Home to 1,028,360 articles in English alone, Wikipedia.com is one of the fastest growing encyclopedia sites available on the Web. Expanding by about 1,515 new articles per day, Wikipedia is an open Web source that not only allows users to access information on subjects (ranging from Saint Patrick to the Pitt Street Mall of Sydney, Australia), but also allows them to create and edit articles.
Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales have recently fallen under harsh criticism, however. Given that the articles can be edited and created by people who are knowledgeable in a certain topic, this open-source policy can become a problem when articles are edited by people who may have a personal interest or a bias.
One example of this problem may be the recent Wikipedia scandal involving U.S Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass).
According to a press release by Wiki-news administrator Wayne Faewyc, "One of Meehan's summer interns altered the congressman's profile on the Wikipedia Web site to remove an old promise that he would limit his service to four terms."
According to Political Science Lecturer Michael Goldman, who teaches "Media, Politics and the Law," the Web site allows for the possibility of biased information being passed off as true fact.
"In the case of Congressman Meehan they were taking out material that was negative and placing in material that was positive," Goldman said. "Because anyone can access it, you are really getting the information from a bad source."
The most important thing to remember, Goldman said, is that sites are all owned by certain companies who want certain information to be known.
"If an Internet Web site on climate is owned by a coal company, you have to question the contents of the Web site," he said.
Goldman added that no Internet source that is open to public access can ever be completely neutral and unbiased - especially within the political realm.
"People who are sympathetic to politicians are going to put down that they are the reincarnate of Mother Teresa, while people who are not are going to say reincarnate of Lucifer," Goldman said. "Different people have different perspectives depending on different experiences. Some people even respond to the same experience in different ways."
When these differing views are presented as fact, it can affect voters' perceptions of politicians. Voters who are researching politicians on the Internet may see something biased and believe it to be true.
According to senior Scott Kniaz, if he read something "bad" about a political figure on the Internet, he "would judge him to a certain extent."
"You don't know right away if what you are reading or seeing is correct, so there is a certain gut level reaction that will change your mind a little until you have time to follow up or do more research," Kniaz said.
While Kniaz said that he "hoped" students would take the time to research further, because "that's where people run into problems. I would hope that at a high level institution, people would [do further research], but students are lazy."
As a result, many Internet users may be researching and reading information that is false. But according to Political Science Professor Kent Portney, who studies political behavior, the influence of this information is not about to start affecting the way in which people vote.
Portney said that people are not researching to learn about views that are different from their own. Rather, they are most likely trying to find information that will reinforce their own personal views.
"Access to information simply reinforces people's views. If you see something on a Web site you don't agree with, you generally ignore it," Portney said.
In addition, the portion of the country who generally vote - the older generation - is not always the portion using the Web for research.
"The Web only affects a small amount of the electorate. While on a college campus people are on the Web every day, in the real world, this is not the case," Portney explained.
"Probably fewer than half the people who vote are regular users of the Internet, and a smaller percentage of those people want information about politics," he added.
According to Professor Deborah Schildkraut, however, who teaches American Politics and Political Psychology, while people might visit Web sites that reflect their own views, the wealth of information on the Internet has benefited democracy.
"The Web does give people the opportunity to be better citizens," she said. "With so many different blogs and chat rooms, we can have so many different discussions with people who are not like us," she said. "Fundraising is also more democratic because people can make smaller donations and learn about different causes."
According to Portney, while Wikipedia and the Web itself will not "directly affect" democracy or politics anytime soon, any Internet user should be cautious with Internet information when the source is unknown.
Goldman also argued that students should think before they use Wikipedia, Google or any other Internet site.
"Every Internet user must ask themselves five basic questions to understand the truth behind any site: Who says so? How do they know? What is missing and what aren't they telling you? Does it make sense to you? Did someone change the subject?"
While it is generally understood that all Internet users must take their own precautions to guard themselves from reading biased and untrue information, the creators of Wikipedia are now acting to safeguard the site itself from biased information: Wikipedia has now banned all Capitol Hill users from any access at all to the Web site.
Many students - including Kniaz - think that this policy might not be such a bad idea.
"I think that maybe they should ban Capitol Hill users because politicians tend to be immoral and out for their own interest," he said. "I guess I really can't make that much of a general statement though, but when you are editing your own profile, you are going to put yourself in a good light so people need to be wary of that."
Portney, on the other hand, agrees that students should be wary, but that there should be no restrictions placed on a Web site such as Wikipedia.
"I think that the whole idea of open source initiatives that is that it is a function of free speech. The whole idea behind a Web site is that it should be open. You could monitor it, but that's not what Wikipedia is all about."
Sophomore Arlen Spiro, one of the leaders of the Tufts ACLU, agreed with this sentiment.
"It is important for Wikipedia to continue to present readers with a great diversity of opinion," Spiro said. "A diversity of opinion includes voices that are not normally heard in the mainstream media, as well as the voices that have always appeared in the mainstream media.
"If there is to be a truly free flow of information, Capitol Hill cannot be banned from editing articles," he added. "Wikipedia users can suppress misinformation, regardless of the source, without suppressing voices."
