Metapedia is an online

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

-based encyclopedia dedicated to fascist, far-right,

white nationalist White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...

white supremacist White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...

, anti-feminist,

Islamophobic Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism. The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...

, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi points of view.

History

The Swedish Metapedia was founded in 2006 by Anders Lagerström (born October 14, 1977), a far-right publisher from Linköping, Sweden. About Lagerström, '' Östgöta Correspondenten'' wrote: Swedish historian

Rasmus Fleischer Rasmus Fleischer (born 19 April 1978 in Halmstad) is a Swedish historian, essayist and musician. He earned his Ph.D. in history in 2012 with a dissertation that was also published as a book of 640 pages: "The political economy of music: Legislat ...

wrote:

Content

Metapedia describes itself as being an alternative to Wikipedia that focuses on

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

and philosophy. As of June 2022, the site has more than 7,200 articles in English; topics covered include

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500 to AD 1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early ...

and

. ''

Crítica de la Argentina ''Crítica de la Argentina'' was a daily newspaper from Buenos Aires, Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an ...

'' says Metapedia has glowing descriptions of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

and other Nazi figures.

Daniel Goldhagen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controver ...

describes it as seeking "to create (currently in 18 languages) an anti-Semitic informational universe." Metapedia calls the Holocaust a

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

only according to "

politically correct ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...

history" and refers to former

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

as a "

mixed race Mixed race people are people of more than one race or ethnicity. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mixed race people in a variety of contexts, including ''multiethnic'', ''polyethnic'', occasionally ''bi-ethn ...

former president". Its content has been noted for its fascist, far-right,

, anti-feminist,

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

, antisemitic, Holocaust-denying, and neo-Nazi points of view."Metapedia" als nationales Pendant zu "Wikipedia"
(i.e "Metapedia" as a nationalist counterpart to "Wikipedia") from: "Report by the NRW Office for the Protection of the Constitution for the year 2008" by the

Ministry of Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...

. pp. 59f. The wiki covers a total of 17 languages, with German Metapedia being the most developed. According to the

Office for the Protection of the Constitution The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (german: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungss ...

, Metapedia's articles are characterized by

historical negationism Historical negationism, also called denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. It should not be conflated with ''historical revisionism'', a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterp ...

and lauding

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. For this reason, the German Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons () started an indexing process, which would consider as to whether Metapedia is "harmful to young people".Bulletin of the German Parliament 16/10215
from 12 September 2008, pp. 6f.: Answer of the German government to a parliamentary query by the Green Member of the German Parliament Monika Lazar In early 2007, within half a year of the launching of the original Swedish edition, Metapedia received much Swedish media attention for its similarity to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

and some of its contents, in particular for its positive characterization of many Nazi German personalities, for cataloguing

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

in Swedish media, and for characterizing Swedish companies as either "Swedish-owned" or "Jewish-owned". This led to an investigation by the

Chancellor of Justice The Chancellor of Justice is a government official found in some northern European countries, broadly responsible for supervising the lawfulness of government actions. History In 1713, the Swedish King Charles XII, preoccupied with fighting the ...

() to decide whether the site should be prosecuted for inciting hatred or for violating the Swedish Privacy Law ().
Östgöta Correspondenten, 9 February 2007 , After reviewing the site's contents, the Chancellor of Justice decided to terminate investigations, since nothing had been found that violated the Freedom of Speech Act () or the Privacy Law. In January 2009, in a response to further attention given to the site, the Swedish Chancellor of Justice opined that Metapedia presented a positive image of Adolf Hitler, but decided not to restart an investigation since this was not illegal. In a June 2017 article, Alexis Sobel Fitts from ''Wired'' noted that the Hungarian and German Metapedia are "especially popular". As of 2022, the Hungarian version is closed.

Operation

Metapedia runs on

MediaWiki MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWi ...

, a free and open-source

wiki software Wiki software (also known as a wiki engine or a wiki application), is collaborative software that runs a wiki, which allows the users to create and collaboratively edit pages or entries via a web browser. A wiki system is usually a web applicatio ...

platform written in

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...

and built upon the

MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...

database.Judeförföljelser på internet
,

Dagens Nyheter ''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record. History and profile ' ...

, 8 February 2007 Extremisternas "uppslagsverk" kan vara olagligt
Östgöta Correspondenten, 9 February 2007 Metapedia is headed by Lagerström and Lennart Berg, who also runs the supporting NFSE Media AB.

References

External links

Metapedia in English - Main Page
{{authority control Alt-right websites Criticism of feminism Holocaust-denying websites MediaWiki websites Multilingual websites Neo-Nazi websites Swedish online encyclopedias Works about white nationalism Internet properties established in 2006 White supremacy in Europe Websites with far-right material Fascist propaganda Conspiracist media

History

Content

Operation

See also

References

External links