From the dream of the free internet, it seems, only Wikipedia is left: knowledge from everyone for everyone.

The idea of ​​the online encyclopedia, which began twenty years ago in January 2001 as a non-profit project, was revolutionary: anyone can take notes, copy or rewrite.

In “Wikipedia - Die Schwarmoffensive”, María Teresa Curzio (director and screenplay) succeeds in taking a critical inventory of the project.

The film plunges into the processes of the knowledge community and, from the point of view of an author, the “merciless environment” it describes.

Old white men

There is a lot at stake in the battle for interpretative sovereignty: In Germany, the website is accessed eleven million times a day, and wiki data is fed by voice assistants such as Siri or Alexa. The articles are usually the first result of a Google search. Today Wikipedia is a global point of contact for orientation.

But who are the almost 100,000 active authors who decide what is fact in front of a global audience?

According to the documentation, 85 percent of them are white, male and live in the western part of the world.

To understand the effects of this imbalance, it is sufficient to compare the number and depth of articles on cars, video games, and porn actresses with those on breast cancer research or menstruation.

This “popularity bias” is one of the risks from which swarm intelligence suffers, explains the philosopher Thomas Metzinger in the film.

Facts are negotiated

Also, commercial or political interests have increasingly mixed with the mostly volunteer authors: Paid writing is frowned upon, but not officially prohibited. So-called editing wars are raging under the guise of anonymity: For example, the first sentence of the Alternative for Germany party is regularly changed. Is the AfD “right-wing populist”, “right-wing populist with right-wing extremist tendencies” or just “a party in Germany”? This is how facts have to be negotiated.

In a secondary line, Curzio accompanies the Peruvian Elwin Huaman, who wants to build a Wikipedia version for his Quechua indigenous community.

Wikipedia's encyclopedia model comes from the Western Enlightenment and reaches its limits with sources that are passed down orally.

At the same time, Curzio points to the platform's opportunity to preserve and make visible the tradition and knowledge of underrepresented cultures.

All of it?

In “Die Schwarmoffensive” each protagonist stands for a factual question.

But the picture of an old dream of mankind also shines through in the inventory: What if the language barrier on Wikipedia could be lifted by an abstractly coded language?

The platform still seems to have great potential, and work on it is anything but complete.

It is important to diversify and defend against autocrats and large corporations.

Curzio sums it up: “Wikipedia is similar to democracy.

If nobody is committed to it, it can quickly become difficult. "

Wikipedia - The swarm offensive, today 8:15 p.m., on 3sat.