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Is Wikipedia ‘deeply biased’? Sandi Toksvig says it is – so she’s backing a rival

Is Wikipedia ‘deeply biased’? Sandi Toksvig says it is – so she’s backing a rival

Summary

Sandi Toksvig says Wikipedia is biased, especially against women’s coverage, and is raising funds to create a new digital resource called Mappa Mundi to address these gaps. Wikipedia currently has only 19% of biographies about women, and Toksvig aims to build a more inclusive platform with the help of the University of Cambridge.

Key Facts

  • Wikipedia has 65 million articles in over 300 languages but shows bias, particularly underrepresenting women.
  • Only 19% of biographies on Wikipedia are about women, according to the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • Sandi Toksvig is creating Mappa Mundi, a digital atlas to include knowledge often removed or ignored on Wikipedia.
  • Toksvig cites examples like Nobel laureate Donna Strickland, whose Wikipedia bios were rejected before winning her prize.
  • Wikipedia is mostly edited by white, middle-aged, European men, which may affect its content focus.
  • Elon Musk created Grokipedia, an AI-powered alternative to Wikipedia, but its reliability is questioned due to inclusion of blacklisted sources.
  • Studies found Grokipedia citations included banned websites like Stormfront, a neo-Nazi site.
  • Mappa Mundi aims to provide fairer representation, especially for women, in online knowledge resources.
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