Hacker News Reader

Comment by devs1010 | Hacker News Reader

so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business), this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little pressure on Wikipedia to censor or remove this page? I think its naive to think not, and the result would be censorship and suppression of information that would be available if Wikipedia was standing on its own and not propped up by this specific company in question.

View on HN

I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to the influence of commercial institutions.

How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness.

Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for-money risks a big backlash, and provides little assurance of warmer coverage.

On the other hand, even without advertising, big interests can and do try to massage their Wikipedia entries indirectly. If they have a legal case against content, they can and do threaten legal action – again, no advertising link required.

There may be good reasons for excluding advertising. Since an important core of contributors hate the idea advertising, simply keeping them happy may be a good enough reason, and as long as annual donation drives generate plenty of money, why not?

But I don't see where advertising would add new motivations or mechanisms for commercial entities to meddle in article content, especially if proper care were taken to separate and automate ad functions.

I've worked for companies where one client has an inordinate amount of influence over the company, why... because they are the biggest client, they represent a significant percentage of the company's revenue. Market forces inevitably can create situations where a particular client is "really good" for a company, they may pay more than other companies would, etc and, if this client is lost (or even just reduces the business they give the company) serious consequences can result including laying people off, etc. Of course Wikipedia can avoid this, at least initially, by not relying on one company, going through an ad-broker, etc but its possible that at some point a situation can arise where they are faced with a dilemma (and this would probably be years into the future after an infusion of money has inevitably re-shaped the organization to some degree) where a decision has to be made to either lose a client (advertising customer) or bend to pressure from them to censor or delete something... I'm just speculating here but past experiences of mine lead me to believe something like this could occur as companies bend to pressure from their clients all the time.

Except: editing is done by an unruly hive. There is no organizational nexus on which to place "comply or we'll withdraw our advertising" pressure. And, any attempt to apply such pressure would quickly trigger its own self-nullification via editor outrage (as with the 'Streisand Effect').

In order for an advertiser to have sinister influence, you'd need to assume a bunch of other changes which weaken Wikipedia's resilience. Advertising could be implemented in a way that helps prevent such weakening-changes from happening. And if any org could pull that off, Wikipedia could.

That said, I still understand why, given their community's biases and their success with donation-drives so far, they have not seriously considered ads in many years. Don't mess with what works is usually a good principle.

But wikipedia have previously frozen controversial pages that are having edit wars. They could choose the last revision that is reasonable favourable to advertiser and then freeze the page

exactly. This would be all too easy for someone in their organization to do to keep a favorable relationship with a client.

Your posts on the subject seem far and away too utopian when we're talking about wikipedia. They've already had a lot of scandals about censorship/bias/etc. now. That would only get worse when money was on the line.

How does advertising make it worse? Can't companies already hire PR firms and other editors to slyly improve their coverage? Isn't that cheaper and less subject to backlash than trying to communicate conditional advertising budgets?

they have no direct influence unless they are a customer (paying money to Wikipedia), sure they can try to game the system, but Wikipedia isn't going to do some action at their request. If a company pays a lot of money to Wikipedia its possible someone within the Wiki organization would be willing to bend the rules a bit to cave to their request because it may keep the money flowing whereas otherwise tough decisions would have to be made (laying people off, etc)

If Wikipedians are so trivially corruptible by money, ads are still irrelevant to the process. Just offer a donation for warmer treatment. (The Foundation does not reject corporate donations.) Or an outright bribe.

Also, the organization that handles funds – the Foundation – has very little special editorial power, and their actions are especially transparent. (For example, their real names are necessarily known, whiich is not the case for other editors.) Attempting to influence content by being an advertiser, then making ad spends conditional on favorable bias, would be about the worst possible way to try to influence Wikipedia content. You'd be spending a lot, via a path that's under the most scrutiny. You'd probably prompt staff to be extra harsh on you to avoid any appearance of infuence.

Anyone who really wanted to spend to influence Wikipedia would just hire editors outside the funds/ads-handling organization. That threat is larger, and unaffected by the presence or absence of advertising.

With all the dollars at play, I reckon there could be unforeseen ways to game the system. Maybe some "Enron" type will scrutinize every wikipedia bureaucratic procedure and term and condition of how the ad sales works and run some arbitarge keyword games that would distort the content in an ultimately un-usefull-to-the-user but profitable-for-the-gamer way.

I also worry about the increased tracking on politically sensitive pages or controversial topics.

Let's say I donate money to Wikipedia, and then I end up having some major scandal that has a Wikipedia article written about it. So, I put some pressure on Wikipedia to censor or remove that page. Why is everyone so sure that Wikipedia is so much better equipped for resisting pressure from individuals than from businesses - especially considering that individuals are much better suited for crafting personal relations than a corporation would be, and the damage to a person is much easier to empathise with than damage to a corporation.

Wikipedias force in this regard is that their operating budget is small potatoes: they can easily afford to shun any one donor - commercial or personal.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com