Recently The New York Times reported the following:
Wikipedia Is Battling for the Soul of the Internet (1/3)
The internet’s largest stockpile of free knowledge is
under threat from MAGA, A.I. and foreign autocrats. A bibliophile ex-ambassador
is here to help.
The NYT - By Tiffany Hsu - Tiffany Hsu reports on the
information ecosystem, including foreign influence, political speech and
disinformation
July 5, 2026
Wikipedia is in peril.
In a world where trust in truth is crumbling, the grande
dame of collective online fact-gathering is under threat on every front. The
MAGA right, with Elon Musk at the fore, is slinging accusations of political
bias and antisemitism and has even questioned the site’s nonprofit status.
Artificial intelligence is raiding the encyclopedia’s resources and draining
attention. Repressive governments have hauled its volunteer editors into penal
colonies.
In Wikipedia’s 25-year history, it has never had to fight this hard.
The organization that supports the site, the Wikimedia Foundation, is increasing its lobbying budget and advertising in Times Square. It is charging companies like Google and Meta that gobble up the encyclopedia’s 65 million articles, and throttling access for certain scrapers. And it is expanding its human rights team to better protect volunteers against rising harassment, surveillance and retaliation.
For an organization that holds neutrality as a cardinal rule, it is a lot of conflict, requiring Wikimedia to go on the offensive — diplomatically, of course.
So it found a diplomat: Bernadette Meehan, 50, became Wikimedia’s chief executive in January, after stints as the U.S. ambassador to Chile and at the Obama Foundation, at the State Department, at the National Security Council and on Wall Street.
In a career full of hire-wire [sic] acts — helping to negotiate nuclear deals with Iran, facilitating talks with Cuba — being the custodian of one of the world’s 10 most visited websites could be Ms. Meehan’s trickiest task. The trilingual former public servant is the first with her background in the Wikimedia job, succeeding mostly women from fields like law, journalism and Planned Parenthood.
Ms. Meehan will not say Wikipedia is at war — not after she spent much of 2007 in Iraq, in an actual war zone where she witnessed “the supreme cruelty of human beings.”
But she accepts that the site is in a metaphorical battle for its very existence.
“Wikipedia underpins everything that we have on the internet,” she said in her first interview in the role. “It is beloved, it is credible; in increasingly polarized times, it is seen as a trustworthy source.”
It is also, she said, at an inflection point.
“How do we keep this project alive?” she asked.
(to be continued in part 2)
Translation
維基百科正面臨網絡靈魂之戰（1/3）
網絡上最大的免費知識寶庫正受到「讓美國再次偉大」（MAGA）運動、人工智能和外國獨裁者的威脅。一位熱愛書籍的前大使將伸出援手
維基百科岌岌可危。
在一個人們對真相的信任日漸崩塌的世界裡，這個線上集體收集事實的「老牌」網站正面臨四面楚歌的威脅。以Elon Musk為首的「讓美國再次偉大」右翼勢力指責維基百科存在政治偏見和反猶太主義，甚至質疑其非營利性質。人工智能正在掠奪維基百科的資源，並分散人們的注意力。一些專制政府甚至將維基百科的志願編輯流放到帶懲罰性的地區。
在維基百科25年的歷史中，它從未面臨過如此嚴峻的挑戰。
維基媒體基金會（Wikimedia Foundation）作為維基百科的營運方，正在增加遊說預算，並在時代廣場投放廣告。基金會向Google和Meta等公司收取費用，這些公司大量抓取維基百科的6,500萬篇文章，基金會同時限制某些爬網程式的存取權限。此外，基金會也正在擴充人權團隊，以更好地保護義工免受日益嚴重的騷擾、監視和報復。
對於一個將中立視為基本原則的組織而言，這無疑是巨大的衝突，迫使維基媒體採取主動 - 當然，是透過外交手段。
於是，基金會找到了一位外交官：50歲的 Bernadette Meehan 於今年1月出任維基媒體行政總裁。此前，她曾擔任美國駐智利大使，並在奧巴馬基金會、國務院、國家安全委員會以及華爾街任職。
在職業生涯曾経歴充滿各種困難、政治敏感且風險極高的外交使命 - 例如協助伊朗進行核協議談判、促成與古巴的會談的Meehan女士 - 如今管理世界排名十大最受歡迎網站之一，或許這是她面臨的最棘手的任務。這位精通三種語言的前公務員是維基媒體首位擁有類似背景的女性，此前，擔任這一職位的女性大多來自法律、新聞和計劃生育等領域。
Meehan女士不願說維基百科正處於戰爭狀態 - 畢竟她在2007年的大部分時間裡都身處伊拉克，親眼目睹了「人類的極端殘暴」。
但她承認，維基百科正在一場在比喻上關乎其存亡的戰爭。
她在就任後的首次採訪中說道:“維基百科是我們互聯網一切的基礎”，“它深受喜愛，值得信賴；在當今這個日益兩極分化的時代，它被視為一個值得信賴的資信來源。”
她也表示，維基百科正處於一個轉折點。
她問道:「我們該如何令維基百科繼續存在？」。
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