Building a better encyclopedia requires consensus and neutrality, but behind the scenes, editors wrangle with the pandemic's most co

Inside Wikipedia's endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory

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2021-06-27 02:30:04

Building a better encyclopedia requires consensus and neutrality, but behind the scenes, editors wrangle with the pandemic's most contentious question.

The thornapple, a sweetly perfumed plant with trumpet-shaped flowers, is named for its spiky, spherical fruit. Last year, the curiously shaped fruit took on new meaning because of its uncanny resemblance to a coronavirus particle. As COVID-19 began infecting thousands of people in early 2020, a viral TikTok video claimed the thornapple's seeds could protect against the virus.

It was untrue. Thornapples are highly poisonous, and eating their seeds can result in hallucinations, muscle fatigue, paralysis and even death. But the TikTok video convinced families in the large Indian village of Baireddipalle to ingest a mixture of the plant's seeds and oils, resulting in 12 people being rushed to hospital.

When Netha Hussain, a medical doctor from Kerala, India, first read about the poisonings, she decided to compile a list of unproven methods against COVID-19 on the world's largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Hussain, who has been editing Wikipedia articles for a decade, dutifully edited pages relating to the coronavirus' spread in India during the early days of the pandemic, but the thornapple story forced a rethink.

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