Wikipedia bans contributors from citing Daily Mail as source

Cites newpaper’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication to justify the ban

Wikipedia has decided to restrict its contributors from quoting The Daily Mail as a source.

The Daily Mail is one of the most popular newspapers in the UK, and its online readership exceeds that of some of the biggest publications of the world.

The move comes after Wikipedia editors voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website in all but exceptional circumstances terming the news group “generally unreliable”.

Justifying the ban, the editors cited “the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication.”

Further, they said the Daily Mail should not be used to determine notability, nor as a source in articles. They have also decided to remove the existing links to the Daily Mail and replaced them with the links from more reputable sources, where possible.



The proposal to classify the Daily Mail as unreliable source was made by an editor known as Hillbillyholiday early in January. Over past month, volunteer editors on Wikipedia weighed in with arguments for and against the ban over the past month. Some of the opponents of the ban maintained that there were other publications that were also unreliable and the proposed ban was likely driven by a dislike of the publication.

It is interesting to note that while the Daily Mail has been marked “unreliable,” it allows contributors to source state-backed news organisation such as Russia Today and Fox News.

This article originally appeared on The Guardian