Post
by Kraken » Thu May 02, 2024 10:38 am
Molly is a left wing hack, and videos like that prove it beyond doubt.
The BBC is a very high profile example of how a public broadcaster can have a CEO with obvious political opinions but can also be widely trusted as a neutral media outlet. How? In part by being accountable to a strong regulator. And in part because in pursuit of its mission, that CEO is giving strong editorial direction from the very top, including a very clear policy on Tweeting. It works. The BBC is globally respected and feared by repressive regimes the world over.
Why is Molly seemingly entirely unaware of this? Because it doesn't suit her narrative. Or she's pig ignorant of the world around her. Either would be a good reason to explain why she is a Wikimedian rather than a journalist or respected commentator.
She puts great emphasis on context, which is fine. But does she practice what she preaches? No. In her most recent act as a "Wikimedian", asking for Administrative action against the "sexist" Chris Troutman, did she make it clear to the community he had already been dealt with by two other Administrators who had successfully extracted an admission of wrong doing and a commitment not to repeat the behaviour? Which is all that Wikipedia policy demands. As she would know in her position. No, she did not.
And did she provide the context that she wasn't making this request as if she had just randomly stumbled upon the offence with no prior opinion of Chris? No she did not. She did not reveal the highly pertinent information that on that very same day, only fifteen or so minutes before she made that request, she had been arguing on the same internal page of Wikipedia about the NPR/Maher controversy as Chris about whether it merited coverage as a story in Wikipedia's internal newsletter. And she was coming at it from the opposite end of the argument as Chris. So if this video proves anything, it's that she had a clear and obvious motive for not making this context clear.
Last but not least, in her explanations of verifiability not truth, she omits the most relevant context. How can you ever hope to produce a neutral encyclopedia that way, when the people driving what is and is not a reliable source and what is worthy of significant weight, is being determined by a community with really rather large systemic biases. Inequalities that it is doing little or indeed nothing to correct. If anything, it is encouraging them through self selection as a minimum, and active activism as a maximum.
Yes, Wikipedia is very white and male, but Wikipedia also skews to the left and to the Amerocentric POV. Survey after survey has shown there are far more minority editors as a percentage of the Wikipedia community than there are in America. Except black people obviously. And a recent survey showed Wikipedia users don't just trend slightly to the left, it's a really rather pronounced left wing bias. White guilt. The survey was probably even skewed to make that bias less pronounced precisely because many of its far left editors clearly thought it would helpful to their cause to lie and identify as "far right". As if people would be stupid enough to really believe 25% of Wikipedia users were "far right" but virtually nobody is moderately right wing or centrist. This is now thick the far left is. This is how thick Molly thinks people are.
These systemic biases have very clear and obvious effects on their ability to practice verifiability not truth.
Regardless of truth, for the purposes of Wikipedia, it is verifiable with gold standard reliable sources like the BBC that in the country where she resides, a progressive democratic Western European nation, J.K. Rowling can be fairly described as a free speech activist and feminist, as a counter point to the view she is a transphobe. Arguably this isn't even a 50/50 split, it's a majority versus a minority view.
Why is Wikipedia having great difficulty reflecting this as they go about divining the NPOV, to the point their inability has become a mainstream news story (which Wikipedia of course dismissed as blah blah)? Because they are far more wedded to the truth, when it is their truth. The truth of Amero-centric LGBT activists, who have already decided (as seen in their behavioural policies) that any and all instances of misgendering a Wikimedian, is a "personal attack". Not mere rudeness, but hostility.
Which is surely the Wikipedia equivalent of a hate crime. As can be seen by the swift and unusual punishment meted out to Chris at Molly's benighted request. As if a signal was being sent. A signal of virtue, not maturity and neutrality. The same signal activists hoped would be sent to J.K. Rowling, and were disappointed to realise their interpretation of the new Scottish hate crime law was not just biased, it was laughably innaccurate. A fever dream.
Wikipedia's internal behavioural rules and the general political culture they reflect is wildly out of step with even the laws of one of the most progressive nations in the United Kingdom, Wikipedia's second largest source of editors after America. Verifiable fact.
If Wikipedia editors were to seek elected office in Scotland, on current evidence, even after all these years of left wing Scottish governments and greater public awareness of -ism and -obia, they would struggle to attract 25% support.
And that's Scotland!
A nation we can deduce from two decades of election results (verifiability not truth), loves immigrants, loves social democratic values, loves big government, loves high taxes, loves climate change reduction measures, And most of all, loves lgbt people. Pride in Scotland is FUCKING HUGE.
Molly either doesn't know or doesn't care what Wikipedia looks like to the outside world, beyond the shores of West Coast Murica, as she makes such obviously pig ignorant statements in defence of Maher that derive from her beliefs and experience as a Wikimedian.
She has her desired narrative and she's determined to push it.
She will have the audience and impact such a thing deserves.
And Wikipedia will have the influence and respect that commands.
Nil.