Published : 13 Oct 2026, 01:15 AM
Updated : 13 Oct 2026, 01:15 AM
British comedian and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig has criticised Wikipedia for what she describes as deep-seated bias against women and is backing a new digital knowledge project, The Guardian reports.
Toksvig has called the online encyclopaedia “patronising and deeply biased”, arguing that its volunteer editing community does not adequately represent the diversity of people and knowledge worldwide.
The Guardian reports that Toksvig is raising funds for Mappa Mundi, a project developed with the University of Cambridge to create an interactive digital atlas of knowledge that has been sidelined or removed from mainstream sources.
The project aims to give overlooked knowledge a digital home, offering a platform for material that may not be adequately represented in established online resources.
One example cited in the report is Canadian physicist Donna Strickland, whose draft Wikipedia biographies were repeatedly rejected before she won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Wikimedia Foundation estimates that only 19 percent of Wikipedia biographies are about women. Toksvig has also criticised the composition of its editing community, describing it as largely made up of white, middle-aged European men with the time and technology to contribute.
The Guardian also cites a 2013 study by the Oxford Internet Institute that found Wikipedia had more coverage of Germany than Africa and South America combined, raising questions about how the encyclopaedia represents different regions.
Wikipedia has faced criticism over its editorial approach from other prominent figures, including billionaire Elon Musk, who has labelled it “Wokepedia” and launched Grokipedia, an AI-powered alternative.
However, a paper published in November 2025 found that Grokipedia articles were 13 times more likely than Wikipedia articles to cite sources blacklisted by the English Wikipedia community. At the time of the study, researchers identified 42 citations to the neo-Nazi website Stormfront.
Mappa Mundi seeks to broaden access to knowledge by making overlooked material easier to discover and explore through a digital atlas.