Should it be surprising that a Wikipedia entry titled “2011 Egyptian Revolution” was prepared for publication the day before protests began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square?
An intriguing but inconclusive new book takes a fresh look at the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit through the lens of a single article, and finds reason to question contemporary assumptions about what has been dubbed “the last best place on the internet”.
Heather Ford, a South African internet activist turned academic, has spent 10 years studying the entry covering the Egyptian uprisings on Wikipedia. In the process, she met many of its authors (or “editors”, as they are known on the platform where original research is the equivalent to original sin) — from a Cairo liberal on the inside of events, to an agoraphobic US college graduate for whom stewardship of this slice of history proved “a turning point”.