INDIA, March 28, 2016 (Jagrit Bharat by Aditya Agrawal): While surfing the internet and searching for information, many users navigate to Wikipedia for a preliminary insight on any topic. Hence Wikipedia articles are extremely important. For a non-academic user, information contained in a Wikipedia article is generally considered to be authentic. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Wiki articles have a much longer shelf life. Once created, these articles stay and can be retrieved whenever required.
This easy availability of wiki articles is the reason that it can be an ideal propaganda tool. The fact that anyone can create an article or can change it, makes a Wikipedia article a starting point for anyone who would like to put his/her point across. Additionally, if an article has to be given a deliberate political twist, it can also be done in a very clandestine manner. This later aspect has been understood quite early by Western opinion makers.
I was an avid user of Wikipedia. Steadily I also learnt to create some articles on Wikipedia. Most of us might be aware that on Wikipedia, anyone can create articles as well as edit existing articles. During my interactions with Wiki articles, I observed that whenever I created or edited a neutral article (on films/ music etc.) there were no issues. However the moment I tried to touch any page related to Hinduism, my changes were either removed partially or completely. I also observed that there were similar persons who were always involved in the monitoring process.
For Agrawal’s detailed analysis of this issue, go to “source”.