Fiche de révision : Wikipedia, biais et désinformation

📋 Plan du Cours

1. Wikipedia contre la désinformation
2. La représentation des femmes
3. Comprendre les biais sociaux
4. La controverse de Scots Wikipedia
5. Vocabulaire des textes
6. Information et pronoms indéfinis

📖 1. Wikipedia contre la désinformation

★ À maîtriser

• In an article published by WIRED in June 2019, Omer BENJAKOB argues that Wikipedia’s shared goal of organizing human knowledge fosters social responsibility and a community committed to the project’s integrity. - There’s a lot Wikipedia can teach us about fighting disinformation

📌 Wikipedia’s policy of “verifiability, not truth” requires every claim to be attributed to a reliable source.

• Wikipedia’s open-access format makes edits and discussions visible, allowing editors to check one another and identify vandals, unlike platforms described as opaque black boxes.

Compléments

• Founded in 2001, Wikipedia was initially criticized for inaccuracy and vulnerability to informational sabotage, but later emerged as a champion against disinformation.

📌 Benjakob presents Wikipedia’s self-enforced editorial process as a better tool against disinformation than the algorithms, moderators, and fact-checkers used by Silicon Valley giants. - Omer BENJAKOB, There’s a lot Wikipedia can teach us about fighting disinformation, June 2019

💡 Astuce mémo

Objectif commun → vérification → transparence

📖 2. La représentation des femmes

★ À maîtriser

• The Women in Red project aims to add more articles about women to Wikipedia, where 17.67% of biographical pages are about women, a figure that was below 15% a few years earlier.

• Nade argues that women are pushed down in science and society, and that even articles about women in science can remain isolated.

Compléments

• A TV news report interview with journalist and physicist Jessica Nade discusses the gender gap on Wikipedia and the underrepresentation of women in science.

• The report mentions 1,800 Wikipedia pages about women, people of color, and other historically excluded people.

💡 Astuce mémo

Nombre d’articles ≠ représentation équitable

📖 3. Comprendre les biais sociaux

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• Bias : Jackie KOERNER, Wikipedia@20, June 2019 - Thoughts and beliefs about society that are learned from family, friends, and the media, are not based on facts, and are socially constructed.

★ À maîtriser

• Koerner explains that learning bias is generally unconscious and not deliberate, and that people are not bad simply for having biases. - Jackie KOERNER, Wikipedia@20, June 2019

• Wikipedia contributors moved women novelists out of “American Novelists” into “American Women Novelists,” which Koerner says perpetuated marginalization by treating women differently from men. - Jackie KOERNER, Wikipedia@20, June 2019

Compléments

• Common biases people associate with the word bias include (Jackie KOERNER, June 2019) :

  • gender
  • sexual orientation
  • racism

• Koerner argues that bias can shape actions, beliefs, relationships, work, social structures, practices, and principles, even when the resulting harm is unintended. - Jackie KOERNER, Wikipedia@20, June 2019

💡 Astuce mémo

Biais inconscients → actions parfois nuisibles

📖 4. La controverse de Scots Wikipedia

★ À maîtriser

• Scots Wikipedia was intended to produce an encyclopedia in Scots, also called Lowland Scots, which is sometimes described as a sister language of Modern English and sometimes classified as a dialect. - Stephen HARRISON, What happens to Scots Wikipedia now?, September 2020

• In August, Utlach revealed on 4chan and Reddit that a 19-year-old North Carolinian using the name AmaryllisGardner, often shortened to AG, had written nearly half the articles on Scots Wikipedia despite not speaking Scots. - Stephen HARRISON, What happens to Scots Wikipedia now?, September 2020

Compléments

• Utlach criticized AG’s Scots Wikipedia articles as poor partly because AG did not understand Scots grammar or vocabulary. - Stephen HARRISON, What happens to Scots Wikipedia now?, September 2020

• Scots Wikipedia had nearly 58,000 articles, compared with more than 6 million articles on English Wikipedia, and was classified as a small wiki. - Stephen HARRISON, What happens to Scots Wikipedia now?, September 2020

• British news outlets described the controversy as a “hijacking of the Scots language,” and the public response to the revelations was strongly negative. - Stephen HARRISON, What happens to Scots Wikipedia now?, September 2020

💡 Astuce mémo

Scots, langue germanique sœur de l’anglais ≠ gaélique écossais, langue celtique

📖 5. Vocabulaire des textes

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• harmful : Harmful means causing harm.
• unintended : Unintended means involuntary or not deliberate.
• rely upon : Rely upon means to count on or depend on someone or something.
• core : Core means the heart or central part of something.
• pernicious : Pernicious means harmful or bad.
• sum up : Sum up means to summarize.
• sum of : The sum of means the total of something.
• tiresome : Tiresome means boring or tiring.
• outdated : Outdated means obsolete or no longer current.
• all the more : All the more + adjective means d’autant plus + adjective.
• field of science : Field of science means le domaine des sciences.
• dedicated to : Dedicated to means consacré à or dédié à.
• achievement : Achievement means accomplissement.
• prevent : Prevent means empêcher.
• to even the score : To even the score means mettre sur un pied d’égalité.

📖 6. Information et pronoms indéfinis

🔑 Notions clés & Définitions

• anyone : Anyone signifie n’importe qui.
• anything : Anything signifie n’importe quoi.
• anywhere : Anywhere signifie n’importe où.
• anytime : Anytime signifie n’importe quand.

★ À maîtriser

• In English, information is uncountable and takes a singular verb; its plural form is not information.

Compléments

• The course notes that any can also be used as an indefinite pronoun.