Week2: Wikipedia and Information Bias —SHAO TIANYI

 Wikipedia often promotes itself as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” And while that openness is its strength, it’s also where bias quietly creeps in.

I didn’t fully understand this until I began editing entries related to African colonial history. The English pages were somewhat detailed, but the Chinese ones were almost empty—or worse, framed with vague, sanitized language. Key events like forced labor, resource extraction, or colonial taxation were either missing or softened.

That’s when I realized: bias on Wikipedia isn’t always about what’s said. It’s about what’s left out.

Many articles rely heavily on sources written in Western academic circles. Non-English sources or perspectives from the Global South are often underused. Even well-intentioned editors might unconsciously reproduce dominant narratives, especially when trying to sound “neutral.”

Bias also shows up in which topics are prioritized. There are pages with thousands of words on fictional TV shows, while entire countries’ histories are summarized in a few lines.

Wikipedia is a powerful tool, but it reflects the people who write it—and the perspectives they bring. True neutrality takes work. It means asking: who’s missing from the story, and why?

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