The following is a list of notable individuals who have criticized Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been criticized since it was created in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of volunteer editors, process, and rules. Critics have criticized Wikipedia for its factual reliability, the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, its political bias, systemic bias, such as a gender bias against women and a geographical bias against the Global South. Many sources have noted that critics of Wikipedia have been politically on the right, however this is not a qualification. For example, British-American entrepreneur Andrew Keen critiques the website from a broader perspective, as he is a critic of the entire internet.

To be considered for this list: multiple reliable sources must explicitly state that the person is known for criticizing Wikipedia. The individuals must be known for criticizing most if not the whole of Wikipedia, and not just a few articles/their own article. For example, the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, who has criticized the "Gaza genocide" article, will not be included on this list.

This list is split into two sections: Active critics, who have been the most prolific and outspoken critics of Wikipedia, and who are still active critics. Inactive critics, who have criticized Wikipedia in the past and/or being not as prolific and outspoken as active critics, while still being notable criticism. Sections are in chronological order of when they started criticizing Wikipedia.

Active critics Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales. Since his departure in 2002, Sanger has been critical of Wikipedia, its policies and administrators, and the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2015, Vice referred to Sanger as "Wikipedia's Most Outspoken Critic".

Since Sanger's departure from Wikipedia, he has been critical of the project, describing it in 2007 as being "broken beyond repair". He has argued that Wikipedia lacks credibility and accuracy because, in his view, it had a lack of respect for expertise. Since 2020, he has accused Wikipedia of having a left-wing ideological bias in its articles. He went on to found and work for competitors to Wikipedia, including Citizendium and Everipedia. Among other criticisms, Sanger has been vocal in his view that Wikipedia's articles present a left-wing and liberal or "establishment point of view". In April 2010, Sanger sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about his concern that Wikimedia Commons was hosting child pornography and later clarified the object of his concern was "obscene visual representations of the abuse of children" and not photographs. Sanger's effort to change Wikipedia was received negatively by editors of the English Wikipedia.

In 2025, Sanger released the Nine Theses, an essay discussing a reform proposal for Wikipedia. Named after Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses, Sanger wrote a 37,000 word document, that outlined nine suggestions for strengthening the project's neutrality. One of his proposals is to get rid of "GASP" editors, an acronym made by Sanger, that stands for Globalist, Academic, Secular, and Progressive. And an idea to allow competing articles instead of seeking a false consensus on a single definitive entry. Another is to add features allowing the public to rate articles, be able to post fact-checking in the style of X's community notes. Sanger argues that right-wing sources like Fox News, the New York Post, the Anti-Defamation League, and Breitbart News should be as equal to other sources like The New York Times. Sanger calls his "early joke rule" ignore all rules to be repealed, and that "the most powerful users" must requiring to show their full names. Sanger expresses support for additional scrutiny of Wikipedia users, saying that "admins and those with significant authority in the system should be as easily named and shamed as any ordinary journalist". It was published on his blog and his Wikipedia user page in 2025, and was promoted on American conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson podcast. Reception was mostly negative among English Wikipedia's editing community, particularly towards Sanger's proposal to require editors with advanced permissions to reveal their real life identities.

In June 2026, he was banned from editing the English Wikipedia after the community determined that he had violated its "canvassing", or brigading, rule by publicizing an internal community discussion on his proposed "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity" to his 93,000 followers on X. The community also concluded that he was "not here" to constructively build the encyclopedia. He criticized the ban and process, calling it a "kangaroo court" and accusing Wikipedia administrators of not providing formal charges, due process, or neutral adjudication.

Andrew Schlafly

Andrew Schlafly is an American lawyer, and Christian conservative activist. He is the founder and owner of the wiki encyclopedia project Conservapedia.

Schlafly created the wiki-based Conservapedia in November 2006 to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias present in Wikipedia. He felt the need to start the project after reading a student's assignment written using Common Era dating notation, rather than the Anno Domini system that he preferred. Although he was "an early Wikipedia enthusiast", as reported by Shawn Zeller of Congressional Quarterly, Schlafly became concerned about perceived bias after Wikipedia editors repeatedly undid his edits to the article about the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings. Schlafly expressed hope that Conservapedia would become a general resource for American educators and a counterpoint to the liberal bias that he perceived in Wikipedia.

The site has been accused of spreading misinformation on scientific subjects, such as HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, climate change denial, relativity denial, and vaccine/autism connections, and has advocated Young Earth creationism, Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and conspiracy theories that the January 6 United States Capitol attack was staged. Additionally, it features extensive criticisms of atheism, feminism, homosexuality, and the Democratic Party."Michelle Obama", Conservapedia Conservapedia cites various sources that it claims support this, including Kirthana Ramisetti, "Joan Rivers calls President Obama gay, says Michelle Obama is a 'tranny'" New York Daily New, Jul 04, 2014

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a businessman and former public official who is the CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025, and briefly became the only trillionaire in June 2026. Since 2022, Musk has been highly critical of Wikipedia; describing the encyclopedia as "woke", controlled by the mainstream media and far-left activists, and has called for its defunding.

In 2021, Musk expressed an affection for Wikipedia on its 20th anniversary. In 2022, however, Musk argued that Wikipedia was "losing its objectivity", and in 2023, said he would donate US$1 billion to the project if it was pejoratively renamed "Dickipedia". In December 2024, Musk called for a boycott of donations to Wikipedia over its perceived left-wing bias, calling it "Wokepedia". In January 2025, Musk made a series of statements on Twitter denouncing Wikipedia for its description of the incident where he made a controversial gesture, which many viewed as resembling a Nazi salute, at president Donald Trump's second inauguration. Musk has since positioned Grokipedia as an alternative to Wikipedia that would "purge out the propaganda" in the latter, with Musk describing Wikipedia as "woke" and an "extension of legacy media propaganda". In September 2025, Musk spoke about how Grok consumed data from Wikipedia and other sources to gain more complete knowledge of the world. Sacks suggested publishing its knowledge base as an artifact called "Grokipedia", saying "Wikipedia is so biased, it's a constant war".

Compared to Wikipedia, the site gives more right-wing views on many subjects, such as the January 6 Capitol attack, OpenAI, Donald Trump, Gamergate, and Musk's own page. The site has been accused of spreading a variety of debunked conspiracy theories and ideas against scientific consensus on topics such as HIV/AIDS denialism, vaccines and autism, climate change, and race and intelligence. The site has been accused of whitewashing far-right extremism, such as by falsely claiming a white genocide is actively occurring. Several right-wing figures have welcomed the site. Studies have highlighted its use of sources deemed as having very low credibility such as Instagram reels and neo-Nazi forums, and for writing about far-right figures and topics in a promotional manner. A study by Cornell University researchers and NBC News stated that Grokipedia cites sources that are blacklisted or considered "generally unreliable" on Wikipedia, for example, the conspiracy site Infowars and the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront. Wired, The Guardian and Time criticized Grokipedia for factual errors and for presenting Musk himself in unusually positive terms while downplaying controversies. As of late April 2026, while the site is still live, there has been no updates to the contents of the website.

Ashley Rindsberg

Ashley Rindsberg is a South African-born writer and journalist, who has contributed for multiple news websites and is the author of two books. Since 2024, Rindsberg has been critical of Wikipedia, accusing it of having bias in its coverage.

Rindsberg has written articles accusing Wikipedia of bias in its coverage, including in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the killing of Iryna Zarutska, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Author Stephen Harrison was critical of his coverage, writing in Slate: "Like much of Rindsberg's work, the point isn't to provide information to readers about what's happening on Wikipedia, but to stoke further outrage for attention." Rindsberg is creator and editor of NeutralPOV, a substack newsletter dedicated to criticizing Wikipedia.

Inactive critics † Denotes the person that is deceased

2000s Andrew Orlowski

Andrew Orlowski is a British columnist, investigative journalist and former executive editor of the IT news and opinion website The Register. From 2004 to May 2021, Orlowski has criticized the English Wikipedia. In May 2004, he approvingly quoted a Register reader who had called Wikipedia enthusiasts "the Khmer Rouge in diapers". Writing about Wikipedia in 2005, he observed: "Readability, which wasn't great to begin with, has plummeted. Formerly coherent and reasonably accurate articles in the technical section have gotten worse as they've gotten longer." In a 2005 BBC article, Bill Thompson said Orlowski was "scathing in his dismissal of the site as a cult-like organisation where faith triumphs rationality, and even suggests we look at English Wikipedia as 'a massively scalable, online role-playing game' where 'players can assume fictional online identities and many "editors" do just that'." In 2021, Orlowski writing for The Daily Telegraph has criticised Wikimedia Foundation fundraising, arguing that the organisation has far more money than its appeals make people believe. He has also called Wikipedia "Wokepedia."

Jorge Cauz