How Culture Wars Are Impacting Wikipedia: An Inside Look 📝

Wikipedia might seem like a public utility, but in recent years it’s become part of the culture wars. The site has been criticized by Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, congressional Republicans and right-wing influencers, who all claim that Wikipedia is biased. On “The Interview,” Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales talks to host Lulu Garcia-Navarro about how he views this political moment and the challenges Wikipedia faces. Wales has written a book, “The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last,” which will be published this month.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/magazine/jimmy-wales-interview.html

Additional video credits for this episode include: Zach Caldwell (cinematography) and Luke Piotrowski and Jenny Leavitt (additional cameras).

“The Interview” features conversations with the world’s most fascinating people. Each week, co-hosts David Marchese and Lulu Garcia-Navarro talk to compelling, influential figures in culture, politics, business, sports and beyond — illuminating who they are, why they do what they do and how they impact the rest of us.

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Chapters:
00:06 About Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales
01:18 Our society’s “trust deficit”
02:59 How Wikipedia works
06:57 Why Wikipedia sometimes restricts editing access to a page
09:03 Wikipedia editors under threat
11:16 The congressional investigation
14:35 Charlie Kirk
17:04 Elon Musk
22:16 A.I. and Large Language Models
26:20 Was the internet better before?
28:25 Media bias
30:58 Wikipedia’s creation and lessons for today
33:39 The benefits of Wikipedia’s non-profit status
36:22 Tucker Carlson
38:48 Wikipedia’s future
40:15 The last Wikipedia page Wales visited