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I just wrapped up a deep dive into Taylor Lorenz’s Wikipedia page, and what I found feels like a live case study in the kind of media bias and institutional trust issues we often unpack here. Taylor Lorenz is once again making waves for her controversial praise for Luigi Mangione. She first expressed “joy” over the murder in a December 2024 Piers Morgan interview, saying it tied to her belief in the “sanctity of life” amid healthcare frustrations, though she later backtracked to “not empathy.” Then, she doubled down on CNN, calling Mangione “handsome,” “smart,” and—most shockingly—“morally good,” framing him as a revolutionary figure that women admire. This sparked immediate backlash, with figures like Stephen Miller, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee slamming her on X, and outlets like Fox News and The Independent covering the uproar extensively. Yet, when I checked her Wikipedia page today, April 16, 2025, there’s not a single mention of this controversy (or any others!). I found this isn’t the first time her page has skipped major controversies. There are other omissions we’ve discussed here before, like her 2020 amplification of Claudia Conway’s anti-Trump TikToks—criticized for exploiting a minor, as reported by Daily Mail—and her 2021 false claim that Marc Andreessen used a slur on Clubhouse, later corrected but not without backlash, as noted by Fox News. Both incidents were widely covered but are absent from her page, suggesting a pattern of selective editing. The Mangione comments feel especially egregious given their recency and impact. Fox News ran pieces on both her Piers Morgan and CNN remarks, with headlines like “Taylor Lorenz’s ‘heinous’ defense of Luigi Mangione as a ‘morally good man’ disgusts X users,” while The Independent highlighted her CNN interview, noting she’s a “regular target of attacks from the right online” but also pointing to the “disingenuous outrage culture” her comments feed. National Review and OutKick also weighed in, with the latter accusing her of backtracking after initially denying the “morally good” claim—despite video evidence. This level of coverage screams notability, so why the silence on Wikipedia? The Wikipedia Talk page for Lorenz’s article offers some clues. Just yesterday a user named The lorax argued that the Mangione comments have gained “lasting impact” due to ongoing media attention, citing The Independent’s recent article as a reliable source. Marquardtika agreed, pushing for inclusion, but others pushed back, claiming the coverage might be biased or not “DUE” enough, referencing Wikipedia’s Reliable Sources Policy. Notwally, in a detailed post, dissected The Independent’s reporting, noting it mischaracterized Lorenz’s CNN remarks—her actual quote framed Mangione’s appeal as a public sentiment rather than her personal view—but still argued the controversy might not be significant enough, especially since the latest article didn’t reference her earlier “joy” comment.
This debate mirrors earlier ones on the Talk page about Lorenz’s harassment experiences, where editors have been battling since March 2025 over whether to call attacks against her “coordinated.” Some pointed to sources showing coordination (e.g., Lorenz’s claim that Tucker Carlson mobilized followers against her), while others argued there’s no proof, leading to the section being renamed simply “Harassment.”
What strikes me most about the Talk page is the tension between editors trying to maintain neutrality and those who seem overly cautious about including anything too controversial.
In the harassment debate, Delectopierre accused another editor of downplaying Lorenz’s experiences, warning that such edits “mimic some of the disgusting tactics used in Gamergate” by denying her reality. The editor countered that they were trying to expand the section neutrally, focusing on secondary sources over Lorenz’s tweets to avoid bias, but the back-and-forth shows how contentious this page is. The Mangione discussion feels like a continuation of this struggle: even with reliable sources, some editors are hesitant to touch polarizing content. But Wikipedia’s NPOV policy demands that all significant views be represented, and Lorenz’s comments—praising an accused killer and drawing condemnation from high-profile figures—clearly meet that bar. Excluding them isn’t neutrality; it’s selective storytelling.
This isn’t just about Lorenz; it’s about Wikipedia’s credibility. If her page can skip over statements this explosive, especially when they’re so fresh and widely covered, what does that say about Wikipedia’s ability to handle divisive figures? The pattern of omission suggests a bias toward downplaying Lorenz’s most polarizing moments, which risks presenting a sanitized version of her public image.
I was considering jumping into the Talk page debate myself, arguing that the Mangione comments deserve inclusion under NPOV given the breadth of coverage and their impact. But as it turns out my IP is banned from editing even though I’ve never tried.
I’m curious if any of you have noticed similar patterns on other Wikipedia pages for controversial figures. Is this a systemic issue? Do we need a new Wikipedia built by uncompassionate LLMs?
Someone on substack recently pointed out to me that Wikipedia invariably describes people who write for National Review and similar as "conservative journalists", whereas people who write for Vox or HuffPo will simply be described as "journalists".
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The scary thing is it's not limited to individuals, or even just current events. You'd think history would be a little more dispassionate, but unfortunately that isn't the case.
Here's the example that really made me realize the extent of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache
While there are sections in there about the Apache wars with the US, there is absolutely nothing about the fact that they were almost eradicated by the Comanche. In fact, it barely even mentions the Comanche at all. That would be like discussing small pox and barely even mentioning the vaccine while going into great depth on its decline during the 20th century.
The Comanche Wars article will helpfully add for context the fact that "they also shared parts of Comancheria with the Wichita, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache" (for some value of "shared"...), and explains that those wars were because "The value of the Comanche traditional homeland was recognized by European-American colonists". They do say that the wars "began in 1706 with raids by Comanche warriors on the Spanish colonies of New Spain", but you have to find the article specifically about the Shoshone to learn that "Some of them moved as far south as Texas, emerging as the Comanche by 1700."
I still don't get why pushing for the moral legitimacy of the Comanche conquests is a thing. I'd think the idea of a "traditional homeland" should have deeper connotations than "we conquered your neighbors more than six years before we tried to conquer you too!"
Ah, yes. The Comanche, according to wikipedia were "nomadic traders" up until... "As European Americans encroached on their territory, the Comanche waged war on the settlers and raided their settlements, as well as those of neighboring Native American tribes."
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I'm pretty sure it's just the standard "never show weakness" logic. People who take this position are highly concerned with optics. It's hard to assert that you have a morally superior position when flaws can be found in the building blocks. Strategically it's better to gloss over as many as possible, redirect when exposed, and then scrub them from the records when the spotlight is elsewhere.
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On priors, Wikipedia has a clear liberal bias. For most CW topics, there are more liberal advocates than there are principled proponents of NPOV who will pick that particular topic as their hill to die on.
(Of course, it depends on the topic. The Wikipedia page of Peter Singer -- even the German one -- is rather non-terrible. I guess that the median Wikipedian interested in him is simply someone interested in his philosophy, not some anti-fascist who decides that he is an eugenicist.)
From viewing her site, it seems that all the sources for her being harassed are ca. 2022, so it seems that WP has opted not to tell recent developments rather than trying to selectively report on it, which is the most I will say in her defense.
I mean, Mel Gibson gets his much-deserved controversy section. I am 99% sure that that rapper who made some antisemitic remarks (is that a unique description?) also has his comments immortalized on WP.
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Sideline but the amount of 'Rittenhouse was found to be acting in self defense therefore Murder by anybody left/POC-aligned that I find morally justified is apparently not a crime' thinking from the Left side of the aisle you see lately is insane. I've seen legitimate direct comparisons of Karmelo Anthony shivving somebody to Rosa Parks on the timeline in recent weeks.
whoa wait. what did I miss?
Search for "Karmelo Anthony". The comments on his substantial GoFundMe are wild.
Note not Carmelo Anthony, even though Google autofill will try to change it to that if you type in 'karm' and otherwise refuse to guess.
Don't think that's necessarily Google trying to turn the agenda. Carmelo pronounced with a Hard C been notable for decades at this point and K probably fairly common misspelling.
Yeah yeah nothing is ever anyone's fault
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Just spend like five minutes on imgur
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This is just standard Wikipedia “libwashing” if you’ll forgive the neologism. any and all left wing culture warriors get isolated demands of rigour for any negative information appearing on their page, while conservative cultural figures, even minor ones, often get gishgalloping of bad press from the guardian, or motherjones or even just random social media posts
It’s really annoying. Actually it’s infuriating to try to create balance on Wikipedia. They’ve been very successful at chasing away any opposition.
I love that idea of yours, an LLM generated Wikipedia would be far superior. How hard would it be to clone the existing Wikipedia, then just start updating the bad articles to become good ones? Could wiki foundation sue you for that?
As @quiet_NaN notes, it's highly unlikely that Wikipedia would be able to sue you over a clone site, or that they'd even want to, given how frequently I see the articles pop up on subject specific wikis that aren't affiliated with the main site. That being said, there are a few problems with this approach. The first one I see popping up is that once you clone the site and make the necessary updates, it will quickly become outdated if you're only focusing on the small percentage of the site with political relevance. Automating the process runs the risk of automating out all the changes you've made.
But there's probably some workaround for that. The real problem is that such an exercise would be utterly pointless. At root level, what is the concern about an overrepresentation of liberal viewpoints on Wikipedia and an underrepresentation of conservative ones? Correct me if I'm wrong, but all I can think of is that it presents a distorted view of reality to the average reader—it may be useful that someone who doesn't know who Taylor Lorenz is but looks her up for whatever reason is aware that she's made controversial statements. At least, it's useful provided the site has a general policy of describing notable controversies. And maybe at some bigger level it can give the impression that conservatives are overall worse people than liberals due to the asymmetry in controversy.
A Wikipedia clone created to rectify perceived liberal bias in the original isn't likely to achieve this end. The kind of person likely to adopt such an alternative isn't the normie you assume is being influenced by this stuff, but the conservative looking to have his opinions validated. Why would anyone without your particular axe to grind prefer an imitation over the original?
Mostly because it leads to completely inaccurate understanding amongst the public on various scientific topics - HBD, IQ, climate change, transexualism, and crime are big ones that are very important for the public to understand, yet are propagandized into a false consciousness thanks to Wikipedia.
The fact you don’t see this as a major problem is, uh, interesting. Is this some dry humour or something? Am I missing sarcastic tone here?
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"Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License"
I do not think they would have much of a chance to sue you.
Of course, I also do not believe that LLMs are as good curators of information as Wikipedians, political slant aside. One idea would be a "community notes" (a la twitter) browser extension, which could cover all kinds of sites including WP articles. Still non-trivial to pull off -- you require a large community of authenticated users to make it work.
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If you're interested you should register an account. The only real barrier to entry is dealing with dedicated volunteers who have mastered the blade of bureaucracy. A battle of will.
Yes. Did you read one of The Motte's forsaken progeny write on an English Wiki's power admin last year?
Wikipedia seems to make generally correct decisions as edit wars escalate in areas with controversy. That's around a 70% generally, not a 90% generally. It is an ideologically slanted correct decision similar to the ideological slanted factual reporting of [news agency]. If you list 10 areas of controversy undergoing various versions of edit wars I can generally guess which side of it is the status quo. That one is a 90%+ generally that approaches almost always.
The ones today learn quite a bit from Wikipedia I imagine.
Not sure why changes like this don't fall afoul of the NOTNEWS rule. This isn't an ongoing conflict that is important enough to keep up-to-date. This is a not particularly accomplished reporter. She is mostly a controversial reporter famous for her controversy. They could make policy that has a 60 day embargo on changes to living people who aren't heads of state or some such. Tying edits to the American news cycle is fundamentally flawed. Which loops back around to the problems with the reputable sources system.
Wikipedia, like this place in some ways, is an impossible project. It's pretty cool it is as good at it is.
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Every time I read the nth article or post about how obviously the system is gamed and the truth counts for nothing, I think Charles Mackay writing about two men who had crashed France's economy: "They were both held in horror, but the people confined themselves to complaints; a sombre and timid despair, a stupid consternation, had seized upon all, and men's minds were too vile even to be capable of a courageous crime."
Yes, the truth is disdained by those in power, it is a sometimes useful tool for pushing a narrative and nothing more. What now? What actions can be taken to topple wikipedia, or smear it such that it's no longer the encyclopedia of record? How do you get reddit moderators to stop slandering Kyle Rittenhouse as an indiscriminate racist murderer? I think that "raising awareness" only goes so far until you end up in "here lies conservatism" territory.
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Tracing Woodgrains's writeup on a specific Wikipedia editor is a must-read if you haven't done so already.
Given that AI implicitly trusts Wikipedia sources in the training set the most (not programmed; just organically and in part because of references to the platform elsewhere), and every LLM is trained on it, Wikipedia power editors have unfathomable power, possibly over the future of all life on earth and maybe beyond. Interesting to think about.
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You may be interested in TracingWoodgrains, lately of this parish, 's essay on a similar case. The problem is certainly not unique, though I wouldn't say it's universal either.
I do also want to say that, while this Lorenz person seems like a pretty tiresome outrage-bait-manufacturer, one has to laugh at "as reported by the Daily Mail", which it is perfectly sensible of Wikipedia to ignore as a source. It's tantamount to a tabloid.
The TracingWoodgrains essay offers PinkNews as an example of a news outlet given the status of a Reliable Source, suggesting it should not have been because:
It published a false story about Joanna Cherry, “retracting only after Cherry pursued legal options against them.” The wording suggests that Cherry asked them for a correction and they refused, but the supplied link doesn’t support that.
They attributed a quote to the wrong individual, and issued a correction when the error was pointed out to them.
A tweet promoting an article about Bill O’Reilly allegedly misrepresented the contents of the article. This doesn’t indicate there was anything wrong with the article itself.
“The site has a history of tabloid-esque sensationalism, clickbait, and photoshops about celebrities.” The supporting link says that one celebrity accused PinkNews of doing this. It doesn’t say whether the accusation is true.
Wikipedia editor Gerard said that PinkNews should be considered a reliable source because, “claims of journalistic malfeasance on their part didn't check out at all when we looked into them and discovered they'd actually handled them in an exemplary fashion.” As improbable as it may sound, if the worst that can be substantiated about PinkNews is that it got two stories wrong and issued corrections in both cases, it seems like it is indeed a reliable source.
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