Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger reveals CIA secretly edited entries to censor conservative views
WASHINGTON, DC: Wikipedia co-creator Larry Sanger has revealed the moment he discovered that the CIA and other intelligence agencies were allegedly hijacking public entries for their own benefit.
Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Sanger claimed that the once-neutral encyclopedia had “lost its way” and began censoring conservative and libertarian viewpoints.
“There is a whole army of administrators, hundreds of them, who are constantly blocking people that they have ideological disagreements with,” Sanger said. “Over the years, conservatives, libertarians, were just pushed out.”
Although he said he was unsure whether “puppet masters” were directly controlling the process, Sanger admitted that sometime between 2006 and 2007, he began questioning intelligence agencies’ interference with Wikipedia’s content.
Larry Sanger speaks about his discovery of CIA edits
Larry Sanger credited Virgil Griffith, an American programmer later jailed for sanctions violations, with exposing government-linked edits through a tool called WikiScanner.
“The program allowed users to trace IP addresses of Wikipedia editors, uncovering numerous changes originating from Langley (Virginia, the location of CIA headquarters),”
“The way that intelligence works now is that of course there’s the old-fashioned cloak and dagger spying going on, but a large part of the remit of intelligence today is to manipulate public opinion,” Sanger explained.
“Wikipedia is like just a gold mine for the intelligence agencies of the world because it’s like a one-stop shop. You can just type in the things that you want people to believe.”
Tucker Carlson claims Wikipedia has become ‘weapon of ideological war’
Carlson, who has been an outspoken critic of mainstream media, claimed Wikipedia has transformed into “a weapon of ideological, theological war, used to destroy its enemies.”
The former Fox News host said he had once “really believed in Wikipedia” and even donated large sums because he was “so thrilled by its existence.” Now, he argued, the site has become “the leading source of dishonesty, or, I would say, disinformation.”
Larry Sanger speaks on how Wikipedia shifted from neutrality to ‘propaganda’
Sanger said he first began publicly describing Wikipedia as “propaganda” in 2020. Although he had long harbored doubts about the platform’s neutrality, he avoided using that term until then.
Sanger worked on Wikipedia for only two years, helping launch the project and “set a lot of the original policies” before leaving in 2002. “Not in 2001, in 2000, in 2002. I was a babe in the woods,” he said, recalling his early days.
Larry Sanger explains how he reached out to Donald Trump, Elon Musk
Sanger said he reached out to both President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, urging them to investigate US government employees allegedly editing Wikipedia. While Musk retweeted his concerns, Sanger noted that no formal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) probe took place.
“Maybe there’s reasons, legitimate reasons for government employees to do this, but at least Elon Musk did retweet that and got a lot of support,” Sanger said.
He added that there is now a congressional investigation underway into the matter. “I don’t know if my tweet had anything to do with the start of that,” he said.
