Whose Knowledge? | Whose Knowledge? Reflections about Wikipedia on Deutsche Welle

Whose Knowledge? Reflections about Wikipedia on Deutsche Welle

Public, online knowledge looks as it does because the majority of the internet’s users are not its producers. Take Wikipedia, the “world’s” encyclopedia: only 20% of the world (primarily white male editors from North America and Europe) edits 80% of Wikipedia currently, and only 1 in 10 of the editors is female. The result is that there are more articles written about Antarctica than about most countries in Africa.

Anasuya Sengupta, co-founder and co-director of Whose Knowledge? and longtime Wikipedian, shares in this interview some of the reasons why we need to be critical of the knowledge on Wikipedia. She brings herself into the conversation with tough love, and with the believe that acting to change this status quo will make Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement more powerful and relevant in the future.