"Modern" Wikipedia is GAFAM and Billionaires (Follow the Money)
THE new year (2024) is almost here and Wikipedia begs for money again.
Does Wikipedia really need your money?
No.
It's drowning in money, especially money from rich people.
Wikipedia is powered by rich families and GAFAM; Also takes major funding with direct ties to Nazi-connected families while insisting that it preaches for tolerance.
According to Wikipedia itself (it's hard to find more recent transparency reports):
We recently wrote about who's funding Wikipedia (yes, strings attached, as they can stop paying unless Wikipedia meets some implicit demands or "modest proposals" or "polite suggestions"). If you donate to Wikipedia, why not also donate to Bill Gates' 'charitable' foundation? Wikipedia keeps telling you that it needs money, but it is already taking a lot of money from Bill Gates and other oligarchs. Should you chip in? Whose cause would that advance? Yours or theirs [1, 2]? Wikipedia is serving millions of hagiographies per day.
Incidentally, last night I caught up with Lunduke's blog. Last month he wrote: "A significant portion of donations -- solicited for the stated purpose of the running of Wikipedia -- are being spent furthering political goals. Not on running Wikipedia. All while Wikipedia is claiming to be barely surviving."
It also said there (at the top): "The Wikimedia Foundation (the organization which runs and controls Wikipedia) has just published their annual financial report for the current year -- and they made a mountain of money."
Prior to that he examined the IRS filings and concluded: "They made $50+ million in profit."
So they are in it for money, just like the Linux Foundation and today's EFF [1, 2], which has some of the same "benefactors" as Wikipedia. They control debates and perceptions this way, under the guise of "grassroots", "community", "neutrality", and "activism".
Lunduke also said: "Is it strange that Wikipedia donations are being sent, by the Millions, to be handled by a political organization? Yes. That is, most definitely, strange. Considering Wikipedia has repeatedly stated the importance of neutrality... incredibly so."
Here's one example: "Neither Wikimedia nor The Tides Foundation publish details about how those funds are being used. It appears to be a secret. But, considering what The Tides Foundation does, it is something political. And only on one side of the political spectrum. Not neutral, like Wikipedia says they must be. [...] Whatever your thoughts around any of those statements, it should be noted that Wikimedia is spending $4.5 Million dollars worth of Wikipedia donations to further those goals. Money that is not being spent on running Wikipedia. [...] In fact... it is worth noting that the dollar figure being allocated towards this "Knowledge Equity Fund" is twice the size of the yearly Server Hosting costs for all of Wikipedia. [...]" (some typos corrected)
Wikimedia's Wikipedia: The Web site every oligarch can pay to change (directly or indirectly -- there's a whole industry to do the latter, e.g. Microsoft by another name/proxy [1, 2], also polluting minds on behalf of oil companies).
Wikimedia's Wikipedia should no longer be regarded as authoritative, just the authority's (rich people's) voice. At the end, after those notorious "edit wars", Wikipedia will gravitate towards those who pay the high salaries (Wikipedia calls them "benefactors" - a positive-sounding slant* on people who give bribes). They might even 'reciprocate the gesture' by increasing their so-called 'donations' the following year.
To be clear, those who are paid in Wikipedia are staff and PR firms like the ones named above (Microsoft edits Wikipedia via these firms). Everyone else, usually an unpaid volunteer or university professor, is just sharecropping. █
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* Consider the origin of that term. They say bene as in "well, in the right way, honorably, properly..." (same for "philanthropist" as a euphemism for people who hoard capital at others' expense)