Conservative YouTube star Mark Dice and Wikipedia are in a fight that is seemingly out of a George Orwell novel.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past,” is a line known throughout the world by science fiction fans, but its lesson is very real for Mr. Dice. Wikipedia blocked him this week over a years-long debate on what his biography page should contain.
In short, a select cadre of editors control what millions see about Mr. Dice — and those editors are intent on highlighting him first and foremost as a “conspiracy theorist” whose career stalled in 2015.
The pundit was the first conservative YouTuber to hit 1 million subscribers in May 2017, and he currently maintains a fan base of 1.4 million.
His daily videos also average 250,000 views.
Two of his Amazon best-selling books — “The True Story of Fake News?” and “Liberalism: Find a Cure?” — were removed from the page because there were “no reliable sources that mentioned them as being significant.”
Wikipedia editors also claim that his subscriber count is not relevant because they may be “manipulated.”
“The [left-wing] Young Turks has their subscriber count mentioned but I’m just not allowed,” Mr. Dice said in a YouTube video uploaded Thursday.
He added on Twitter on Thursday that Wikipedia editors were no longer allowing him to participate in the discussion.
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