https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

You can notice a bias towards the state media from pro-capitalist regimes from the above.

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[–] 36 points 1 month ago (8 children)

That's probably because most mass killings under capitalist regimes are just generally called "mass killings". They are your regular, run of the mill mass killings that aren't really newsworthy and that we are accustomed to.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Yeah dude just regular mass killings that happen every day

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    My previous comment was very cynical, but when you think about it communism is the historical anomaly. Sure you can point to the Mass killings wikipedia page, but you can also do that with other topics and they also are separated into "XY under communism" and "XY" articles. XY could be stuff like "Economy", "Urban development", "Housing" or "Worker's rights". It's just a convention wikipedia seems to adhere to.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    In what way is communism a historical anomaly in a manner that capitalism does not fit into? Both are part of the same historical development process.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's an anomaly in the sense that it was present in high gear for around 70 years in the 20th century and most people (who are likely to read wikipedia) probably don't live in it right now. That's my one and only reason for calling it that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    I suppose I can see that logic, but capitalism too is a historical anomaly, and will too become a part of history while socialism and eventually communism becomes dominant. Framing it this way is a viewpoint that sees capitalism more as static and unchanging than anything else.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Fascist and colonial states atrocities are widely documented in Wikipedia, countries that we consider capitalist probably too. I recently stumbled across Belgian atrocities in Congo reading Wikipedia by accident. It motivated me to read more about it in the future, maybe "Heart of darkness" (while not exactly historical, it still seems like a good critique. By the way is it a good novel?).

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

    True.

    But there does not seem to be an equivalent page for 'Mass killings in capitalist regimes'

    Even if it is documented, does it not show that how it is organised currently has an imbalance, likely from Anti-communist propaganda, things like red scare etc?

    So, cannoted be unbiased, right? My focus was on that. There is no unbiased source, but only ones which acknowledge biases and maybe try to ensure that the biases do not affect the quality of the source too much.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I'm genuinely unsure if it's because of propaganda or capitalist defaultism instilled in contributors due to its worldwide prevalence. Then again I suppose one could argue that defaultism was instilled by propaganda, but I'd like it more to US defaultism where it mostly stems from a large amount of online interaction in English speaking spaces being between people in the US

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    But there does not seem to be an equivalent page for ‘Mass killings in capitalist regimes’

    You can create that page. Don't forget to cite your sources and link to them or it will be deleted.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    You know you can make a page yourself right?

    Go ahead and compile a list with sources referenced and write it up according to the style guide.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    True. Would be good to try that and see how it is handled

    Asking for the help of others who may see this: Could you help in listing major mass killings by capitalist states?

    Will mention ones that I can remember now:

    USAmerican regime - Kent State Uni massacre, MOVE bombing, BLM protestors murdered for protesting against the racist regime

    British colonial regime in India - Jalianwallah Bagh massacre, Wagon massacre, Massacre of tribes in hilly states
    If famines are included, then the Bengal famine, Madras famine, Travancore famine etc.

    Mass killings in areas like Ireland n all by the British capitalist regime too

    South Korean regime - Jeju island, Bodo league massacres and similar mass killings

    Mass killings by Nazi Germany

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago
    [–] 11 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    That is just killings against communists. That is not equal to killings under capitalist states.

    Injustices such as the Ludlow would not fall under the former as the victims were not communists. They were workers seeking better wages and conditions under a capitalist system.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

    Idk, I've learned a tremendous amount about things outside my culture... because of wikipedia. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good?

    Edit: I apologize that my comment derailed from the conversation of Wikipedia having inherent and abundant Western bias... the fact that VOA is considered reputable is enough to turn heads. What I guess I was trying to say is that I wouldn't want people to ignore a good resource for information because of that... but it is also very important to point out and criticize their bias, if true neutrality is a Wikipedia "goal"

    I apologize again. I would delete my comments, but I think it's important to own up to my own errors and have a record of what was said. Maybe others will learn from my misinterpretation of the conversation being presented, and my initial emotional responses

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Idk, why should this issue be seen as good?

    And what is your culture? Is Wikipedia good for it?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    It's not? Being informed is always positive, and it's always unfortunate that bias exists. I'd rather learn and try to understand my own bias, as opposed to being ignorant and having bias anyway

    Do you have a tool that is just as accessible as wiki, but perfectly objective? Or are you throwing the baby out with the bath-water? Knowledge is good for any culture, and bias is a motherfucker to us all. Your critique isn't unwarranted, but it does flirt with anti-intellectualism

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Being informed of the bias is also positive

    No one mentioned anything about throwing the bathwater, but only hinted at the bias.

    Are you trying to villainise and portray it as anti-intellectualism?
    Are you thinking that the source you use is unbiased and trying to derial convos that hint at how it is not unbiased?

    Noting the bias is a good thing and trying to shut down the convoys on that is a bigger mf to all of us.

    Your concerns isn't unwarranted, but it does flirt with strawmanning and derailing the convo.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    "Being informed is positive" is not what is being argued against, and you know it. This is disingenuous and poor rhetorics.

    Do you have a tool that is just as accessible as wiki, but perfectly objective? Or are you throwing the baby out with the bath-water?

    More poor rhetorics. If youre not interested in actual discussion, why engage with someone acting in clear, good faith? Its pretty clear that the argument is that the issue with Wikipedia is that it presents itself as unbiased, while in fact being heavily biased. The issue is not the presence of bias itself.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    This page in a nutshell: Any material added to Wikipedia must have been published previously by a reliable source. Editors may not add content solely because they believe it is true, nor delete content they believe to be untrue, unless they have verified beforehand with a reliable source.

    Verifiability is as important as truth.

    But reliable sources are biased!

    From WP:BIASED (Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Biased or opinionated sources).

    Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.

    (Bolding mine)

    But reliable sources are chosen by biased contributors!

    OP attached to their comic repost RSP columns.

    • Deutsche Welle: Reliability was never discussed in an RFC. Anyone complaining here of bias does not acknowledge their possibility (if they are not banned) of making an RFC on it.
    • Voice of America: Discussed on RSN a few times. The last one is pretty interesting: Here
    • Xinhua: Discussed here. ITT: It's quite old, but Xinhua is very controversial.
    • Telesur: Discussed here around seven years ago. Quite conclusive, I would say.
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  • [–] [S] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

    I think you may have misunderstood point of that image.

    It not on the sources being biased(there are no unbiased sources), but noting the easily notable bias in the Wikipedia source selection, the preference for media funded by pro-capitalist regimes.

    Do you see an issue in noting how Wikipedia has this bias, and going against the notion by some that it is unbiased or neutral?

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  • [–] -4 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Yes, because the "easily-notable bias" is just a result of discussions done at different times to different evidence, and claiming bias is an overgeneralization.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Bias just means that you have a worldview, which everyone has whether they acknowledge it or not simply by living and existing in the real world.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Ok, but I wasn't the one implying Wikipedia editors as a group are biased.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    They are. Everyone has a bias.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Me:

    as a group

    You:

    everyone

    Groups usually cancel bias. And the leftover bias is not "easily notable"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    groups usually cancel bias

    Lmao, so we're just saying shit now, alright. Famously unbiased:

    • The police
    • Lynch mobs
    • Academic institutions
    • Think tanks
    • The KKK
    • The Clergy
    • A group of children

    I think you struggle to understand what the word "bias" means. It seems like it just short-circuits in your brain to "bad". A group typically enforce the bias inherent to it.

    It requires actively being aware of ones' bias to counteract it, which is one of many reasons why Wikipedias presentation as a "neutral" source of knowledge is an issue. Because it makes doofuses like you trust it like gospel and react like fanatics to the heresy that maybe the website founded by a zionist, with a longtime issue with power-users (not to mention the infiltration of Nazis that gets brought up once in a while in a feelgood story about someone taking them on), a rule against being critical of "approved sources investegation making use of primary sources, an arbitrary approach as to how trustworthy a source is (the main judgement of which seems to be "do they reinforce state dept. talking points?"); well, it might have some issues.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago
    [+] -6 points 1 month ago (6 children)
  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Is there a reason for deliberately breaking the rules by being ableist? Could you not have phrased your discontent with the meme in a way that doesn't break the rules?

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  • [+] -7 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Do you actually have a point, then? Why defend ableism? There are billions of ways to insult people that don't rely on bigotry.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Ableism from a lib instance. Classic.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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