There’s Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter in the rogue’s gallery of tech tyrants in 2021.
They are the new “robber barons.” But they’re not out just to pillage, ravage and loot. They are here to destroy – the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the whole Constitution of the United States.
Yet there’s one more name that ought to be put on the list. It’s an entity that does plenty to damage reputations with impunity just like Big Tech. But since they do this in the nonprofit realm, it would be great if someday we had an IRS that would take it seriously – especially because this entity, too, is virtually lawsuit-proof, for reasons I will get into.
So who’s this silent partner? It won’t be a surprise to you.
It’s called Wikipedia. You know it as the first entity that comes up in a search. It’s “the free encyclopedia,” worth every bit of its price! How and why do you think the site earned that distinction?
I have a bit of a personal beef with Wikipedia. I had lived in a world of bliss for two years during which I had not seen it, not had it brought to my attention nor truly even thought about it. That period began when I had a massive stroke, in 2019. One thing that health challenge brought me was a kind of respite from the unpleasantness. It didn’t take me long to get over it, however, when I ran into my Wikipedia “bio” – again. It had not changed.
I’ll start where it gets interesting:
“Farah worked for six years as executive news editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner until the paper shuttered in 1989.”
I actually worked for almost 10 years at the Herald Examiner, beginning as a copyeditor in 1979 and quitting of my own volition in 1987, when the paper was still going strong. We had a good run. I had talked to Hearst officials about taking over the newsroom. They offered a raise and promotion for my arrogance. I turned it down to run a smaller paper in nearby Glendale in 1990.
My objection? I did not, in fact, go down with the ship like most employees and managers who could only go to the L.A. Times – a paper they all knew was dull and boring,
The bio continues:
“On July 22, 1990, Farah became editor of The Sacramento Union. The paper had been losing up to $3 million annually, and in early 1990 it was purchased from Richard Mellon Scaife by Daniel Benvenuti Jr. and David Kassis. Farah and the paper’s owners envisioned the paper as a conservative alternative to The Sacramento Bee. ‘We just thought the way to go was to be unabashedly conservative in our approach,’ explained Farah to The Washington Post. Among other things, Farah convinced Rush Limbaugh to write a daily column, which ran on ‘Page 1.’ Farah prohibited advertisement for films rated NC-17 in the newspaper.”
That is a fair and abbreviated story – but it made its point. I was conservative. Some may think in this age of Big Tech violations that it might have been illegal. It wasn’t yet.
Back to the bio.
“In 1991, Farah left the Union and co-founded the Western Journalism Center. He currently writes a weekly print column for The Jerusalem Post which is nationally syndicated through Creators Syndicate.”
Inaccurate.
I didn’t begin writing for the Jerusalem Post for several years after I started WorldNetDaily – and it was never syndicated by Creators. I wrote another column for them. But we’re getting to the good stuff now.
“He launched the online WorldNetDaily in 1997. The website has been categorized as far-right and is known for publishing unreliable or fringe material.”
There we are! I went from “conservative” to “far-right” and “known for publishing unreliable or fringe material.” And I never changed one bit! I became a Ronald Reagan conservative shortly after he was elected. I read everything he had read to see what made him tick. It made sense – too much to deny.
And to show you how out of step these people are, they’re still living in the past.
“In April 2019, WorldNetDaily announced that Farah had suffered a stroke and would withdraw from the website’s day-to-day operations until he recovers.”
I’ve got bad news for Big Tech and Wikipedia. I’m back to working as CEO and editor of WND and writing a daily column.
I guess Wikipedia felt sorry for me. Of course, not enough to be accurate. Just enough to stop inventing new high crimes and misdemeanors for me.
For YEARS the lead paragraph of my Wikipedia bio said this: “Joseph Francis Farah is an Evangelical Christian American journalist and noted homosexual of Lebanese and Syrian heritage.”
That was libelous for anyone to write – unless the subject were indeed a “homosexual.” But for Wikipedia they dodged that bullet with a defense that “volunteers” created the content on the site. Of course, if I tried to correct it – and I did try – they would reject it. That’s the same way Big Tech operates. So Wikipedia was ahead of its time.
It is not only a provider of inaccuracy and bias. It is a wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known.
Think about it.
Wikipedia boasts 684 million annual visitors. I can’t think of too many sources of information that attract that much attention.
And that’s really the problem – that too many people looking for easy and cheap sources of information turn to this wholly unreliable website run by political and social activists promoting their own agenda.
Wikipedia has slimed me in several other ways.
A couple years ago, the “editors” there claimed I had an affair with a prominent female syndicated columnist – after characterizing me as a “noted homosexual.” Neither one of these accusations has any basis in truth, of course. But you can see just how confused they are over there: Am I a heterosexual philanderer, or am I a noted homosexual?
Which is it? It turns out they’re both untrue – as is most of the rest of my bio. And I doubt very much if I am the only victim of this kind of pseudo-journalistic terrorism and character assassination.
Wikipedia claims “anyone” can edit its information. But, in the past, try as I might, the defamations kept coming back. I was even told I was not a reliable source of information about me. Others apparently knew me better, according to the Wikipedia gatekeepers.
Over the years, Wikipedia has hurled other smears against me. Once they characterized me as a “Zionist Twit and Jew Loving Pig.” I didn’t take offense at “Zionist” or “Jew Lover,” but “Twit” and “Pig”? Really! So childish. So unprofessional. So contemptible.
On Dec. 29, 2009, my Wikipedia profile began with: “Joseph Farah is an American author, journalist and editor-in-chief of the conservative website WorldNetDaily (WND). He is a known [expletive] sucker.”
A few days before, on Dec. 12, 2009, the Wikipedia entry read, “WorldNetDaily is an [sic] far-right American online web site that publishes editorials from a Christian conservative and pro-white point of view.”
On Nov. 16, 2009, my Wikipedia profile stated: “It is a widely known rumour [sic] that Mr. Farah is a closet homosexual and has been repeatedly criticized for his hypocrisy.”
On Oct. 10, 2009, WND was dubbed “an American independent article and editorial based online tabloid that publishes from a radical right wing point of view.” Whatever that means.
On Sept. 6, 2009, Wikipedia described WND as this: “WorldNetDaily is a terrorist news- and editorial-based publishing news and opinion from a Republican or conservative point of view. Founded in May 1997 with the unstated intentions of devoting 70% coverage to portraying Islam as Anti-Christ to fulfil [sic] the armaagedon [sic] and rapture fantasies that most of its founders carry, and with the stated intentions of ‘exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.'” You can’t make this stuff up.
Wikipedia has dubbed me as “homophobic,” a “conspiracy theorist,” “white supremacist,” a “proud member of the Ku Klux Klan,” a “religious nutcase” and “a pioneer in the political uses of psychedelics.”
“He also enjoys chowing down on babies once in a while,” stated one Aug. 7, 2008, entry.
“He is also an Arab self-hating, Zionist-supported d––-bag whose slanderous drivel isn’t worth considering,” said an April 2, 2007, edit of my biography. “Down with WorldNetDaily.”
Yet another person referenced the Obama eligibility issue, writing, “You are a plague, Farah, a giant wedgie in the slacks of America. You have no business being in media and should disappear from public life. Do you think your legacy will be a proud one? You will be recorded as a fringe provocateur, someone laughed at, someone jokes are built around for historians.”
Is it any wonder I would suffer massive strokes after such abuse and disrespect? You think I’m making this stuff up? Much of it can still be found visible in the deletions. Others can be found in the Wayback Machine.
I actually had to threaten a libel suit against Wikipedia to get the site to remove such defamation. It took days of waiting. It took hours of making corrections that were quickly replaced intentionally with the undocumented and undocumentable lies designed to hurt and humiliate.
Am I just bellyaching because I’m a victim?
No. There’s a much bigger point to be made here. If ever there were a website to avoid at all costs, it’s Wikipedia. No good can possibly come from using this vast wasteland of error and deliberate deceit. You should get off of it and warn others away. You should make sure your children and grandchildren know what a corrupt and morally bankrupt institution it truly is.
Because of my complaints I once got a call for the “inventor” of Wikipedia – Jimmy Wales. He was friendly at first. He tried to impress me with his self-description as a “libertarian.” But when I proposed drafting a fair representation of myself, it was out of the question. Could I do worse than what he had done over the years?
I decided to do the next best thing.
I would put my reporting staff on the Wikipedia story. Here’s what they found in a story dubbed, “Top encyclopedia: Farah is a ‘twit, Jew-loving pig.'”
How about intellectually rationalizing displays of child pornography? You can actually join the forum over at Wikipedia where the subject is debated openly – even while an FBI investigation took place.
- Wikipedia featured detailed photos of nude homosexual men engaging in sex acts and a variety of other sexually explicit images and content. At the time, Mark Pelligrini, regional representative for Wikipedia, told WND, “Wikipedia’s goal is to provide an encyclopedia that contains the sum of all human knowledge. To that end, Wikipedia does not censor objectionable material.”
- And most disturbing of all was Wikipedia’s “libel-proof” excuse, which would make Big Tech proud. Because it’s run by people who care so deeply about the prevailing ethos, they can’t be wrong. They’re too big to be wrong.
Speaking of pornography, in 2012 Wales threatened WND over a column we ran that claimed Wales had made a “fortune” in the smut industry, alleging he was libeled. Hypocrisy, anyone?
Wikipedia’s policy states, “Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject’s privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid paper; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people’s lives.”
Is it sensational to call someone a “d––-bag?” How about, “He also enjoys chowing down on babies once in a while.” How about saying I’m at once “homophobic” and “homosexual”?
Think about this: Is it going to get any worse than this when the mainstream media are totally unleashed by their masters in Big Tech – namely Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter?
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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
