different places in the world and, you know, people could be paid a stipend for both travel and just like an ordinary legislature. I would donate to that. I would donate to that. I'd donate in a real way to that because I think what you're really saying, which is what Martin Luther was really saying, is this is really serious. This is worth reforming because it matters. Yes, it really matters.

It's not all bad. By the way, the idea of Wikipedia is a beautiful idea, an important idea, you know, broadcasting truth at scale. Like, that's just always a good thing, right? And so it's worth saving. It's imperative to save it. And like running it like out of your garage without the safeguards that you've described just makes you pray, of course, to the worst people in the world. PR firms, intelligence agencies, paid liars. Right, right.

I think that if there is one of all of these these theseses, if there is one that the mainstream media and governments around the world, might be able to get behind. It is this idea that they need to get their house in order and start, have a council of people that take responsibility for the shape of policy. That's exactly right. I mean, because it's like if you don't like Google, you can say, well, it's on Narapashai's fault.

If you don't like any publicly traded company, at least you can identify the person making decisions or responsible for the decisions. But here you have this shadow, we incredibly influential institution and you there's no recall you can't even be mad at someone because you don't know who they are right larry saying i so appreciate the seriousness with which you take this the brilliance that allowed you to create this in the first place and i hope that people listen to you i hope they understand how much it matters thank you i appreciate it thank you

good to see you again it's the third time we've done an interview i don't know fourth actually Fourth, okay, okay. I care about this. I hope other people start to care, too. Second time in person. So, yes. You're making me feel crazy. I'm obviously obsessed. But there's a reason I am, and it's nothing to do with me. It has to do with history and the collective memory, which is another way of saying your civilization. It can't exist unless it understands itself. I appreciate your interest and support. I'm very grateful. for it. Well, I mean it. Thank you very much. We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify,

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