The platform, called Wikiwhere, unravels the places of origin where editors of different languages obtain their information. Wikiwhere has been designed by Martin Körner at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.
To use Wikiwhere, a user simply copies a URL relating to a Wikipedia page. The special algorithm devised for the site then trawls through the World Wide Web to indicate where the references cited in the entry originate from.
The purpose devising Wikiwhere came from a social science perspective, where the University of Koblenz-Landau researchers wanted an indication of potential bias in Wikipedia entries. In particular the researchers wanted to find out whether the same topic written in a different language alters the context and whether different sources alter the presentation of ‘facts.’ The potential, however, extends to all fields and to any user wishing to understand the merits or otherwise of a Wikipedia article.
How significant is this? According to New Scientist, the English language version of an article covering the involvement of Russia in Crimea used 24 percent of its references from Ukrainian new sources and 20 percent of its linked sources from Russian based news sites. In contrast, the German version of the same article had a majority of news sources from Russia (albeit down to 10 percent), whereas Ukrainian links represented only seven percent of the citations. The inference is that a person reading the article in English, and who opted to look into the origins of the ‘facts’ presented would have potentially ended up drawing different conclusions to the person who read the article in German.
Although Wikipedia uses computer programs to spot gross errors and key words that are linked to ‘hate speech’ are called out, most of the article reviews are performed by volunteer editors and it is down to the editor which links and sources remain in an article.
The variations with Wikipedia content connect with the recent debate surrounding news content on Facebook and the articles that are shown to one user but not to another, as well as the rise in ‘fake’ or questionable news content. Wikipedia can also be seen as having a filter bubble in the context of the language of the user which dictates the articles that are shown.
