Larry Sanger Speaks Out
Larry Sanger remembers the promise of the web. He co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, with the hope that it could sustain a “free and open” Internet—a place where information, dissent, and creativity could thrive. At Wikipedia, he proposed a system of rules that encouraged users to “avoid bias” and maintain a “neutral point of view.”
I reached out to Sanger following the revelation, from my original reporting, that former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher, who is now CEO of NPR, had explicitly rejected the principles of a “free and open” Internet, collaborated with government officials to censor dissent, and spurned the concept of objective truth altogether, in favor of left-wing relativism.
Our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, should prompt champions of the free and open Internet to push back against the rising censorship regime before it is too late.
Christopher Rufo: What are you thinking as you’re watching these statements from former Wikipedia CEO Katherine Maher, who is now the CEO of NPR?
