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# System prepended metadata

title: Wiki Tutorial

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# Wiki Tutorial

#### Tessa Baum, January 21, 2021

The reading written in 2019 by Danah Boyd, ["Agnotology and Epistemological Fragmentation"](https://points.datasociety.net/agnotology-and-epistemological-fragmentation-56aa3c509c6b), calls on its readers (educators, scholars, students, and those that care about the web and its content) to produce good and reliable content for internet users. Boyd outlines the daunting issues that come with using the web. One topic, written in the article's title, is agnotology: the tactical creation of ignorance. I originally thought that ignorance was passive, something that is caused by the lack of actively trying to learn and progress. But Boyd's explanation of how the powerful can easily manipulate and skew the information being shown to web viewers has changed my mind. By figuring out what Boyd calls the "information ecosystem", web users can maliciously utilize "data voids" to direct other web users to information that pushes extremist and harmful content. I see now that ignorance, or maybe it’s creation, is in fact extremely active and in an evil way *smart*, which is quite an oxymoron.

This makes me think, *what now?* How might we continue to monitor the web to prevent media spectacles like what happened in New Zealand (Boyd, 2019) without others arguing that it is stepping over the line into censorship? Is it even right to argue that the restriction of such content is censorship when it is *clearly* (to most) detrimental to society and its well-being?

Boyd also emphasized how strategically spreading said content is more than half the battle. However, searching for an inkling of a solution, I wonder if using the same exploitive tactics against these mass media manipulators is attacking the issue from only one direction. Boyd stated the alarming ease in which one can fall down a rabbit hole of propaganda. Although it is hard to fault the user who makes two clicks and is already spiraling down, maybe by how we educate ourselves and others on how to search and verify the content, we can create a more bi-directional solution. I remember from middle school being told that [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) was unreliable and could never be considered a good source. Now of course I would never source a wiki page in my scholarly research papers, however, after reading this article (and after learning about the *quite* dedicated wiki contributors) it is safe to say that there are many other unsafe wormholes on the web, and maybe the obligatory "No wiki" rant needs to be elaborated on in schools.

![I'm sorry for this gif, but I could not think of another image to put, and sometimes I wish I could type this fast, or maybe I wish I was Jim Carrey...His life seems like it's in order.](https://media1.tenor.com/images/8ae2d450312857400fa2074ecd9bcd07/tenor.gif?itemid=4680550)

### Here is the video that the article was based on
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFPJxGxXFK4?start=1269" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>