Fact check: Larry Sanger thinks Wikipedia has gone woke

1. Summary of the results

1. Summary of the results

Larry Sanger, Wikipedia's co-founder, has indeed publicly criticized Wikipedia for what he perceives as a strong left-wing bias, particularly since 2020. He has made these claims in multiple interviews on platforms like Fox News and LockdownTV, specifically pointing to the platform's coverage of political figures, COVID-19, and social issues as evidence of this bias.

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

The original statement omits several crucial pieces of context:

• Wikipedia actively maintains a Neutral Point of View (NPOV) policy and officially denies having any political bias
• The platform's content is created by volunteer editors, not a central authority
• The National Review suggests any perceived bias may stem from genuine belief in factual accuracy rather than intentional manipulation
• Sanger's criticism extends beyond "wokeness" - he specifically points to systematic exclusion of conservative sources and viewpoints, particularly in political coverage

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The term "woke" oversimplifies Sanger's more specific and detailed criticisms. His actual argument focuses on:

• The systematic exclusion of conservative sources from citations
• What he sees as biased coverage of political figures like Biden and Trump
• The dominance of what he calls "establishment left" perspectives
• The alleged abandonment of Wikipedia's original neutrality policy

The use of "woke" as a descriptor benefits political commentators and media outlets who gain engagement from culture war narratives, while obscuring the more nuanced debate about how crowd-sourced information platforms should handle competing viewpoints and source reliability.