WEBVTT - Wikipedia and Climate Misinformation 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:08.360 Welcome everybody too. It could happen here. Um podcast about 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:10.720 I don't know, how things are kind of kind of 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.240 kind of crumbling and how we can maybe put it, 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.560 put stuff, put stuff back together. And today I am 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.720 excited to talk with a senior let's see what is 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.200 what is what? What is the actual? What's actual term? 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:32.800 I saw it A senior programs strategist at Wikimedia, Alex Stinson. Hello, greetings, Hi, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.800 it's so good to be here. I'm very excited about 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.400 our talk today because I mean, this should this should 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.960 surprise nobody that I used to I used to be 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.040 a Wikipedia editor back in the day. Not not shocking 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.720 at all, if if if you know me. Um, but yeah, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.479 we're gonna be talking about what kind of Wikipedia just itself, 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.960 and then also uh, climate misinformation and disinformation and how 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.880 we can maybe create a better understanding of climate change 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:04.280 in its effects across kind of the world and how 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.039 digital information works. Those are all kind of topics we 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.800 talk about often enough, but never within the actual context 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:15.560 of like Wikipedia as an entity. Um so I guess 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.360 let's let's just start there with with Wikipedia and like 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.200 for those who don't maybe maybe people like use website, 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:22.600 but they're not quite sure what it is, Like, how 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.440 how do you actually describe what Wikipedia is? Because it 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.520 is like an interesting kind of amorphous entity. It's so 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.840 many things. Um. I think most people are used to 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.760 thinking about Wikipedia is like the fact checking device. Like 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.360 I have a bar argument with my friends and I 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.240 pull out my phone and yeah, yeah, this website at 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.520 website at me. Right. Um, it's a lot of things. 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:49.800 It's three language Wikipedia's. Actually it's not just one. Each 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.640 of these communities has its own editorial community. Um. At 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.440 last I checked, it's like sixty million articles across the languages. 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.960 It's it's really it's a lot of different content, um. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.000 And a topic can be on each of those Wikipedia's right. Um. 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.239 And this is important as we start talking about disinformation. 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:10.960 Is like each Wikipedia because it's edited by people in 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.519 that language, and it's written by that language community. Um. 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.640 You know, each article is different and it has different perspectives. Um. 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:24.400 Two d eighty thousand volunteers editing every month. So this 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.720 is a lot of people, right. But the bulk of 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.320 that's happening on English Wikipedia and some of the larger 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:35.320 languages that are spoken across multiple cultural context And then 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.880 there's also a lot of other content sitting behind Wikipedia. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.720 So there's a media repository, um, And there's a we 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.960 called Wikimedia Commons, and there's a database called wiki Data, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.720 which kind of powers those little knowledge graphs on the 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.359 right side of Google and a whole bunch of other 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.920 parts of the Internet. Wiki data shows up in Amazon, 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.520 Alexa and all kinds of other places, right and and 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.799 so it's it's we're not just like one website. It's 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:09.079 many websites, lots of knowledge, lots of platforms, lots of context, um. 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.480 And we'll come back to that. Yeah, what really interesting 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:15.120 part of it is like I don't know my my 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:20.160 personal kind of social leanings. I generally kind of like 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:25.200 things that are more decentralized in general. Um. Other other 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.080 hosts on the podcast are generally kind of on like 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.959 the progressive left libertarian spectrum. Um. And one thing I 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.800 do really appreciated about Wikipedia is is it's more like 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.720 it's It's not I I don't think it's like open source, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.920 but it the way it has decentralized editing and all 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.280 that kind of stuff. It's just a really interesting model 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.720 of of like what if a lot more stuff worked 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.200 this way? And I'm not not sure, like how how 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:54.800 much of like a decentralization focus is there, like consciously 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.840 at people at like the foundation and people who try 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.200 to like actually like run it behind the scenes stuff. Yeah. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.480 So Wikipedia grows out of the like open source movement 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.680 and the kind of early days of the Internet. Right, 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.480 this idea that like knowledge wants to be free, technology 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.160 wants to be free, software wants to be free. Um, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.960 let's let's use the legal infrastructure to like create freedom, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.000 right uh in that sense, And then there's also the 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.719 free as in like anyone can edit, and then the 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.120 free to like do whatever you want out there in 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.120 the world. Um. There there's people are like free as 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.159 in beer and free as in speech, right uh. And 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.599 those things are those things are also there's they're always 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.000 intention uh and they're kind of working. And as you 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.520 can imagine, especially when you get outside of kind of 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:44.400 multicultural Internet spaces like English Wikipedia, um, it can get challenging. 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.360 Like if you're in Croatia and everyone is speaking Croatian, 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.000 there's a very small bubble in which to create that Wikipedia, right, Um. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.880 And so it's interesting in that sense. Um. I think 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.240 there's also another part of Wikipedia that a lot of 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.839 people don't see what just the movement behind it. So 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.280 there's the editorial communities, people show up and make edits um. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.800 But because there's this ideology that you're talking about, this 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.920 like decentralized, like we need to share knowledge or culture 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.520 or language on the Internet, there's also a whole social 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.640 movement sitting behind the scenes. Uh. And there there's a 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:23.000 podcast recently dot com The Wikipedia Story that kind of 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.800 captured that the essence of that UM and it's it's 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:29.680 a lot of people like myself, So I started editing 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:35.320 in high school. Yeah, yeah, one of those like, oh, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.360 I know how to click the edit button and I 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.280 figure out how to use the Internet and that kind 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:42.240 of thing. But there's a lot of people that like 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.280 the intuitiveness of clicking and edit button on a piece 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.040 of open source software to create content is just not 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.400 It's not clear, right, And so you have to organize 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.839 and invite people in and so we have a whole 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.839 movement that does that too. That there's about a hundred 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.000 fifty organizations around the world that we organized events, work 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:07.000 with libraries and museums and educational institutions, and so there's 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.160 always this um kind of interesting dynamic where our values, 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:15.200 which is this like open software platform stuff has also 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.799 lived in our practice, in our outreach, like creating change 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.359 through society by sharing knowledge and education. Um And so 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.320 I think, yeah, it's it's it's an interesting it's an 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.200 interesting dynamic. Yeah, I think that does create a really 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.200 oftentimes beautiful reflection. It could it can have some dark 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.320 side different once in a while, but it is It 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.719 is really nice to have like kind of the ideology 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.800 driving it being reflected in the actions of operating it 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.560 and spreading it and that kind of thing. Um. So 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.560 this is something we kind of briefly touched on already, 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.920 but I think I'd like to move on to kind 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.800 of why, like how climate change and broader like social 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:57.080 issues are covered on Wikipedia, because you already mentioned like 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.800 it's kind because there's not a Wikipedia, there's many based 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.360 on different languages in places. It feels like to me, 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.520 whenever social issues kind of get covered on Wikipedia, it's 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.799 going to be in some part like a local reflection 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.720 of whatever is in that area. You know, if if 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.080 there's like a white liberal writing articles in New York, 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.640 it's gonna be different than someone you know, halfway across 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.200 the world writing them in you know, a much smaller country, 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.800 let's say, like Belarus, who's under like what I would 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.680 call a dictatorship. Um, so that's gonna change kind of 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.040 the nature of what people are making because of that 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.400 kind of divide. So how how does that kind of 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.080 crop up and is there any like solutions to that 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.240 or because because the because of the decentralized thing, it's like, 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.560 how much can we like impose like who like I'm i'm, 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:47.920 I'm I'm not in Belarus? How much can I impose 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.960 what I want their Wikipedia to look like? Yeah, there's 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.520 kind of two or three dynamics you're you're touching on here. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.640 The first is because there's kind of an intention bias, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.640 Like something comes up in the news, and our Wikipedia 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.560 community like people are within minutes of breaking news stories 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:10.160 are usually like editing the page, working to improve it. Right. 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.080 Um So if things show up in the you know, 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:18.440 European American press, it's very likely, especially something like English 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.080 Wikipedia will pick up on it and immediately cover it. 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.360 And because there are multiple perspectives in those press, usually 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.760 um kind of the ideological uh kind of multi sided 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.320 nice like works itself out because there's a lot of 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.120 eyes and a lot of people who know how to 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:41.480 edit there, right, um on in a kind of cultural linguistic, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.840 geographic context where there's like one set of stories and 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.640 there's not a lot of diversity. Um uh, this this happens. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.120 And and I'm going to refer to the Croatian Wikipedia 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.480 because we we actually had an external researcher look at 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.440 Croatian Wikipedia because part of it has been kind of 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.720 caught by by folks with kind of very ideological leanings 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.120 in a way that's excluding others and this is not good, right. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.600 It creates a very one sided information environment and it 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.760 really reflects um, kind of the news dynamic going on there. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.480 So when like breaking news happens, or when a topic 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.480 like a social issue or not necess like climate change 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.640 is not a social issue, right, this is a global 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:29.199 like life threatening issue. Um. When when something becomes politicized, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.760 it's very easy for especially in smaller language wikipedias, for 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:38.640 few people to kind of swing the whole perspective on that. Um. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.800 So yeah, there's this breaking news issue and this is 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.920 where are kind of organized communities are really important. So 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:47.280 the the example we want to point out of this 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:51.199 working well, um is in medicine. So are our medical 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.800 community during the Bola outbreaks a few years back. UM 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.360 in West Africa, we're able to organize both on English 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.600 and in languages that were accessible for local communities, high 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.880 quality coverage of the medical content because it's like has 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.199 impact on people's lives, and so they recruited translators. They 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.440 thought about, like what's a simple way to communicate the story, 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:20.040 um in that context, and like what do the workers, 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.880 the or the advocates or whoever on the ground who's 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.600 working with that crisis, what knowledge do they need? Right? UM? 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:32.079 And you see, like other open technology movements do stuff 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.360 like this, like humanitarian Open Streetmap has a similar kind 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.800 of way of organizing. They're like, hey, there's a crisis happening, UM, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.720 let's pull people together from different parts of the world 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.800 who have the right knowledge or skills and like address 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:50.000 the knowledge gap. UM, so so you can solve it. 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.240 It's just it's complicated. UM. And you know, we've been 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.080 trying to address as a movement what we call the 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.559 gender gap. So there's both less women editors as women's 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:04.560 content on many of the wikis, and like it's taken 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.960 years and it's very hard to organize, and even when 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.200 there's investment in it. Um, It's it's challenging to to 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:16.040 make substantial progress because there might be contextual issues around 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.079 it too. And so you can't just like drop in 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:24.439 on a Central Asian language with a like Western perspective 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.160 and expect to like change the culture of the wiki overnight. 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.600 You have to engage with it consistently and be persistent 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.080 and work on it over and over and over again. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.120 We are going to take a short break to hear 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.840 a message from our lovely lovely advertisers unless it's exomobile again, 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:55.560 but we will be back shortly, okay, and we're back. Um. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.760 One one thing that we cover decently part of my 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:04.520 job and and and and Robert Evans job is disinformation 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:09.000 and misinformation and how that type of stuff spreads online. Um, 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.800 particularly you usually kind of linked to like political extremism 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.000 um or conspiracy theories or you know, in that general 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.840 kind of bubble um. And so what what type of 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:25.720 kind of climate misinformation has really been festering on various 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.200 you know wikipedias across the world really, because like we 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:29.960 would just be talking about like these topics and how 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:31.920 and how and and like why it happens, But like 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.600 what are the main types of misinformation or disinformation that 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.160 is much more like prevalent. Yeah. Um, so the first 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.600 is just kind of neglect of uh content that's happening 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.040 across the various things related to climate. Um. But we've 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.679 identified on English Wikipedia over three thousand seven d articles 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.320 that are directly related to climate change. Uh. We don't 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.160 have a very big editorial community and English on that topic. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.400 That's like interesting fluent in the science and fluent and 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.079 the other stuff. And then you go out to the 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:09.679 other languages and like some of the languages have like 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:14.160 three thousand of them, some of them have like two hundred, right, um, 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.880 And so there is both um and some of that 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.080 content was like translated several years ago, right or five 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.080 or ten years ago, and yeah, you know, and like 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:29.360 the climate rhetoric has really changed, and like numbers and 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.160 statistics all that stuff gets updated every year. And it's yeah, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:33.760 that is there is there's there's a lot to cap 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.440 with and like reading the IPCC report or looking at 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.040 any of the consensus science, there's like a lot of 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.040 change that you have to be influent in like science communication. 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.160 You have to understand like where to look for the 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.560 information um. And it's interesting. My partner is a Spanish 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.560 language speaker and she was in a kind of workshop 0:13:54.600 --> 0:14:00.440 for journalists in Argentina for climate communication, and the the 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.640 workshop was like, oh, you should cite the Guardian, right, 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.400 so even as to to kind of understand this climate stuff. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.960 So a lot of these local language contexts, there aren't 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.839 even good sources, and the sources they do have are 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.280 often citing like the dominant narrative that's going on and 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.680 like the anglophone news cycle, right, because there's not a 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.360 lot of climate communication going on, and so there's just 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.400 a lot of complexity involved in updating that much content 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.480 all the time. Um. And so the bulk of the 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.160 stuff that kind of creeps in is like this neglect. Right. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.680 It's like some dominant idea in the narrative just hasn't 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.040 been updated, and like we need someone to update it. Um. 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.520 And that's like an organizing problem, right, that's uh, like 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.960 we need more people who are science literate, who speak 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.040 the local language, who understand how to edit Wikipedia. Um. 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.680 And that's trainable, Like we can do that. Yeah. The 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.920 reason that matters, the neglect matters is it stops people 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.160 from making decisions about climate change because they don't have 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.240 like an accurate sense of what we need to do, right, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:09.320 which is cut the false fuels, increase increased resilience through 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:15.480 adaptation like actual political change, right. Um. And so so 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.240 that that's just it's a problem. Um. The other stuff 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.160 is a bit more it's a little bit more complicated. Um. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:28.080 One of the things that happens is that, as you know, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.360 there's quite a manipulation of narrative that has happened around 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.640 climate change. There's this really great podcast by Amy Westervelt 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.400 about how the fossil fuel industry like got its message 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.200 into schools in the last three years in the US, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.920 and like that narrative is just so prevalent. And so 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.200 one of the things about wikipedias that we try to 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:57.160 do a balance of positions. If there are reputable sources 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.680 kind of describing or analyzing a topic, and this is 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:06.040 back to here polarization question too, if they're reputable sources 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.480 describing on topic, we try to give them equal weight 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:13.280 and balance across the article. The problem with climate is 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.360 that some of the narratives that look like reputable sources 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.640 are just pumped out of fossil fuel industry funded think tanks. Right, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.120 and these things are not truthful narratives, right. Um. And 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.240 so the BBC ran an article, uh two weeks ago 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.239 on kind of climate denial and some of these smaller languages, 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.600 a smaller language wikipedias, and what they found was a 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.920 lot of these narratives being given equal weight with the 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.400 climate science. Um. And I took a look our community 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.960 after that BBC article came out, started looking across all 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.520 the language Wikipedia articles about just the main climate change page, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:00.640 and they found thirty one Wikipedia's that had some of 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:07.040 that like equal weight of bad climate science. Interesting yeah, um. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.040 And you know the BBC article only found like five 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.040 or ten, right, we found another lot a lot more, yeah, 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:15.760 yeah yeah. And so it's it's like a it's a 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:20.880 really like these narratives just seep in and you know, again, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.800 I'm gonna go back to the Croatian example, like if 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.240 your media environment has been locked down by a certain 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:34.000 political rhetoric, too, those narratives might have traveled from like 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:40.800 the Anglo sphere into these other spaces and then gotten stuck, right, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.920 and it's just like keeps getting recycled, and so that 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:48.600 causes delay. Um. And I was listening to your podcasts 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:54.160 recently about soft climate denial. Like this is what's happening 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:59.240 in other language environments, right, is people are rehearsing this misinformation. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:04.440 It seems like a valid position because it's been rehearsed 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.199 so many times by by folks. Some people who are 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:13.360 championing that position are like doing so unknowingly, and then 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.600 the process, we're kind of disconnecting it entirely from the 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.160 source of the information, and that is just it's it's 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:25.480 really bad. One interesting thing that I thought of when 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.400 you were bringing up like sourcing, how sourcing itself coming 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.840 an issue like in the States, there's kind of like 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.080 a joke that like wicked like when people use just 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.960 Wikipedia as like as a source to be like they 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.359 just they just link the article. But like that is 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:41.760 the default for so many people when they begin begin 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.960 a research project, is like, Okay, what's the what's the 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.199 what is what does Wikipedia have on it? What's the 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.280 sources Wikipedia uses um and kind of branch off from there. 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.000 It's a very common thing. So I'm not sure what 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.280 like how different internet culture will be different in in 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:59.239 other countries. But if they do not, if they if 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.000 they don't have like the base sourcing necessary to create 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.040 like a decent home page article, then just sourcing from 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.240 Wikipedia in the first place becomes so much harder. Um, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.639 because you like you were saying, like just use the 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.640 Guardian is is like one of the things, like that's 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.240 not horrible advice, but if it's only just from one thing, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.880 then that that's going to change the entire nature of 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.400 like coverage and information on specific topics. Yeah. Yeah, I've 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.359 had just being really interesting kind of thing that I 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.480 never thought of before is how different countries wikipedias or 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.919 like language with Wikipedia's will have will have like different sources. 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.720 So then getting information from from the page, it's just 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.679 going to be so different. And like yeah, like like 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.720 the whole, like the whole like teared of sourcing is 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.639 just completely changed. Yeah. And and I think, like you know, 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.760 in medicine, and most medical practitioners expect most of the 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.520 medical literature to be in a handful of languages like 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.040 English and Chinese and that kind of stuff, right, and 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.320 like part of your professional work and part of like 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.480 saving people's lives is being able to use those sources. 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.920 And so if a medical Wikipedia article has a translation 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.200 from like an English article into another language, and you're 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.760 distributing that to medical practitioners and they find the citation 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.200 and it's in English and they can go follow the source. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.119 Like that's not such a big deal. But with in 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:26.480 a topic like climate um, where the vast majority of 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.280 the people that have to make decisions on this information 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.879 do not have access to other languages. Maybe their access 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:37.080 to English is through like machine translation, Google or something 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.760 like that. Like having not having sources in your local language, UM, 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.919 or just having the sources that were translated from an 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.280 English Wikipedia article, which happens a lot on these smaller 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:54.320 language wikipedias, is kind of like not helpful for climate 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.240 decision making. UM. And this is where it's um. It's 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.200 easy for example, and a lot of these like Eastern 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:06.159 European languages or Central Asian UH languages for like a 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:11.840 politically spun news site opinion about something to kind of 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.280 creep in at the same level of of kind of 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:21.840 UH validity as as another as scientific research as the 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:26.960 the you know, consensus understanding of the climate pricis, So 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:29.280 how how might I know? We talked about like like 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.560 training for like journalists and people to start editing Wikipedia's 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:35.560 in their language, but like, how how do we kind 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:39.600 of improve climate communication overall with open access to information 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:45.000 and you know, creating more linguistic um diversity and stuff. Yeah. Well, 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.760 I think there's like a couple of opportunities UM in 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.920 this and then I there's some other misinformation. I also 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.560 want to talk about two UM, but I think that 0:21:54.640 --> 0:22:00.920 this the sourcing one, is a particularly challenging one. UM. 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:06.359 We need like more basic science based climate communication and 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:10.480 more languages. And I'm not saying like just the the 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.440 like more languages like the big u N languages are 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.600 the ones that are kind of colonial across cultural languages 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.320 like Spanish or French or Arabic or you know, all 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.920 these languages that have been used across cultures. We also 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.639 need it in local languages, UM. And we needed to 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.560 be evidence based and we needed to be an audience based. Right. 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.960 So if if someone is like searching online in Swahili 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.760 about how like drought is happening in Kenya, right or 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.600 Tanzania or or the you know there's suddenly flooding or 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:43.879 like I need to deal with X, Y and Z 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:49.440 adaptation to the climate crisis, UM, which is by the way, 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.360 what all of the global South is doing right now, right, 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.359 like the global South is having to adapt to this 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.479 crisis that polluting countries has have made, and we're not 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.000 actually giving them the resources to the to the problem 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:06.800 that we've cost. You. Well, it's not even like giving 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.440 the research. We're not even like the people who are like, 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.280 we want to adapt our society. We're not resourcing the 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:16.560 folks on the ground who have the agency, who have 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:18.560 the understanding, who know how to do the research in 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:20.760 the context, who know how to do the communication in 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:25.320 the context. Right, We're not even like bolstering their their 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:29.119 request for help. Right, Like the the the You and 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:33.159 Climate Conference kind of failed on this adaptation funding, right, 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.840 And uh, this is you know, this is where like 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.960 a platform like Wikipedia and like kind of approaching this 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.360 from a knowledge activist perspective where you're like, there are 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:48.600 people who need this knowledge to address like understand what's 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:51.880 happening around them so they can make decisions. That doesn't 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:57.080 like you know, yeah, we need those kinds of information. 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.600 We need open source knowledge, not just Wikipedia but one 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:04.880 of the platforms um and and you know the you 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.760 all do open source investigation and you're used to like 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:11.320 open source software communities, And I listened a couple of 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.000 your podcasts, and you're kind of constantly speaking back to 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:18.560 those open communities that that come out of like angleophone, 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:24.000 software spaces um. And like we need to acknowledge that, 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.000 like we we figured out how to knowledge, but we 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.240 haven't given all those tools. We haven't transferred the knowledge 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:33.200 on how to do it. We haven't adapted those tools 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.280