1.1 million— the number of times the 2024 European Parliament election article on English Wikipedia has been viewed from May to June 2024. With another 37 language versions and additional millions of views globally, this page exemplifies Wikipedia’s role in informing the public about major political events. Yet, Wikipedia’s impact extends far beyond that. As a widely used repository of knowledge, its content is frequently cited by other media outlets, amplifying its reach and embedding its information within broader public discourse. This means that any inaccuracies or disinformation on Wikipedia could have significant consequences on the public discourse, especially when it comes to sensitive issues like elections.
While the role of commercial platforms in spreading disinformation has been widely analysed, how Wikipedia has addressed this issue over its 20-year history has gone mostly unnoticed.
Wikipedia is powered by a global network of volunteers who rigorously fact-check and peer-review content following transparent, community-led guidelines. As the only not-for-profit platform recognised as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA) – the new EU legislation that imposes transparency and reporting obligations on platforms with more than 45 million “monthly active users” in the EU – Wikipedia offers a distinctive, community-driven approach to managing information that sets it apart from the Big Tech.
In an era dominated by for-profit, data-driven platforms that exacerbate societal vulnerabilities to polarisation, it becomes crucial to ask: What can we learn from Wikipedia’s model of community-led fact-checking and moderation? How can these lessons contribute to strengthening the broader information ecosystem?
Leveraging community-led practices in democratic debate
To address these questions, Wikimedia Europe partners with the research teams of the University of Amsterdam and Eurecat Technology Centre of Catalonia for the DEM-Debate project. In the next 18 months, this project will explore if, and how, the Wikipedia fact-checking and moderation practices adopted during the 2024 European Parliament election have enhanced the online information ecosystem reliability, and whether these practices can be transferred to other online contexts.
The DEM-Debate kicked off with a panel organised at the European Parliament on September 30. Moderated by Dimitar Dimitrov, Policy Director at Wikimedia Europe and project coordinator, the panel brought together disinformation experts, researchers, and the Wikimedia communities to discuss how the Wikimedia ecosystem addresses disinformation in the current legal framework, and how the DEM-Debate project will contribute to expanding online pluralistic, democratic spaces.
Wikipedia as infrastructure against disinformation
Costanza Sciubba Caniglia talked about the Trust & Safety’s Disinformation Response Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports the Wikimedia communities in identifying and countering disinformation campaigns in line with the Disinformation Attribution model. Sciubba Caniglia explained that communities can be both a solution to creating trustworthy information and an infrastructure of disinformation. The “WikiZédia” incident during the French presidential elections illustrates this dynamic: a group of French Wikipedia users coordinated off-platform to improve the image of candidate Eric Zemmour by editing his Wikipedia articles until they were discovered by a journalist who infiltrated the French political movement Génération Z, a movement supporting Zemmour’s bid for the presidency. It is evident that the way platforms and policies are designed influence the health of the information ecosystem and this is where research initiatives such as DEM-Debate come into play.
European regulations and free knowledge
The DSA’s new standards apply to big tech and community-governed platforms alike. Despite its emphasis on human rights, transparency, and accountability, which have long been championed by Wikipedia, the DSA presents compliance obligations that might burden nonprofit organisations with limited resources. According to Ronan Fahy, Assistant Professor at the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, and lead DEM-Debate researcher, fostering collaboration between platforms and regulatory bodies can lead to a more effective response to disinformation challenges. The team will conduct independent research into how the current regulatory framework supports free knowledge communities and generate policy recommendations to ensure that free knowledge communities are supported in their contribution to the public interest.
Wikipedia transferable practices for reliable information
For the last 20 years, thousands of people from various cultural contexts have constructively disagreed on the accurate representation of knowledge throughout Wikipedia. The communities’ content creation and moderation practices are instrumental in ensuring that peer-based knowledge production is transparent. Anna Mazgal, Executive Director of Wikimedia Europe and DEM-Debate supervisor, explained that the DEM-Debate approach is twofold. On the one hand, to assess how the current regulatory framework influences free knowledge through legal analysis. On the other hand, analyse the communities information flow through computational analysis. David Laniado, Senior Researcher at Eurecat and DEM-Debate researcher, explained this method: his team will focus on the digital footprints of users in the edit history and talk pages of Wikipedia entries and community spaces related to the EU elections, such as articles on political parties and candidates. They will analyse activity, conflict, and controversies on these pages over time and across different countries and linguistic communities. The two methodologies combined with communities’ input and feedback will offer a full picture of Wikipedia’s practices on information on elections.
A field-tested model for a public interest internet
The evidence collected by DEM-Debate on what works – and what does not – in the Wikipedia model to counter disinformation will constitute the basis of our advocacy work to support free and equitable knowledge in Europe. The findings will be translated into policy recommendations that will benefit both the policymakers and the information ecosystem, including the Wikimedia communities and other community-based projects, proposing a new model of public interest internet based on transparency, reliability of sources and a decentralised governance.
The DEM-Debate kickoff panel was part of Wikimedia Europe’s Big Fat Brussels Meeting, an annual gathering of about forty community members discussing policy and advocacy to advance free knowledge in the EU. As the DEM-Debate project moves forward, the communities will play a crucial role in the project mapping out their policies and practices, and sharing critical insights that will inform the researchers’ work at any project phase.
The DEM-Debate project is supported by the European Media and Information Fund – EMIF managed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
_2.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
Disclaimer. The sole responsibility for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute. https://gulbenkian.pt/emifund/disclaimer/