Placement bias
Placement bias is the manipulation of the order and placement of information in order to distort the impression left in the reader. Liberals often use placement bias to obscure important facts unfavorable to their argument, and to promote liberal claims beyond what is justified. For example, the Wikipedia entry on Boy Scouts v. Dale, a case that they lost, features near the top of the entry glowing praise of the attorney on their side, which had no relevance to the decision that he lost.[1] Liberal icon Bertrand Russell receives glowing adoration on Wikipedia; it is only after about 7,700 words about him that Wikipedia finally mentions Russell's support of the communist revolution, (but pretends that Russell quickly opposed it). [1] As any newspaper editor knows, the number of people who read a fact is proportional to its proximity to the beginning of the article. Moreover, readers expect the more important facts to be first, and place more emphasis on them in reading an article. For example, Wikpedia's entry on liberal former Vice President Al Gore contains no mention of the drug charges against his son; these are only included within his son's own entry, which is rarely viewed. But Wikipedia's entry on conservative Vice President Dick Cheney prominently mentions his adult daughter's sexuality.[1] The same effect can be seen in the Jimmy Swaggart article.
On Wikipedia, placement bias is taken one step further by downplaying facts unfavorable to liberals by placing them in entirely different, and less-visited, entries.
References
- â 1.0 1.1 1.2 Bias in Wikipedia.