How to sabotage Grokipedia's infowar
Elon Musk wants to use “alternative facts” to feed his misanthropic agenda into the training data of future Large Language Models—we must counter this.
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Wikipedia is one of the great wonders that the World Wide Web has produced. It is, in fact, the “ground truth,” the widely accepted reflection of reality that many people refer to online and beyond. Now, Wikipedia is experiencing a serious attack on its unique position. Elon Musk has repeatedly targeted it—and it is a thorn in the side of the global right wing. The Heritage Foundation, which is behind the Project 2025 coup catalog, called for targeting Wikipedia authors.
Let’s remember: Musk’s systematic defacement of Twitter was only a harbinger of his destructive nature, which he demonstrated in all its misanthropy during the DOGE cutbacks. And even if version 0.1 of his anti-encyclopedia project “Grokipedia” still seems quite unfinished, we should nevertheless take it very seriously. Because the fragile little man Musk obviously has a plan. And his money, his network of tech bros and supporters from various authoritarian camps, and his army of disciples are anything but to be underestimated.
Admittedly, his plan is clever: creating a counter-encyclopedia that will be incorporated into the training data of upcoming Large Language Models (LLM) is in line with the twisted logic of “alternative facts” and the obviously successful approach of “flooding the zone with shit.” The goal is to discredit and undermine the authority of Wikipedia. This becomes apparent when you enter the search term “Grokipedia” in Grokipedia: Although there is no entry for the project itself yet, various articles related to Wikipedia are suggested—for example, “Allegations of ideological bias on Wikipedia” or “Wikipedia and fact-checking.” LLM optimization in its purest form.
The technical implementation of a project like Grokipedia is nowadays rather trivial. A LLM can, for example, comb through all Wikipedia texts for a supposed “woke bias.” If necessary, it then writes a version that subtly or even quite clumsily twists the perspective on a fact, event, or person. Musk already has the necessary infrastructure and language model (Grok) at his disposal, as well as Twitter (X), a platform with enormous reach.
Strategically curated
The English-language Wikipedia has a volume of around five billion words, which is equivalent to the length of 6,250 Bibles or 10,000 editions of The Lord of the Rings. The fact that Grokipedia currently has only about 1/8 of the size of the English Wikipedia – 850,000 entries vs. 7,000,000 – may be due to the fact that we are currently dealing with the first version. However, it can be assumed that this corpus contains a strategic selection of topics, events, and people that Musk and his associates want to portray in a different light. The aim is to engage in historical revisionism, cast doubt on medical facts, and, of course, spread climate change skepticism.
This large-scale information warfare, which will affect not only LLMs but also search engines, etc., cannot be stopped by updating the EU AI Act or similar measures. Action must be taken immediately, rather than in two years or however long such regulation would take. Ultimately, only the US and China play a role in the production of relevant LLMs.
It is possible that some LLM manufacturers will announce that they will not include Grokipedia in their training data. On the one hand, its effect is likely to spread among the Internet public anyway and thus indirectly seep into the overall corpus of training data. On the other hand, it is conceivable that US President Trump will order: “US companies that want to offer LLM must also use Grokipedia as training data” (see: Bothsidism, False Balance, Fairness Doctrine). It is well known how far up the CEOs of the big US tech companies are willing to go into the rectum of Trump.
The sabotage
This means there are two things to do. First, the topics covered by the 850,000 texts in Grokipedia should be mapped automatically. If this is indeed a case of strategic curation, one thing will become clear: which topics need to be manipulated from the right-wing perspective. And which are more like filler material to fake the scope of a serious encyclopedia. One approach could be to analyze Wikipedia usage data to determine the most viewed and most edited articles. And then compare the Top 10,000 between Grokipedia and Wikipedia.
The sabotage of Grokipedia would then work by setting up a “Diffipedia” (Diff: Difference). For many thousands of articles, the difference between the Grokipedia version of an article and the Wikipedia version is automatically written up using LLM. See the sample comparisons below for “Trump” and “climate change.” Building such a text corpus would at least cushion the impact of Grokipedia. This is because Diffipedia would also be incorporated into the training data for future language models. This would clearly indicate that Grokipedia consists in part of lies, distortions, half-truths, and omissions.
So – who’s going to do it? Speed is of the essence now. Or do we want to grant Musk another victory and let him ruin the future?
Two sample comparisons of Grokipedia vs. Wikipedia
Only the introductory texts of the respective English-language entries were compared, as of November 4, 2025. Implemented with LLM Claude Sonnet 4.5.
“Donald Trump”
Legal Issues
Grokipedia omits: • All criminal convictions • Civil liability for sexual abuse • Conviction for business fraud • Falsification of business records • Classified documents case • RICO case in Georgia
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Mentions none of this
Wikipedia contains: • Conviction for sexual abuse (civil law) • Conviction for business fraud • First convicted U.S. president (felony) • Pending cases in Georgia • Indictment for retention of classified documents
January 6, 2021
Grokipedia omits: • Trump’s active role in coup attempt • Term “attack” avoided
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “January 6 Capitol events” • “refusal to concede” • Gives space to fraud allegations: “alleged involved widespread irregularities” • “courts largely rejected” (instead of: election was legitimate)
Wikipedia contains: • “attempted to overturn the result” • “January 6 Capitol attack” • Second impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” • Clear attribution of intent
COVID-19 Pandemic
Grokipedia omits: • Downplaying of the pandemic • Contradicting health officials • Trump’s misconduct completely
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Mentions none of this
Wikipedia contains: • “downplayed its severity” • “contradicted health officials” • CARES Act (only positive)
Controversial Policies
Grokipedia omits: • Muslim travel ban • Family separation policy • Environmental protection rollback (specific) • Targeting of transgender people (2nd term)
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “deregulation efforts” • “rapid executive actions on immigration enforcement” • Euphemistic language
Wikipedia contains: • “travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries” • “family separation policy” • “rolled back environmental and business regulations” • “targeting of transgender people” • “deportations of immigrants”
Personal Characterization
Grokipedia omits: • Racist statements • Misogynistic statements • Promotion of conspiracy theories • False statements on unprecedented scale
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “self-made tycoon” (despite inherited wealth) • “America First policies” (uncritically adopts Trump branding)
Wikipedia contains: • “Born into a wealthy family” • “racist or misogynistic” • “false or misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics”
Presidential Assessment
Grokipedia omits: • Historian assessments • Authoritarian tendencies • Democratic backsliding
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Emphasizes only successes: tax cuts, Abraham Accords, economic growth
Wikipedia contains: • “authoritarian” • “democratic backsliding” • “ranked him as one of the worst presidents in American history”
Second Term (2025)
Grokipedia omits: • Mass layoffs • Intimidation of political opponents • Over 300 lawsuits against government actions • “Unitary executive theory” interpretation
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “rapid executive actions” • “reversing prior administration policies” • Neutral-positive framing
Wikipedia contains: • “mass layoffs of federal workers” • “intimidation of political opponents” • “over 300 lawsuits challenging legality” • “extensive use of executive orders” • “broad interpretation of unitary executive theory”
Economic Background
Grokipedia omits: • That he was born into a wealthy family
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “self-made tycoon, despite multiple corporate bankruptcies” • Minimizes 6 bankruptcies
Wikipedia contains: • “Born into a wealthy family” • Six business bankruptcies explicitly mentioned
Election Fraud Narrative
Grokipedia omits: • Clarification that allegations were unfounded
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “which he and supporters alleged involved widespread irregularities, though courts largely rejected challenges” • Gives space to false claims
Wikipedia contains: • Clear statement: Trump attempted to overturn election result • No legitimization of unfounded allegations
“Climate Change”
Scientific Consensus
Grokipedia omits: • Clear statement about human causation • Urgency of the problem • “biggest threats to global health”
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “widely attributed” (instead of clear statement) • “99% consensus” BUT: “methodological critiques” • “potential overestimation by including implicit endorsements” • Creates doubt about consensus
Wikipedia contains: • “driven by human activities” • Clear, unambiguous statement • WHO: “biggest threats to global health in 21st century” • No relativizing of consensus
Model Uncertainties
Grokipedia omits: • Focus on established science
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “models historically overestimated tropospheric warming rates” • Emphasizes “model discrepancies” • “underrepresenting dissenting analyses”
Wikipedia contains: • Mentions uncertainties in context • Focus on observed effects, not model criticism
Natural vs. Anthropogenic Factors
Grokipedia omits: • Clarity about main cause
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Emphasizes “natural variability” • “attribution of specific events remains challenging” • “natural factors...insufficiently account” (weakens) • “debates over causal attribution”
Wikipedia contains: • “driven by human activities” • Natural factors not used as counterargument • Clear causality
Positive Effects
Grokipedia omits: • No mention of positive CO₂ effects
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “CO₂ fertilization effects boosting global greening” • Relativizes negative impacts
Wikipedia contains: • Focus on risks and damages • No false balance with positive effects
Impacts & Risks
Grokipedia omits: • Concrete human impacts • Health risks • Migration and conflicts • Unequal impact
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Only technical description • “phenomena such as reduced Arctic sea ice” • No mention of health, migration, injustice
Wikipedia contains: • “threatens people with flooding, extreme heat, food scarcity” • “migration and conflict” • “biggest threats to global health” • “Poorer communities...most vulnerable”
Observed Effects
Grokipedia omits: • Concrete examples (wildfires, coral bleaching, droughts) • 2024 as warmest year
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Abstract: “altered precipitation regimes” • No visual/concrete examples • No mention of record temperatures
Wikipedia contains: • Concrete examples with images • “2024 warmest on record at +1.60°C” • Wildfire, coral bleaching, droughts • “worst megadrought in 1,200 years”
Action Urgency
Grokipedia omits: • Paris Agreement • Broad support for climate action • Concrete solutions
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “ongoing debates” • “balance between mitigation and natural adaptation capacities” • Suggests: natural adaptation might suffice
Wikipedia contains: • “widespread support for climate action” • “most countries aim to stop emitting CO₂” • Concrete measures (wind, solar, etc.) • Urgency clearly communicated
Tipping Points & Irreversibility
Grokipedia omits: • Tipping points (Greenland ice sheet) • Century-long consequences • Ocean acidification
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Not mentioned
Wikipedia contains: • “can trigger tipping points” • “melting all of Greenland ice sheet” • “some effects will continue for centuries” • “ocean acidification”
Language & Framing
Grokipedia omits: • Active, clear language • Problem-oriented
Grokipedia whitewashes: • Scientifically distant • Passive constructions • Doubt-seeding formulations • “Controversies center on...” • “debates over...”
Wikipedia contains: • Direct, action-oriented language • “threatens”, “forcing”, “calls” • Clear causal attributions
Adaptation vs. Mitigation
Grokipedia omits: • Limits of adaptation mentioned • Mitigation as priority
Grokipedia whitewashes: • “natural adaptation capacities” • Suggests: adaptation might suffice • Balance framing dilutes urgency
Wikipedia contains: • “some limits to adaptation already reached” • Clarification: adaptation alone insufficient • Mitigation necessary
