The Trump administration is going after the free encyclopedia. Journalist Stephen Harrison explains how the site went from “the last bastion of shared reality” to “Wokepedia.” This episode was produced by Gabrielle Berbey with help from Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Andrea Kristinsdottir and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Photo Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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What's the best thing you've ever stumbled upon on Wikipedia? One of my favorites was buried deep in the Rice Krispies entry, better known as Rice Bubbles in Australia and New Zealand, according to Wikipedia. I digress. About four or five scrolls deep, right near the end of the entry, there's a subheading which reads Snap, Crackle, and Pop Sound.
It states that the cereal is marketed on the basis of the noises it produces when milk is added to the bowl. The onomatopoeic noises differ by country and language. And at this point, I was like, go on. Turns out in Danish, it's piff, poff, puff. In Swedish, it's piff, paff, puff. In German, it's nisper, nasper, nusper, kkk. Weird. Spanish, pim, pam, pum. Finnish, ricks, racks, pocks.
French, crick, crack, crock. I love Wikipedia. Most of us do. But the Trump administration doesn't. And they're threatening the free encyclopedia. How come? On Today Explained.
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You're listening to Today Explained.
I'm Stephen Harrison. I'm a journalist who has covered Wikipedia for the past eight years for sites like Wired and Slate. I'm also the author of The Editors, which is a suspense novel inspired by Wikipedia. And outside of that, I'm a lawyer, and my practice area is IT transactions.
So you write a lot about Wikipedia and you even wrote a book about Wikipedia called The Editors. Does that mean that you are a Wikipedia editor?
Well, I'd say I'm a low-key Wikipedia editor. I'm the type who fixes typos, uploads photos. I spent some time working on an article about the Stonely P, which is my favorite bar and restaurant here in Dallas. It's really famous. But I'm not like an extensive Wikipedia editor. And I think it really has to do with personality. Like I'm really driven to do investigative journalism and reporting.
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