Wikipedia is one of the most famous sites all over the world. It is a kind of encyclopedia in many languages and it consist of articles on various topics. It sounds really useful at first, but when we understand that everybody can change,edit or write articles there, we start to think that the information provided there is not so trustworthy. So, is this the truth?
When we hear the word 'encyclopedia' in our mind immediately pops up Encyclopedia Britannica.We used to trust it. According to an article, comparing Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, they both have a few inaccuracies. In other words, Wikipedia is almost reliable as Britannica.(BBC article about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica) After the scandal presented in the same article , where a man purposely edited wrong information on Wikipedia to mislead a colleague and in this way tarnish one US journalist's reputation, Wikipedia's administrators changed the rules for editing information randomly. For example, the biographies of living people are semi-protected and can be edited by people whose account has been confirmed.
Another research conducted in Italy in 2010 showed that Wikipedia is the 6th most visited site in the world,which prove that people believe in the written there.Even though Wikipedia is still not claimed as a trustworthy resource of information and many scientists and teachers don't consider it as a reliable source of academic writing.
Wikileaks is a non-profit website that gained popularity in 2006 and the purpose of which is to reveal corruption, secrets and private documents of countries all over the world. Most of the data, shared there, concerns US government and its national secrets. Moreover, the idea of the site is to encourage the democracy and inform ordinary people about what is going on in the country they live, what happens with the taxes they pay and what illegal deals the politics make. Many politics criticise it because of its revealings, but Wikileaks also gains praise for the fact that it gives the citizens enough information and voice in the political life of their country.
Firstly, everyone who wanted could take part in this site. It was free to add and free to read. Afterward it stopped the editing and comments made by the users. Even though, Wikileaks encourages the citizen journalism. As we can see from the video beneath sites like this inspire many public-spirited people to uncover the injustice. As we can see, the head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, explains that the world needs his site in the fight with the corruption and everyone who feels the moral obligation and have access to country's documents can help him.
