Comment on Is it dumb to create a wiki in this day and age?
SamC@lemmy.nz 1 year ago
I think choice of software (wiki or otherwise) is the least of your worries. The problem is not so much with fake data, it’s with the interpretation of the data. That’s where the bias (and sometimes manipulation) comes in. Even if you managed to moderate it well enough so that all the data was “objective”, you couldn’t stop subjectivity being a part of the interpretation.
As an example, in most countries, certain minority groups are over-represented in prison populations. e.g. in the US, black people disproportionally end up in prison. That is an objective fact (so far as it goes).
But based on that fact, you could interpret it as either:
- Black people are just inherently more likely to commit crimes
- There are systemic biases that mean black people are imprisoned more often
How do you decide which is right when both are based on the data? (One is clearly racist, but still based partially on facts)