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Submitted by Xenoveritas on
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On Monday's Colbert Report, Colbert coined the term "wikiality" (which, unlike truthiness, he gets to keep as his own invention). He used the term to describe how, when enough people believe something, it may as well be true, regardless of reality.

Specifically, the concept was that, because Wikipedia can be edited, if enough people edit it a certain way, the view expressed there will become the "truth" regardless of reality. He then "edited" two pages, The Colbert Report recurring elements and George Washington.

(Those links go to the specific revisions created - note that the timestamp is UTC unless you're logged in, so while the edits occured at 11:35PM GMT, they actually occured at 7:35PM EDT.)

This isn't exactly a new thought. Orwell's 1984 explored the idea of altering history by altering what people thought happened. He was doubtlessly not the first.

However, what has changed is the addition of technology, making it easier than ever to edit history. This webpage does not exist except as bytes stored on a computer. Nothing prevents me from altering the story after I've posted it.

Wikiality is a neat term, but the "blogosphere" is a better demonstration of the effect. Some random blog (hello!) will post a link to a story on another blog. This blog may then link to another blog, and so on. A story can be created that references only itself for verification. It's a form of Wikiality created by a group of bloggers generating a story with no source. It can't be verified, but a quick glance makes it look like it has a source.

A major problem the Wikipedia has been grappling with and hasn't solved is the issue of primary sources. Wikiality works based on the concept that no one will bother checking sources and therefore they aren't needed - as long as enough people agree with the statement, even if it isn't true, it may as well be.

After all, a lot of people treat the Wikipedia as an acceptable information source.