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The Donald Trump era might have come and gone, but the age of disinformation is here to stay. What was already a humming misinformation machine before 2016 has, over the past five years, developed into a world-building juggernaut capable of reshaping economies, politics and social structures. Paired with the constant downsizing and shuttering of local, regional and even national media, this evolution has put a premium on trustworthy and easily accessible information.

This is the faltering information ecosystem into which Wikimedia Foundation CEO and executive director Katherine Maher stepped in June 2016. Wikimedia, which oversees Wikipedia along with Wiktionary, Wikiquote and other projects, is the collective name for a global movement that aims to harness the collaborative power of the internet by creating and sharing free knowledge in a variety of forms.

Maher, who will leave her post this spring, has spent the last five years shepherding Wikipedia and its non-profit organization through these turbulent contexts. During that time, Wikipedias readership has shot up 30 per cent, and the foundation has doubled its annual budget. The organization also introduced a universal code of conduct for participation in Wiki projects and increased its number of monthly active editors. During a time of media austerity, these are not small feats.

To top it off, despite hosting one of the worlds most popular websites, Wikimedia maintains a miniscule carbon footprint by keeping its focus on text rather than images. Wikipedias climate change articles remain some of the sites most deeply sourced and extensively cited works.

But how much vigilance is required now to sustain an enormous digital resource hub that anyone can edit? How has Wikipedia the global go-to reference that relies on volunteer editorial contributions dealt with an increasingly resourceful disinformation movement?

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Join Maher as she discusses these things and more with Canadas National Observer founder and editor-in-chief Linda Solomon Wood for a Conversations event on March 18 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. Reserve your spot here, and send potential questions ahead of the event to [emailprotected].

Maher has had a front-row seat to the global fight against disinformation, but its hardly her first rodeo. Prior to her station with Wikimedia, she worked with various NGOs and non-profits to advocate for better information economies, free and open governance, and civic engagement. Alongside Wikimedia, her resume includes UNICEF, the World Bank and the National Democratic Institute.

With her Wikimedia tenure coming to an end in April, this Conversations event promises a relevant retrospective on the state of public media and disinformation since 2016.

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Wikimedia CEO Katherine Maher on how Wikipedia fights disinformation - National Observer

Why Global Citizens Should Care

Wikipedia is many peoples go-to source for quick information, but looking up something on the site doesnt always yield the most unbiased results.

Only 20% of the 1.7 million biographies on what is considered to be the largest online user-generated encyclopedia are about women.

There are also four times as many articles about men as there are about women out of Wikipedias 50 million articles.

In an effort to promote gender equality online, people around the world will add more content to Wikipedia about women who are influential figures, experts, and role models in different fields to celebrate International Womens Day on Monday. The edit-a-thon initiative is part of the fourth annual global #WikiGap supported by Wikimedia Sweden, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The campaign is crowdsourcing the names of women who are missing from Wikipedia on social media.

What happens online is not separated from what happens offline, Eric Luth, involvement and advocacy project manager at Wikimedia Sweden, told Global Citizen via email. Inequalities in a digital sphere will build upon and feed inequalities in the physical world.

The gap in information about men and women on Wikipedia seems to be in direct correlation with the lack of representation among its authors 90% of the sites contributors are men. These discrepancies lead to less knowledge about women and a lack of womens perspectives to learn from.

Limited resources about women on Wikipedia can trickle down to the media and the information consumed by the public. Already, only 1 in 5 experts interviewed in the media are women, and when journalists conduct research they often reference Wikipedia, according to Wikimedia, but they do not have gender-equal sources to choose from.

The Wikimedia movement has acknowledged its responsibility, and a campaign such as WikiGap is important for breaking the vicious circle and giving visibility to, and agency for, women also in the offline world, Luth said.

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The first WikiGap event was launched by Wikimedia Sweden and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 2018, and almost 60 countries worldwide have participated. Through this effort, more than 5,000 editors have added more than 50,000 new or improved articles about prominent women to Wikipedia.

As women around the world continue to be hit the hardest by the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that their stories arent forgotten, Luth noted. Many women who are frontline workers remain unknown.

When traditional media and knowledge actors fail to tell these stories, to gather this information, the Wikimedia movement with its hundreds of thousands of volunteers can play a pivotal role, Luth said.It means to give space to those who have been left out, or to highlight deeds that have not been told enough. Also,impressive women from history that can act as role models are important to bring forward.

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Only 20% of Wikipedia's Biographies Are About Women #WikiGap Wants to Change That - Global Citizen

Microsoft has made some important announcements on its Edge Insider blog this morning. First of all, the company is expanding Immersive Reader support in its Edge browser to the Wikipedia website. This update is now available in preview in the Canary and Dev channels, and it also brings some optimizations to the built-in tool for Edge Insiders.

Weve been working to bring Immersive Reader to more and more pages across the web and today were excited to announce that Microsoft Edge just made more than 55 million web pages more accessible. You can now open all Wikipedia webpages in Immersive Reader by clicking Immersive Reader (book and speaker) icon in the address bar, the Edge Insider team explained.

The first of the improvements being made currently to the Immersive Reader view is the addition of the Table of Contents. The firm says that it should make it easier for users to navigate through Wikipedia pages while using Immersive Reader in the browser. Users can now click on the icon on the Wikipedia page and then select any label to view additional details.

The firm has also added an option for users to expand or collapse data tables that might not be relevant for them. Users will need to click the Show more button in order to see the hidden rows in the table. This change should help the readers to quickly scroll through the content on a webpage in Immersive Reader.

Microsoft urges Edge Insiders to try out these features and provide feedback. The team notes that these updates are rolling out in phases, so not everyone will get them immediately. Have you received the new Wikipedia support in Edge on the Dev or Canary channels? Sound off in the comments section below.

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Microsoft Edge expands Immersive Reader support to Wikipedia - OnMSFT

On International Womens Day (today) Wikipedia has a number of activities taking place to encourage closing the gender gap.

Although Wikipedia hosts 1.7 million biographies, they say that not even 20 per cent of those are about women.

Be part of the changeThis afternoon (2pm on Monday) sees the global kickoff of WikiGap 2021. Its an opportunity for you to learn how to edit Wikipedia pages so you can help close the gender gap on Wikipedia.

To get started you need to login to, or create a Wikipedia account.

Where and whenFrom 2pm (UCT) theres a chance to watch some great speeches and learn more.

If youre a Facebook user, head over to the Facebook event page,or register for the event onEventbrite!

Youll find all the details you need to know over on the WikiGap page.

Image: Ilyuza Mingazova under CC BY 2.0

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Help close the gender gap on Wikipedia, this International Womens Day - On The Wight

Wikipedias wealth of cited information comes from a global community of more than 250,000 editors who contribute content each month. Upholding community standards and fostering diversity and inclusion are major goals for the Wikimedia Foundation goals that depend on creating software that reflects and reinforces the communitys values.

Over the past year, the foundation has partnered with researchers at Princetons Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) to explore how creative uses of technology can help Wikimedia embrace and elevate a broader group of voices on Wikipedia and in other knowledge-sharing projects. Wikimedia was among the first participants in the case study series of CITPs tech policy clinic.

Princeton's tech policy clinic seeks to strengthen ties between Princeton researchers and policymakers in government, industry and the nonprofit sector.

The clinic, now in its second academic year, seeks to strengthen ties between Princeton researchers and policymakers in government, industry and the nonprofit sector a central focus for CITP, which was founded in 2005 as a joint initiative of Princeton'sSchool of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Public and International Affairs.

Mihir Kshirsagar, who leads Princeton's tech policy clinic, calls the clinics work a virtuous loop of activities, in which real-world problems inform research and teaching, and researchers findings and approaches help guide tech policy decisions.

The clinic has proven to be transformational for CITP and for policy work at Princeton, said Matthew Salganik, the director of CITP and a professor of sociology. It expands on our tradition of public service, and enables exciting pathways to bring our research and people out into the world, and also bring the ideas and problems of the world into CITP to fuel our research and teaching.

The case studies are a key part of this work, allowing faculty, postdocs and students to engage directly on tech policy issues with organizations such as Wikimedia, The New York Times and the Federal Election Commission. The clinic also hosts policy roundtables on specific topics and trains students through independent work seminars and a summer fellowship. (Due to COVID-19, these activities have been held virtually since March 2020.)

Clinic Lead Mihir Kshirsagar calls the clinics work a virtuous loop of activities, in which real-world problems inform research and teaching, and researchers findings and approaches help guide tech policy decisions.

To read this full story, visit the Princeton Engineeringwebsite.

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Princeton's tech policy clinic builds 'virtuous loop' of real-world research and learning - Princeton University