Lawfare Daily: Wikipedia, Ref-Working, and the Battle Over Reality

Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia. It’s a key part of the internet’s information infrastructure—shaping what people know, what AI models learn, and what the public sees as true. But in an era of geopolitical conflict, AI disruption, and fracturing trust, Wikipedia has come under attack.

In this episode, Renée DiResta talks with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales about his new book, “The Seven Rules of Trust,” and about how Wikipedia has managed to remain one of the most trusted sites on the internet. They explore the principles that helped build that trust and the outside pressure it’s come under—from American congressmen, to Russian censorship campaigns, to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia.

What does it take to make institutions trustworthy in a low-trust era? What happens when reliable sources become a battleground for power? And how does a community continue to build shared knowledge while partisans are redefining the rules of truth?

For further reading, see:

• “The Right-Wing Attack On Wikipedia,” by Renée DiResta in The Atlantic
• ”The War Over Ukraine—on Wikipedia,” by Catarina Buchatskiy in Lawfare
• “Russian Court Fines Wikipedia Owner for Article on Ukraine,” by Anna Chernova and Olesya Dmitracova, CNN
• “The CDC Should Be More Like Wikipedia,” by Renée DiResta in The Atlantic

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