Online encyclopedia bans Daily Mail

In an unprecedented move, online encyclopedia

Editors of Wikipedia will no longer use Daily Mail as a source unless in exceptional cases. The near-total ban was implemented after the UK news organisation was classified as "generally unreliable."

"Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version, dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist.

As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. An edit filter should be put in place going forward to warn editors attempting to use the Daily Mail as a reference" said the Wikipedia website.

"The general themes of the support !votes centred on the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism, and flat-out fabrication" further stated Wikipedia.

The reliability of the Daily Mail as a source first came up in 2015 revealed The Wikimedia Foundation. Only in exceptional cases will the Daily Mail be used as a source.

If there is a Wikipedia article about a Daily Mail writer, linking to the website of the news organisation is acceptable.

Editors on Wikipedia are now encouraging volunteers to replace the 12,000 Daily Mail links on the site.

This move has been criticised in a few quarters who believe the editors are biased towards the Daily Mail. Wikipedia is yet to ban biased news organisations such as Russia Today and Fox News- two organisations that editors have been sceptical of in the past.

Wikipedia maintains that it is not biased and it is open to discussion about untrustworthy news sources also.

The ban of Daily Mail from Wikipedia is the first move by the famous online encyclopedia to deal with the threat of fake news.