Wikipedia at 25: A Free Encyclopedia Under Siege

In 2010, the FBI sent Wikipedia a letter that would be intimidating for any organization to receive.

The missive demanded that the free online encyclopedia remove the FBI’s logo from an entry about the agency, claiming that reproducing the emblem was illegal and punishable with fines, imprisonment, “or both.” Rather than back down, a lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, shot back a sharp refusal outlining how the FBI’s interpretation of the relevant statute was incorrect and saying that Wikipedia was “prepared to argue our view in court.” It worked—the FBI dropped the matter.

But the spat presupposed a society based on the rule of law, where a government agency would hear a legal argument in good faith rather than overriding it with power. Fast‑forward to the present day, and things are very different. Elon Musk has dubbed the site “Wokepedia” and alleged that it’s controlled by far‑left activists. Last fall, Tucker Carlson devoted an entire 90‑minute podcast to railing against Wikipedia as “completely dishonest and completely controlled on questions that matter.” And after Republican congresspeople James Comer and Nancy Mace accused Wikipedia of “information manipulation” in a congressional investigation, the foundation replied with a respectful explainer about how Wikipedia works, taking a more conciliatory approach rather than arguing about government overreach. The pragmatic shift reflects a world where the Trump administration selects winners and losers based on political preference.

As the world’s most famous free internet encyclopedia turns 25 today, it’s facing a host of challenges. Forces on the political right have attacked Wikipedia for alleged liberal bias, with the conservative Heritage Foundation going so far as to say that it will “identify and target” the site’s volunteer editors. AI bots have relentlessly scraped Wikipedia’s information, straining the site’s servers. Compounding these issues is the struggle to replenish the project’s volunteer community, the so‑called graying of Wikipedia.

Beneath these threats is the foreboding feeling that the culture has drifted away from Wikipedia’s founding ideals. Aiming for neutrality, evaluating sources, volunteering for the public benefit, sustaining a noncommercial online project—these concepts seem at best old‑fashioned and at worst useless in today’s overtly partisan, lawless, anti‑human, “greed is good” phase of the internet.

Still, there remains the possibility that Wikipedia’s most influential days lie in its future, assuming it recasts itself inside the crucible.

Bernadette Meehan, Wikimedia Foundation’s new CEO, whose résumé includes stints as a foreign service officer and ambassador, is well poised to meet these attacks, according to chief communications officer Anusha Alikhan. “The diplomacy and negotiation skills are things that I think will lend well to the current environment,” she told WIRED. But even the best diplomat would struggle with the current slate of challenges: the UK has proposed age‑gating Wikipedia under its Online Safety Act; in Saudi Arabia, Wikipedia editors have been imprisoned after documenting the country’s human rights abuses on the platform; and the Great Firewall continues to block every version of the site for mainland China.

What’s perhaps more telling is that even inside the Wikipedia community, longtime contributors are worried about its diminishing relevance. In a widely circulated essay, veteran editor Christopher Henner said he fears that Wikipedia will increasingly become a “temple” filled with aging volunteers, self‑satisfied by work nobody looks at anymore.

Beyond these ongoing censorship battles, Wikipedia is also struggling to explain why human labor still matters in the age of artificial intelligence. Although nearly every major AI system trains on Wikipedia’s freely‑licensed content, the tech industry’s message since 2022 has been that human‑powered knowledge production has been rendered irrelevant by AI. Except that’s not true. While we are still in the early days of the AI revolution, it seems for now that AI applications perform better when they are trained on human‑written and human‑vetted information, the kind that comes from human‑centered editorial processes like Wikipedia’s. When an AI system trains recursively on its own AI‑generated synthetic data, it is likely to suffer from model collapse.

Given this symbiotic relationship, it is deeply ironic that AI companies have soaring stock prices while Wikipedia itself appears to have lost more than a billion visits per month between 2022 and 2025. No doubt this is caused in part by a shift in consumer preferences; instead of going to Wikipedia articles directly, people are consuming its information in fragments delivered by AI chatbots. The shuttering of local news organizations has worsened the problem because it leaves Wikipedia editors with fewer reliable sources to do the work of building out the encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s message to tech companies is simple: If you rely on its content, please support the system that helps sustain it.

But even if Google and Meta chip in to provide financial support for Wikipedia’s APIs, that doesn’t address the project’s most crucial resource—the volunteers. Between 2016 and 2025, new user registrations dropped by more than a third, according to Wikimedia Statistics. As Henner, the longtime volunteer, said in his essay, “The data is clear: We’re losing new editors. The website that built our community is no longer attracting contributors at sufficient rates.” To improve Wikipedia’s visibility to younger audiences, it launched a short‑form video initiative in October 2024 that has so far published more than 800 videos and racked up 23 million views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, according to a Foundation representative. The popular social‑media account Depths of Wikipedia, run by independent creator Annie Rauwerda, proves that people love the site’s bottomless trove of quirky knowledge. Whether that affection translates into new editors remains to be seen.

It’s worth remembering that when Wikipedia launched in 2001, the internet wasn’t the attention‑economy hellscape we scroll through today. In fact, part of the reason Wikipedia feels somewhat refreshing, as well as a bit quaint, in 2026 is that it’s a rare noncommercialized corner of the internet without ads and algorithmic surveillance. Then again, it’s likely that Gen Z, which grew up with an internet full of influencers and sponsored content, views Wikipedia’s nonprofit spirit with higher skepticism. Millennials like Steven Pruitt took up Wikipedia‑editing during the Great Recession as a fun hobby to fill their free time, but years of hypercapitalism and economic precarity have trained many Gen Zers to see any unpaid labor as a scam. It’s all a matter of perspective. For some, editing Wikipedia is a noble cause that helps build a more trustworthy internet. For others, it’s thankless work that AI companies strip‑mine for a profit. At least making TikToks offers the potential for monetization.

Hannah Clover, the youngest‑ever “Wikimedian of the Year,” has become a de facto spokesperson for the cohort of Wikipedia’s Gen Z editors. The 23‑year‑old Canadian told WIRED many older people do not understand the challenges faced by her generation. “A lot of us are just trying to pay our rent and do our best to live through a cost‑of‑living crisis,” she said. A few years ago, Clover was working at McDonald’s, editing Wikipedia from her mobile phone during her shift breaks and while commuting on the bus. Beyond the economic challenges, Clover said her generation struggles with angst about climate change, feeling positive about the future, and finding an overall sense of purpose. “Quite a lot of people want to hope for a better future, they’re just not sure how they can personally make a difference,” she said. “Editing Wikipedia was quite a game changer for me in this capacity, but I also can’t fault anyone who just wants to use their limited free time to relax in another way that isn’t quite as mentally taxing.”

Back in October, when Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was asked about Musk’s new Grokipedia, he said, “We’ll still be here in 100 years, and he won’t.” And to be fair, Wikipedia’s demise has been predicted before, and it has withstood a long line of failed prognosticators and challengers, including Google’s Knol, Citizendium, and Everipedia. As Wikipedia crosses the quarter‑century mark, one possible outcome is that it continues to serve as a key knowledge base for humans that’s likewise guiding AI systems. But let’s be clear: Wikipedia isn’t too big to fail. If volunteers keep dropping off, if people only complain about Wikipedia without once trying to edit it, then donations alone won’t move the needle.

Because whether Wikipedia finds a path forward as a high‑quality, human‑powered project isn’t ultimately up to Musk or Wales or Google Gemini. We, the people, can choose to support the commons—or we can let it die.