
Wikipedia bans Breitbart as a source for facts - aceperry
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa9qvv/wikipedia-banned-breitbart-infowars
======
HissingMachine
Maybe this speaks more about how Wikipedia works than quality of Breitbart as
a source.

First, if you look how credible news organizations work, they need three
confirmations from unrelated sources before calling it a fact. If Wikipedia
has lower standards than that, then it doesn't really matter whom they choose
as a source of information, it still rises the question of validity of the
claim if there is only one corroborating source.

Second, this ban seems to assume a position that Breitbart can't be a valid
source even if they use outside sources corroborating their claim, and that
just goes against journalistic principles in general. But then again,
Wikipedia has to my knowledge never claimed to work on journalistic
principles, they do have guidelines in place that anyone can verify, but
outright banning a source has a negative impact on their validity even if it
is for a good reason.

Refusing to use Breitbart as only source is reasonable and valid in my
opinion, but accepting any other source as valid enough to be used as a single
source raises the same problem, news orgs are wrong from time to time, and
that is a fact. So if they really wanted to make a statement, they would flag
articles that need more sources and get more sources even if one of them is
Breitbart. But positioning yourself as arbitrator of truth and banning
sources, even bad ones really doesn't build confidence, instead it just erodes
it.

I like that Wikipedia's visual style is black and white, but I'd like it's
content principles to be a gradient.

~~~
rubyfan
Well stated. The problem that the blanket ban on one source introduces is that
it becomes a divisive issue. The source and faction that subscribes then
believes Wikipedia has lost its objectivity (even if it is trying to maintain
the truth). The faction then just starts saying Wikipedia is biased and
discounts it as a credible source that speaks the truth universally. To be
clear I am not saying that the non-truth should be considered in Wikipedia - I
am saying that I like what the parent suggests. Wikipedia should look for a
more broad application of standards for sources, as the parent suggests
flagging universally around citations not meeting standard, etc.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I don't see it that way. This is probably just a pragmatic move to keep
Wikipedia users and contributors from getting their panties in a knot.

It's basically impossible to have a discussion on the internet about the merit
something a strongly right leaning media outlet says (well it's possible, but
the discussion won't be very civil). Anything factual Breitbart reports will
be reported elsewhere because that's how media works, if one outlet covers it
others will too. In light of that there's not much to be lost by banning
Breitbart as a source. What you gain is that it gives the monkeys that edit
pages one less reason to fling poo at each other.

~~~
pattrn
Many conservatives consider CNN as left wing and disreputable as many liberals
consider Breitbart. Your same reasoning would also apply to Wikipedia banning
CNN. Would you consider that a pragmatic move? If not, then for what reasons
would they differ?

~~~
lolc
Does Breitbart even publicly retract or correct stories at all?

~~~
masonic
Here's an example from just today:

"This article has been updated to indicate that the 1,500 people who were
errantly registered _included_ non-citizens, but that did not mean _all_ 1,500
were non-citizens."

[0] [https://www.breitbart.com/big-
government/2018/10/08/californ...](https://www.breitbart.com/big-
government/2018/10/08/california-dmv-registered-1500-non-citizens-to-vote-
in-2018)

~~~
lolc
Thanks. Still looking for a retraction. But those are notoriously hard to
find. Everybody likes to report on the retractions of others, but not on their
own.

------
pavlov
For all their flaws, Wikipedia is one of the few web information sources that
are globally accepted as more or less correct. Everybody has something they
hate about Wikipedia, but the general gist is that they're more or less
credible. Alternative encyclopedic efforts are totally fringe and/or money-
making scams like Everipedia.

With this in mind, perhaps social media companies should piggyback on
Wikipedia's reputation and flag articles from sources like InfoWars and
Breitbart with a banner that reads: "Wikipedia doesn't accept this site as a
valid source."

That would let Facebook and Twitter off the hook from having to make these
calls themselves, and would provide readers with valuable context.

~~~
repolfx
That depends a lot on the topic. I've seen articles on Wikipedia that were
ridiculously wrong and couldn't be corrected for some byzantine reasons. For
the longest time Wikipedia claimed Bitcoin was a pyramid scheme, despite it
failing to meet the criteria on Wikipedia's own page on pyramid schemes.

I certainly wouldn't accept Wikipedia as correct on any topic that gets caught
up in the culture wars. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is by its nature very easy to
manipulate for small very intense groups who believe they're on a holy mission
to cleanse the internet of "bad people".

This change being a case in point. I read all kinds of news sources, from the
Washington Post to CNN to the Daily Mail to Breitbart. I wouldn't say
Breitbart is wildly different in accuracy to any of the rest, not because it's
great, but because so many other outlets (like the NY Times, BBC and CNN)
routinely publish things that are false as well. CNN is practically a byword
at this point for biased misleading nonsense, they publish stories that
collapse all the time. Yet Wikipedia isn't banning CNN, only conservative
outlets like the Daily Mail and Breitbart. Isn't that strange?

~~~
mjrpes
Breitbart is no worse than NY Times or WaPo? I gather you have doubts about
climate change also.

~~~
dang
Please don't make a thread like this even worse by tossing in even more
political flamebait.

"Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets
more divisive."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
writepub
Hope the average HN reader is aware that Breitbart is banned on HN, as a
submission source.

~~~
lolc
I was blissfully unaware. For a fleeting moment your post made me wonder
whether I should consider the ban problematic. Then I figured that credible
sources would report on whatever Breitbart was shouting about, if it was
serious.

And I'll live on as before.

~~~
malvosenior
> _Then I figured that credible sources would report on whatever Breitbart was
> shouting about, if it was serious._

To the best of my knowledge, Breitbart was the only place to release all of
the court documents from the Damore case.

Interesting enough, because of that, those documents are not cited on the
Wikipedia page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber)

~~~
lolc
As far as I understood Wikipedia's decision the court documents could still be
linked in an article. Breitbart is not the original source of the documents.

I think that Wikipedia trusts Breitbart enough not to falsify court documents.

------
malvosenior
That's funny. Wikipedia allows Gawker and Vox posts to be used as sources on
articles that directly involve Gawker and Vox:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy#cite_ref...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy#cite_ref-
Hathaway_151-0)

That whole entry is compiled of highly questionable sources.

Seems like a massive double standard.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
Gamergate's entire "mission" is highly questionable.

~~~
malvosenior
Do you think that because of all of the biased media reports about it? That's
literally what it's about (as is the topic of this thread). Social media, new
media and old media being politicized, cliquish and dishonest.

That Vox and Gawker are viewed as more reputable than Breitbart gets to the
very heart of what Gamergate was about (IMO).

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
At its surface I will take Vox reporting over what Breitbart puts out there.
Much of the Breitbart stories I have read operated on FUD by taking the very
smallest bit of information and conflating it into something far worse than
what it is. Gakwer & Vox are not without their flaws, especially Gawker.

Gamergate is the perfect example of how media & reporting can be twisted into
whatever narrative people want to make. The fact that it evolved into what it
did is all the proof you need. If it was ever about "ethics in journalism"
they would have never championed YouTuber's and people with 0 track record of
journalism. Not to mention they continue to prop up people with known
histories of questionable behavior (Cheon, Moriarity). The very fact that much
of their 'theory' was based in journalist talking to each other is laughable.

~~~
malvosenior
I agree that Breitbart is trash, but I disagree that Vox and Gawker are any
better. The issue is that everyone is allowed to say that Breitbart is trash,
Wikipedia can ban it... But while many people know that Vox and Gawker are
also trash, there are many institutions and platforms that will prop them up
as reputable (such as Wikipedia).

That double standard spurred _a lot_ of Gamergate's energy. Putting "ethics in
journalism" in quotes says a lot, the whole thing was nothing but media meta-
commentary (ethics in journalism).

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
Well I did fully acknowledge that Vox & Gawker are not without their problems.
And if we break down Gawker to be ALL of Gawker a big problem of trust their
is their Kinja contribution system, but some writers within the smaller groups
(Kotaku, Gizmodo) have done good reporting. Wikipedia stated the reason they
removed Brietbart was due to its "unreliability". That means they did take the
time to explore BB as a source to validate the claims. If Vox and the entire
Gawker network were "unreliable" I'm sure they would do the same.

I put it in quotes because it was a statement the GG latched on to to claim as
their whole reasoning. However countless doxing & harassement attempts,
specifically towards some women, prove otherwise. Again, one of their big tent
pole arguments was that gaming press (which in reality is relatively young)
had a mailing list they all communicated on. Which is just ludicrous to use as
"collusion" b/c it assumes all press operates in a black box with no
communciation.

There is a double standard in press reporting, but it is not some thing that
is exclusive to gaming. There's a clip of Rooster Teeth slamming another press
outlet for their review of Fallout while all three of them (Rooster Teeth) are
decked out in Fallout gear. I can assure many more YT personalities are
getting free gifts from companies to promote & review, but not disclosing as
such. There is a new practice now of seeding games to these personalities
early to help drum up hype around games. This is precisely the ethics
situation you claim, but that's if you assume YT should be considered press
(it's not). Someone who was contributing to IGN just got ratted out for
plagarizing and IGN, after investigating, removed every piece of their
content. By GG standards of IGN they're some unethical place and would have
never done this. So yeah, GG in itself is a double standard and completely
unreliable in their message.

~~~
CM30
Just going to say that quite a few GamerGate forums covered the IGN story,
praised IGN for getting rid of the guy and basically slammed the hell out of
Filip Miucin for copying other people's work.

[https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/search?q=Filip+Miuci...](https://old.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/search?q=Filip+Miucin)

The idea that they're quiet on actual ethics issues while making a mountain
out of a molehill on localisation ones is false.

As for collusion, well it's questionable whether it occurred, but at least a
bit suspicious that many sites suddenly turned out their audience mid
controversy. Imagine if someone else did that. Like, an agency dev called
their clients morons online, or a retail worker said their customers were
malicious/trolls/sociopaths to their face. Would they still have a job?

Probably not. But that happened, it shouldn't have happened, and it's being
justified somehow.

It's also worth pointing out that quite a few smaller sites and YouTube
channels with GamerGate... tendencies or neutrality are actually pretty damn
reliable, and that most aren't exactly Breitbart or fake news esque. Stuff
like Techraptor or Niche Gamer or what not isn't exactly unreliable. Stuff
like SidAlpha's YouTube channel isn't unreliable.

The issue is that what Wikipedia considers a reliable source is very much
tilted in the large corporation/academia direction and misses the point in
what reliability actually is. This isn't the 60s/70s/80s/whenever when being
reliable only meant being a full time employee for a major newspaper or
television network or publishing your work in an academic context. Many
smaller blogs and creators (even under pseudonyms or anonymity) have equally
good or better records now, and standards should change to accomodate that.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
For clarification, I was intending to say GG took down IGN over the story. I
was noting an outlet that was targeted initially in GG was IGN, but IGN showed
they do in fact have "ethics".

------
8bitsrule
Wikipedia, these days is remarkably accurate.

But _much_ more significant than that, it's a compelling demonstration of what
a large, committed community can do, together. With a vision for creating
value, without a need for satisfying shareholders in anything but reason and
adequately-competent, wide-ranging content.

In my view it is becoming one of the wonders of the modern world. Without a
sugar daddy.

------
dmitrygr
Unpopular opinion: Sometimes Breitbart does have useful info. They were the
only ones who had the full leak of the Google all-hands that was definitely
newsworthy, for example. Discard that and you missed some useful info. You
canot just color publications as "good" and "not". This sort of maximalism
(seeing the world in black and white) is rarely good long term. Almost
everything in the world has a use.

~~~
blahblahthrow
> almost everything in the world has a use

Do you routinely read far-left news sources like Current Affairs and Jacobin
to make sure you're getting the full picture?

~~~
dmitrygr
Yes I do. And also foreign news to get a non-usa-centric view.

------
mythrwy
If sources which occasionally play lose with facts or spin are to be banned
from Wikipedia some mainstream news outlets should probably go as well.

Not a fan of Breitbart, but this reeks of political preference. Wiki should be
above this kind of thing but apparently isn't, which speaks to it's own
credibility.

~~~
mythrwy
Really curious about the downvotes (which I don't care about the votes, just
what it means).

Do they mean "Breitbart is much much less credible than all other news outlets
(except maybe Infowars) so they deserve this!"

Or do they mean, "Yes, but leftism is the correct point of view, they told me
so in college, so they deserve this block!"

Or do they mean "We've been trying really hard to resurrect major media as a
legitimate source for believable propaganda and don't like your insinuation
there!"

Or something else I haven't thought of?

Because from where I sit, Breitbart, the grand total of 3 times I visited it
seemed a bit extreme and one sided, but in reporting not any further from what
one might consider "accurate" than many biased mainstream news outlets
(comments section excluded, that was indeed a circus).

Did I miss something?

Not really a person of strong political persuasions but big tech shoving brave
new world down everyone's throats isn't really my thing either. Plus I doubt
it will work. I guess I prefer the dumb pipes model but once people are
involved that goes out the window? Any way to tone that down?

~~~
lolc
In your original post:

> Not a fan of Breitbart, but this reeks of political preference. Wiki should
> be above this kind of thing but apparently isn't, which speaks to it's own
> credibility.

Wikipedia editors concluded that Breitbart News is an unreliable source. If
this reeks to you, fine. Maybe there is something there. Maybe they did have
other motives. Go dig. But don't just draw general conclusions about
Wikipedia's credibility from that reek.

In my opinion, anything touching Breitbart reeks. Wikipedia is doing well to
have settled the matter and gotten rid of that reek. At some point you don't
discuss the finer points of shit anymore. You close the lid. As they did with
a host of other publications.

Just one stinking example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of_Muslim_mob_in_Germany)

~~~
mythrwy
"Go dig" and "general conclusions" don't make any sense in this case. The
evidence for the conclusion is there.

The point, as stated in my original post, is that "fake news" type reporting
isn't confined to right leaning publications. One doesn't need to dig much to
determine that. Yet one view source is banned, the other is not. This isn't
"assumption" or accusation, it's how it appears to be.

What I really hear you saying, (and I think reality comes out a bit further
down in your post), is "I don't like Breitbart!".

And, emotionally not liking something is a good reason as any to downvote so
that is fine. Thanks for the explanation.

But just to re-iterate, I don't care for Breitbart either. Nor CNN. I do think
Wikipedia should stay out of politics though.

~~~
lolc
Are you comparing CNN to Breitbart? And by what standards?

> I do think Wikipedia should stay out of politics though.

Impossible. What gave you the idea?

~~~
mythrwy
You are saying you think it's ok for Wikipedia to have a political bias or you
are saying you don't think this indicates they have one?

If it's the first I guess we have to just disagree and that's it and I'm
really sad you feel that way and wish you would reconsider your stance. If
it's the second, there are arguments to be made.

My concern isn't your political views or distaste for the slant of some
publication. I understand that, I don't like grossly biased publications
either. My concern is the danger of a politically motivated group of people
removing a publication from being cited in a very large crowd-sourced
knowledge base because some people don't like the slant.

Whatever happened to principal before preference? Did that all go away and now
we just try to bulldoze our way around everything at any cost because we think
our subjective opinions are "right"? Can't folks see how not only futile but
self defeating this is? Smart folks at that. WTF? is all I can really say.
It's a big world with lots of opposing visions and views. And people have a
right to these, even when we believe differently, and a good knowledge base
will try to remain objective.

~~~
lolc
I disagree with the narrow meaning you give to the term "political". Political
is anything related to how we organize our government. From my understanding
what you mean is "partisan". You're implying that Wikipedia is partisan to
"left-leaning" news sources. And you mention CNN.

Are you saying that if Wikipedia bans Breitbart, they should ban CNN too? And
on what basis? What would be the standard they should use?

I agree that the polarization observed in US politics is a dangerous trend.
But I think that Wikipedia is navigating this well.

~~~
mythrwy
You may be right. I have only visited Breitbart a few times, the actual
"reporting" seemed to be reasonably accurate (although certainly overlaid with
bias). I'm just concerned is all.

------
justtopost
Can Vice be next?

------
YouOkOrNot
Breitbart is actually quite accurate, I'd say it's no more misleading than any
other mainstream publication. I'd wager that most people here don't actually
read the website yet hold strong opinions on its reporting, which in itself is
sad.

I challenge everyone who disagrees to look at Breitbart's front page right now
and find an article you would consider objectively false or more biased than
the average CNN or HuffPo article.

What is the case is that very often Breitbart reports on things more
mainstream sites refuse to report on. It's real diversity of perspective like
this that's actually valuable in a free society.

But Breitbart doesn't tow the ideological line, so it gets banned.

When we ban websites like Breitbart we lose sources that examine sides of
issues that often go unexamined, or issues that get ignored altogether.

~~~
orf
> I challenge everyone who disagrees to look at Breitbart's front page right
> now and find an article you would consider objectively false or more biased
> than the average CNN or HuffPo article.

Sure.

> EU Cracks: Juncker Says Brexit Deal Close

[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/10/06/eu-blinks-
juncke...](https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/10/06/eu-blinks-juncker-
brexit-deal-close/)

It's certainly not the EU who are cracking under Brexit, Theresa May's
government is.

> Danish Minister Rejects EU Migrant Quotas Claiming ‘Too Few Contribute’

[https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/10/07/danish-
minister-...](https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/10/07/danish-minister-
rejects-eu-migrant-quotas-claiming-too-few-contribute/)

The actual source ([https://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE10915137/stoejberg-
dan...](https://jyllands-posten.dk/politik/ECE10915137/stoejberg-danmark-
tager-ikke-imod-kvoteflygtninge-i-aar/)) says it is the UN quotas it is
stopping, not the EU ones as suggested in the title. The title is also
misleading, "too few women contribute" is the quote.

They only took in 500 refugees a year before that, something the writing
definitely does not reflect, and will continue "throw open their borders" to
refugees with disabilities.

And hey, lets throw in a nice bit about rape statistics and putting asylum
seekers on deserted islands.

The less said about the comments, the better.

~~~
leereeves
What's your source for the 500 refugees per year? I saw different:

> The country registered 3,500 asylum seekers in 2017, according to the
> ministry, the lowest number since 2008.

[https://www.thelocal.dk/20181004/denmark-refuses-to-take-
in-...](https://www.thelocal.dk/20181004/denmark-refuses-to-take-in-un-quota-
refugees-in-2018)

As for the rest of your nitpicking, I'm sure you're aware we could do the same
with the headlines from any media source. I once saw CNN publish essentially
the same story with two opposing headlines: "NFL ratings are down again this
season. Is it time to panic yet?", then "Trump says NFL ratings are 'way
down.' That's not completely true"

~~~
orf
In the article I linked.

> However, Inger Støjberg has broad support for the decision in the Folketing.
> All parties in the blue block and Social Democracy say no to take 500 quota
> refugees through the UN system, as it did before.

These are the _quota refugees_. The ones the article is lambasting. Asylum
seekers are different, technically a superset of refugees I guess.

I'm glad you saw two contradictory headlines once (to nitpick: way down !=
down), I'm not sure how that refutes any of the many things wrong with the two
articles I described above, found within 5 clicks on their website frontpage.

~~~
leereeves
That was just one example of thousands. Headlines are misleading more often
than not, I find.

The examples you gave from Breitbart don't come anywhere close to proving that
it's worse than other media.

~~~
orf
And the zero examples you gave prove what exactly?

~~~
leereeves
Now you're just being argumentative. I gave one example of a misleading
headline.

Just try being equally critical of, say, CNN headlines and I'm sure you'll see
what I mean.

~~~
orf
I'm merely nitpicking. "i once saw X trust me ok" is not an example, it's an
anecdote.

If you want to put out the point that these shoddy half articles I found on
Breitbart are actually representative of CNNs reporting and the industry as a
whole then I suggest you do exactly what I did: go to their frontpage and find
two completely misleading headlines with borderline xenophobic, utterly
misleading content that are there _right now_.

Of course, this will be super easy right because CNN is the same as Breitbart,
right?

Something in me thinks this will be the last I hear from you. It's been nice
discussing this with you.

~~~
leereeves
The actual headlines of the articles don't count as an example? They're easy
to look up. You'll see that CNN published the same facts with two
contradictory headlines, coincidentally changing their position to disagree
with Trump.

I'd like to see what Breitbart publishes that's worth a ban.

Please feel free to provide ban worthy examples if you like, instead of a
couple of minor mistakes of the kind every news organization makes in their
headlines.

~~~
orf
Again, no examples. Why?

I feel like your conviction that breitbart is as good as any other news source
(or as bad, whatever way you look at it) is not grounded in reality if you
call those minor mistskes.

Not only is the headline misleading but the contents as well, designed to
stoke certain people and confirm their biases.

From reading that article, the contents instead of just the headline, you
would get they are stopping accepting all the thousands and millions EU
immigrants flooding into their borders because they do not contribute.

Not one bit of that is true.

Find me something on CNN as patently false and misleading as that, on their
front page right now please. Thanks!

~~~
leereeves
What's patently false and misleading here is your characterization of the
article.

> From reading that article, the contents instead of just the headline, you
> would get they are stopping accepting all the thousands and millions EU
> immigrants flooding into their borders because they do not contribute.

Nowhere in that article did Breitbart say millions of EU immigrants are
flooding into Denmark.

And if I give a charitable interpretation to your nitpick that Breitbart
altered the quote, removing women from "do not contribute", it could apply to
the headline, but not the article. Breitbart quoted the full statement in the
second paragraph.

------
JohnStrangeII
I'm astonished they accepted Breitbart in the first place. When I first heard
about it, I checked it out and literally the first discussion in their comment
section was about how to most efficiently gas the maximum number of jews in
the US. I'm not kidding.

Breitbart is not the only problem of people who read it, many of them are
mentally ill (schizophrenia) or they were raised in a way that makes it almost
impossible to discern facts from fiction. Before you argue about that, I can
guarantee you that I would - and in fact do - say the same about similar
radical left-wing "news sites".

One problem at Wikipedia is that there is generally not enough vetting of the
citation sources.

To be fair, that's not entirely their fault, because especially in the US
there is a vast network of fake science and news sites powered by lobbyists,
and it takes a substantial amount of effort to discern these from reputable
sources. I've seen some interesting network analysis of the lobby sites of the
US oil industry, and have to say that I wouldn't have been able to easily
recognize their think-tanks and science information sites as fake. They're
well-disguised and you have to look at interconnections, board members, and
funding sources to find out who is really behind them. For example, some of
them looked like legitimate sources about green energy technologies, but were
in reality designed to poison the climate change debate and further the
interests of oil concerns.

Conclusion: Don't focus too much on Breitbart, there are plenty of other
seemingly legitimate associations, news sites, institutes and think tanks
whose primary purpose is to bullshit people, and they are funded from the left
and right.

~~~
tomohawk
You're making an extraordinary claim here. Care to provide a link backing it
up? If not, this is just a slur.

You're implying that people who go to breitbart are mentally ill. Maybe they
need help? Should be committed to an institution for their views? That worked
out so well in the Soviet Union...

~~~
JohnStrangeII
Yes, many of them are mentally ill, which is pretty obvious if you would
actually care to check out their comments on Breitbart, which I have done.

I stand by my word, everything I've said about Breitbart is true, whether you
like it or not. You can downvote me as much as you want, fact is that
Breitbart is a hate speech site that _also_ happens to copy & pastes news from
other sources in order to disguise their real purpose. Anyone who thinks there
could be a "news site" with a more right wing bias than Fox News is seriously
deluded, because the primary goal of news reporting is not to politically
influence the public towards radical anti-democratic world views and create
chaos.

Just to make this clear, I'm not a US citizen and couldn't care less about
Breitbart's fake news if Bannon hadn't recently announced that he wants to
invest money to focus his propaganda efforts on the EU with the goal of
disrupting the European Union and instigate chaos in Europe. There is no need
to write indirect slurs about Breitbart, the truth suffices to discredit this
site.

But if you want a real slur, no problem. Yes, the people who run Breitbart are
absolutely despicable scum.

Would you read an ISIS "news site" to get your "news"? If the answer is no,
then you also shouldn't read utter crap like Beitbart.

~~~
WilliamEdward
Ok, but where is your source that they have schizophrenia?

~~~
13415
Unfortunately many conspiracy theorists suffer from schizophrenia, a tendency
to believe in conspiracies is one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, and the
Breitbart site comments section is full of conspiracy theories - or at least
used to be (see below).

Note that I said "many" not "all" in the original post, and that was based on
checking their comment section in 2016. Since then I haven't checked whether
they have moderation now and whether this has changed, as you may imagine I
have better things to do.

 _Note: Same poster as OP, just from a different account._

~~~
ohhellno
Multiple personalities?

------
pfschell
This says far more about the credibility of wikipedia’s editors than it says
about Breitbart.

------
beshrkayali
This is very bad.

------
arthev
A web site banned as a source for facts from schools the world over now bans a
web site as a a source of its banned facts.

~~~
danpalmer
I get the joke, but it is worth clarifying that schools don’t ban it because
it’s unreliable, but because it’s a secondary source. It’s done to teach
sourcing discipline.

~~~
saagarjha
Many teachers accept other secondary sources, though. News article that
summarizes a scientific paper? Ok. Wikipedia article citing that paper? Not
ok. My impression of this has been a mix of misinformation (anyone can edit
it, it must be wrong!), and the fact that it’s just too easy: it really
doesn’t make students “work for” their information, so it completely throws
off their schedule because everyone has quick access to a reasonably high-
quality source.

~~~
solarkraft
It really is mostly FUD. Wikipedia tends to be quite accurate (on somewhat
popular topics, anyway) precisely BECAUSE there are multiple people reviewing
articles.

I'd argue that its strength is exactly being a secondary source, instead of
just alledging facts someone has already taken the time to value multiple
sources. Additionally the talk page often adds extra depth.

Instead of blindly hyping against Wikipedia, it should be taught to use it
well (and not depend on it too much).

