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In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, America is searching for answers. But on Wikipedia, a different kind of search is underway. Editors on the site are pushing a left-wing narrative about Kirk, one that’s subtle but — for that precise reason — highly effective.
The attack on Kirk begins in the very first sentence of the Wikipedia article, which identifies him as “right-wing.” That may seem unobjectionable in itself, but a look at Wikipedia articles on comparable figures from the left reveals no such politicized framing. For example, the article on former Obama adviser David Plouffe identifies him as an “American political and business strategist,” and MSNBC host and political analyst Al Sharpton is described as an “American civil rights and social justice activist.” Although the articles do describe their partisan activities, they aren’t called liberal or leftist in them at all. Plouffe was even “invited to join” ACRONYM, “a liberal nonprofit.” But he’s not called “liberal.”
The attack continues further down in the Kirk article’s lead paragraphs, where editors said Kirk was controversial due to his “opposition to gun control, abortion, and LGBTQ rights; his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr.; and his promotion of Christian nationalism, COVID-19 misinformation, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and false claims of electoral fraud in 2020.”
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The framing ensures that anyone searching for Kirk in the wake of his murder is met with a narrative designed to discredit him.
Even more critically, the lede disproportionately feeds Google’s knowledge panel and search results, as well as top AI platforms. When I ask ChatGPT, “Did Charlie Kirk promote conspiracy theories?” it answers: “Yes, Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, actively promoted several conspiracy theories throughout his career.” To support this, ChatGPT cites five “conspiracy theories” spread by Kirk — three pulled directly from the list above. In four of the five cases, ChatGPT cites only one source: Wikipedia.
One way Wikipedia editors stage an attack is by cross-linking allegations across articles. The allegation, made in the main “Charlie Kirk” article that he was a proponent of “Christian nationalism,” links to a separate article that asserts this view is “noted to bear overlap with Christian fundamentalism, [W]hite supremacy, Christian supremacy, the Seven Mountain Mandate movement, and dominionism.”
In a newly created article, “Killing of Charlie Kirk,” editors write Kirk “utilized his skills in social media and campus organizing to become a highly influential figure in the ‘hard-right movement,’” citing an article in The New York Times.
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In a dedicated section in Kirk’s main article, “Promotion of falsehoods and conspiracy theories,” Wikipedia editors initially accused Kirk of promoting “the antisemitic Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory.” Kirk was widely known as one of the most influential supporters of American Jews in the country.
The article has since been changed to say that Kirk “promoted the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and described universities as ‘islands of totalitarianism.’” One of the articles it links to in citation is a 2019 article in the Journal of Social Justice headlined, “Who’s Afraid of the Frankfurt School? ‘Cultural Marxism’ as an Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory.”
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Hours after his murder, in the “Gun Control” section of the article’s Talk page, where editors debate proposed edits, one editor recommended “noting Kirk’s relevance as both an opposition to gun control and as a gun control statistic.” Another editor argued that a 2023 speech by Kirk — where he noted the unfortunate consequence of gun deaths while expressing his support for Second Amendment rights — “would show his willingness to accept this outcome” of his own murder. The quote from that speech remains in the Kirk article itself.
An analysis of the news sources used as references in the “Charlie Kirk” article shows a majority of the sources are left or left-leaning, as categorized by AllSides. These include multiple citations from The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The Guardian and CNN.
When I ask ChatGPT, “Did Charlie Kirk promote conspiracy theories?” it answers: “Yes — there is credible evidence that Charlie Kirk promoted or repeated conspiracy theories and misinformation on several topics.
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This bias has not gone unnoticed in Washington. In August, the House Oversight Committee opened a formal investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and operates the site, demanding documents and records to determine whether foreign or ideological manipulation is shaping content on the world’s most influential source of online information. Naturally, the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t respond to my inquiry.
At its core, Wikipedia is a wrapper for the mainstream media. Its infamous “Reliable Sources” list of news outlets that can be used as references and sources Wikipedia editors consider to be “reliable” as green and those they deem “unreliable” as red. The green sites read like a semi-official list of the mainstream media: New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, Associated Press. It disproportionately marks conservative outlets as unreliable, while giving a neutral rating to the Chinese propaganda outlet China Daily.
Clearly, something at Wikipedia needs to change. But if the mainstream media that the site relies on is any indication, that’s not likely to happen any time soon. In the meantime, the site that disproportionately feeds AI and powers Google will remain a battleground where far-left ideology gets laundered into the mainstream almost unchecked.
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