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Unfolding Stories
Wikipedia editor 'warriors' fight lies, bigotry and even Nazis
False Covid death reports, a vast gender gap, Nazi "fan fiction": These are some of the perils an international crowd of volunteers battle across Wikipedia’s tens of millions of online entries.
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Ksenia Coffman stands for a portrait in San Jose, California on November 01, 2021. (AFP/Josh Edelson)
F
alse Covid death reports, a vast gender gap, Nazi "fan fiction": These are some of the perils an international crowd of volunteers battle across Wikipedia’s tens of millions of online entries.
The world's largest internet encyclopedia is often the first result to pop up when users ask the internet a question -- and thus a massively influential source of free information but which also reflects humanity's faults.
With entries that can in theory be written by anyone with an internet connection -- in some 300 languages -- it comes down to editing by mostly anonymous volunteers to police the site.
"I always carry my laptop along wherever I go, to edit Wikipedia," said Alaa Najjar, who is based in the Middle East, but asked that specific details about his identity be omitted to protect his privacy.
"It is an addiction, as my friends say. I prefer to say it's my passion," he told AFP by email
Najjar said he contributes to almost 500 entries a week, and as a medical doctor he has been busy fighting a flood of false information unleashed during the pandemic.
Among the strains of misinformation that surfaced on Wikipedia, he has spotted false reports Covid-19 had killed notable people and inaccurate boosting of some nations' death and case numbers.
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