> "[...] conservative and anti-woke content can reach wide audiences, particularly when Elon puts his thumb on the scale."
No shit; it's always been that way since mass media became a thing. Besides, there is no such thing as quality conservative and/or "anti-woke" media. The very concept represents a contradictio in adiecto. And Elon's just the modern version of an industrialist of yesteryear. Back in the day they owned the mass media of their time: radio and television. Today its "AI"-enshittified parasocial media and ideally the infrastructure that runs those dumps.
> "Don't forget that public opinion and the media landscape are quite different in 2025 from what they were in the 2010s when most prior studies on WP bias have been written."
Bias studies have been written since Wikipedia became a staple in hoi polloi's info diet. And there's always been a whole cottage industry of pathological and practised liars (e. g. the Heritage Foundation, amongst others) catering to right-wing grievance issues. The marked difference is that the right's attacks against Wikipedia as an institution are more aggressive since Trump... completely in line with the more aggressive attacks on human rights, reason, science, and democratic institutions on part of conservatives world wide.
Note that I've said "anti-woke content", not "anti-woke media". I am including the occasional "course correction" opeds and actually well-researched longreads you're seeing in places like NYT, Atlantic and such. Partisan outlets for partisan readers aren't doing the heavy lifting here, but the success of Substack and the unexpected survival of Twitter under Elon have convinced editors to listen. Elon's personality isn't of importance here; he mostly needs to just push a few buttons to make a sub-critical news item go super-critical.
> "Note that I've said 'anti-woke content', not 'anti-woke media'."
In the context of my argument a distinction without difference.
> "I am including the occasional "course correction" opeds and actually well-researched longreads you're seeing in places like NYT, Atlantic and such."
Well, that's the crux: There is no such thing for me as "actually well-researched anti-woke content". That's just a pathetic, and ultimately tragic, hallucination in the same vein as "actually well-researched" pieces of flat earthers, pushing their trash. Et cetera.
> "Elon's personality isn't of importance here [...]"
I can tell you're one of those guys who paid "actually a lot of" attention when The Cult of Personality was negotiated in the classroom.
Look for anything written by Jesse Singal or Charles Murray for the well-researched anti-woke content I'm referring to (and there is a lot of more; these are just two authors who made it their focus; some of the best stuff comes actually comes from journalists with wider purviews).
I don't know what "Cult of Personality" you are referring to; unless you are hallucinating this particular reference, I've gone to school in the wrong country for that particular report to be part of my assigned reading (and the right country, sadly, seems to have skipped it entirely; there might be an update out in a few years...). Either way, what is the relevance here? What I've been saying is that I'm far from sure of this project's success and would be doing it quite differently. Musk's personal characteristics may well be the reason why he did it the way he did, but ultimately the project won't live and die by them (already because he himself will likely lose interest soon enough).
No shit; it's always been that way since mass media became a thing. Besides, there is no such thing as quality conservative and/or "anti-woke" media. The very concept represents a contradictio in adiecto. And Elon's just the modern version of an industrialist of yesteryear. Back in the day they owned the mass media of their time: radio and television. Today its "AI"-enshittified parasocial media and ideally the infrastructure that runs those dumps.
> "Don't forget that public opinion and the media landscape are quite different in 2025 from what they were in the 2010s when most prior studies on WP bias have been written."
Bias studies have been written since Wikipedia became a staple in hoi polloi's info diet. And there's always been a whole cottage industry of pathological and practised liars (e. g. the Heritage Foundation, amongst others) catering to right-wing grievance issues. The marked difference is that the right's attacks against Wikipedia as an institution are more aggressive since Trump... completely in line with the more aggressive attacks on human rights, reason, science, and democratic institutions on part of conservatives world wide.