Wikipedia's 'neutrality' has always been complicated: New rules will make questioning it harder

Last month, the American nonprofit organisation behind Wikipedia issued draft guidelines for researchers studying how neutral Wikipedia really is. But instead of supporting open inquiry, the guidelines reveal just how unaware the Wikimedia Foundation is of its own influence.

- BY HEATHER FORD Professor, Communications, University of Technology Sydney

These new rules tell researchers — some based in universities, some at nonprofit organisations or elsewhere —not just how to study Wikipedia’s neutrality, but what they should study and how to interpret their results. That’s a worrying move.

As someone who has researched Wikipedia for more than 15 years — and served on the Wikimedia Foundation’s own Advisory Board before that — I’m concerned these guidelines could discourage truly independent research into one of the world’s most powerful repositories of knowledge.

Telling researchers what to do

The new guidelines come at a time when Wikipedia is under pressure.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was until recently also a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, has repeatedly accused Wikipedia of being biased against American conservatives. On X (formerly Twitter), he told users to “stop donating to Wokepedia”.

In another case, a conservative think tank in the United States was caught planning to “target” Wikipedia volunteers it claimed were pushing antisemitic content.

Until now, the Wikimedia Foundation has mostly avoided interfering in how people research or write about the platform. It has limited its guidance to issues such as privacy and ethics, and has stayed out of the editorial decisions made by Wikipedia’s global community of volunteers.

But that’s changing.