Metapedia

Metapedia

Metapedia logo
Web address English main page
Slogan The alternative encyclopedia
Commercial? No
Type of site
 Internet encyclopedia
Registration Optional (required only for certain tasks such as editing, creating new article pages or uploading files)
Available in Hungarian, German, English, Spanish, Swedish, Romanian, Estonian, French, Slovak, Czech, Portuguese, Norwegian, Croatian, Danish, Greek, Dutch
Content license
 GNU Free Documentation License 1.3
Owner NFSE Media AB, Linköping, Sweden
Launched October 26, 2006
Alexa rank
 negative increase 47,683 (April 2014)[1]
Current status Active

Metapedia is a multilingual, far-right electronic encyclopedia which states that it focuses on culture, art, science, philosophy and politics. It contains white nationalist, white supremacist, Neo-Nazi,[2] and far-right points of view.[3][4][5] It was officially launched on October 26, 2006 with the Swedish-language edition.[6][7] The English section was launched on April 28, 2007.[6][8] The Hungarian version has the most articles: 144,189 as of September 27, 2013.[9]

Content

The site's mission statement states one of its goals is "to present a more balanced and fair image of the pro-European struggle for the general public as well as for academics, who until now have been dependent on strongly biased and hostile 'researchers' like Searchlight, Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Law Center, Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and such."[10] The Metapedia logo features the head of a sculpture ("Youth") by the German artist Arno Breker.[11] According to the administrators, Metapedia is intended to be "a web resource for pro-European activists".

The site has more than 20,000 articles in English and has versions in seventeen European languages. Topics covered include European history, Norse mythology, and white nationalist music.[12] The Register states that "a good percentage of Metapedia's content seems to be dedicated to Woden, the White Order of Thule, runes, and other subject matter which would undoubtedly have found favour with Aryan hocus-pocus aficionado Heinrich Himmler."[3] Crítica de la Argentina says it has glowing descriptions of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi figures.[13] Daniel Goldhagen describes it as seeking "to create (currently in 18 languages) an anti-Semitic informational universe."[14]

According to the North Rhine-Westphalian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Metapedia's articles are characterized by historical revisionism and lauding Nazi Germany.[5] For this reason, the German Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien) started an indexing process, which would consider as to whether Metapedia is "harmful to young people".[15]

In early 2007, within half a year of the launching of the original Swedish version, Metapedia received much Swedish media attention for its similarity to Wikipedia and some of its contents, in particular for its positive characterization of many Nazi German personalities, for cataloguing Jews in Swedish media, and for characterizing Swedish companies as either "Swedish-owned" or "Jewish-owned".[16][17] This led to an investigation being initiated in Sweden, in which the Chancellor of Justice (Justitiekanslern) examined whether the site should be prosecuted for inciting hatred or for violating the Swedish Privacy Law (Personuppgiftslagen).[18] 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 (Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen) or the Privacy Law.[19] 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.[20]

Operation

The operation of Metapedia depends on MediaWiki, a free and open-source wiki software platform written in PHP and built upon the MySQL database.[15][21][22] The Metapedia project was started by the publisher Anders Lagerström. The website is headed by him and Lennart Berg. Lennart Berg runs the supporting NFSE Media AB.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Metapedia.org Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  2. ↑ Adam G. Klein (June 2010). A Space for Hate: The White Power Movement's Adaptation Into Cyberspace. pp. 93, 104–105. ISBN 978-1-936117-07-9.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Haines, Lester (2007-07-23). "Conservapedia too pinko? Try Metapedia - Aryans battle 'Cultural Marxism'". Theregister.co.uk. Situation Publishing. Archived from the original on 2011-03-08. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  4. ↑ Schweyer, Cléo (2009-07-15). "L'extrême droite s'offre une seconde jeunesse sur le web". cafebabel.fr (in French). Babel International. Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "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 of North Rhine-Westphalia. pp. 59f. (German)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Metapedia – Introduction". metapedia.org (Metapedia).
  7. ↑ "Versionshistorik för "Huvudsida"". sv.metapedia.org (in Swedish) (Metapedia).
  8. ↑ "Revision history of "Main Page"". en.metapedia.org (Metapedia).
  9. ↑ "Kezdőlap". hu.metapedia.org (in Hungarian) (Metapedia).
  10. ↑ "Metapedia: Mission statement". en.metapedia.org (Metapedia). 2010-06-17.
  11. ↑ "Metapedia: Projektbeschreibung". de.metapedia.org (in German) (Metapedia). 2011-01-24.
  12. ↑ "Aryan Encyclopedia Takes Off". Splcenter.org. Montgomery, Alabama: Southern Poverty Law Center. 2007. Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  13. ↑ Llegó la Wikipedia de ultraderecha, Crítica de la Argentina (Spanish)
  14. ↑ Goldhagen, Daniel (October 18, 2013). "How the Web spreads anti-Semitism". CNN. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Bulletin of the German Parliament 16/10215 from September 12, 2008, pp. 6f.: Answer of the German government to a parliamentary query by the Green Member of the German Parliament Monika Lazar (German)
  16. ↑ Judeförföljelser på internet Dagens Nyheter, 8 February 2007 (Swedish)
  17. ↑ Propagandapedia Kristianstadsbladet, 20 February 2007 (Swedish)
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Nazistsida blir fall för JK Östgöta Correspondenten, 09 February 2007 (Swedish)
  19. ↑ Ingen förundersökning kring Metapedia, Sveriges Radio Östergötland, 20 February 2007 (Swedish)
  20. ↑ JK: Positiv text om Hitler inte hets mot folkgrupp Föreningen Grävande Journalister, 26 January 2009 (Swedish)
  21. ↑ Judeförföljelser på internet , Dagens Nyheter, 08 February 2007 (Swedish)
  22. ↑ Extremisternas ”uppslagsverk” kan vara olagligt, Östgöta Correspondenten, 09 February 2007 (Swedish)

External links