this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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221
Elon Musk Had Grok Rewrite Wikipedia. It Calls Hitler “The Führer.” (theintercept.com)
submitted 3 hours ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In late October, Elon Musk released a Wikipedia alternative, with pages written by his AI chatbot Grok. Unlike its nearly quarter-century-old namesake, Musk said Grokipedia would strip out the “woke” from Wikipedia, which he previously described as an “extension of legacy media propaganda.” But while Musk’s Grokipedia, in his eyes, is propaganda-free, it seems to have a proclivity toward right-wing hagiography.

Take Grokipedia’s entry on Adolf Hitler. Until earlier this month, the entry read, “Adolf Hitler was the Austrian-born Führer of Germany from 1933 to 1945.” That phrase has been edited to “Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and dictator,” but Grok still refers to Hitler by his honorific one clause later, writing that Hitler served as “Führer und Reichskanzler from August 1934 until his suicide in 1945.” NBC News also pointed out that the page on Hitler goes on for some 13,000 words before the first mention of the Holocaust.

Archive: http://archive.today/aEcz0

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[–] khannie@lemmy.world 58 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (6 children)

I mean the whole stupid Grokipedia thing is a shit show that will never take off, but Fuhrer is just "leader" in German. In it's used context for Hitler it straight up means dictator and (iirc) only came into full on use after the plebiscite giving him full dictatorial power after Hindenburg's death in 1934 (edit: He was already the Reich's Chancellor and merged in Hindenburg's powers with the vote to make himself full dictator / Fuhrer).

I'd welcome input from a German national - Is the word still used there?

[–] dukemirage@lemmy.world 37 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Führer is not just „leader“, it is tainted and using it as a substitute for Hitler in a factual text is super weird, like casually calling Jesus in his Wikipedia article „our lord and savior“ now and then.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 hour ago

Thank you for this comparison. That's a fun one and one that's made a little more 'subtle' in the US if only because of how common that language is among the populace in regions and how pervasive protestantism is in advertising/messaging.

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Not German but moved to Germany. The word is still a normal word, it can be used, only in certain contexts not.

To me it is very very weird.

Especially in a comboword there is 0,0 issue: Reiseführer, Bergführer, etc. The no go zone seems very subtle to me, it's more about pronunciation and context, not the word itself. Especially the word "Führerschein" is super weird to me when used in regular conversations. I automatically hear translated "license to be the Führer", but it just means driver's license and nothing else and no one finds it weird.

[–] RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 hours ago

Exactly this. If you use it as part of a compound word or as a verb it's totally fine. However "der Führer" (the Führer) is exclusively used to describe Hitler, and it usually has a negative or ironic vibe depending on who says it.

About the Führerschein... führen and fahren have the same etymological root... It is still used in "Führen eines Fahrzeugs" which simply means "driving a car" and that is where the term comes from.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Why would they use the honorary, German word Fuhrer in an English language wiki article though?

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Exactly.

If you are describing hitler's role in WW2? Yes, he was The German Fuhrer.

I would say that, honestly, I prefer the second version as it is more accurate to what he was. But any time you change something you have to ask "what does it mean that we are changing things?"

And since musk is, at best, someone who wishes he was as cool as the losers on LUE back in the day? This is very much not being done with a journalistic style guide in mind.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

We also use "Dalai Lama", for example. Changing it to "leader" would lose a lot in translation. There's a very long list of more problematic things with Musk and this ego project than this particular wording choice.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I agree with the second half but disagree on the first. We do use Dalai Lama because thats what he's known as across the world (at least fron my understanding) . We didn't refer to Angela Merkel as Furher of Germany when she lead it so it seems weird to include this in the introductory summary of Hitler especially considering it's an English article. I dont think you're losing anything in translation in this example by calling him the "leader of Germany" at that time. Down below, in the verbose write-up, seems like the more appropriate place to use it.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I don't think the Merkel comparison is accurate - no one called her Leader, we called her the Chancellor (Kanzler), because that's the job title. "Chancellor" is a pretty specific word in English with a narrower meaning and clearer connotation than "leader", which can be used in a huge variety of contexts. The problem is that English doesn't have a 1:1 translation of Fuehrer as we do with Kanzler, and "leader" is too generic versus Chancellor, Prime Minister, President, etc. Maybe "Supreme Leader" would work, but I haven't seen that used often enough for it to stick.

[–] ceiphas@feddit.org 14 points 2 hours ago

As a german, the word is very seldom used, and everybody cringes on use of it alone. We even use the english word guide instead for situations where it fits.

[–] r3tr0_97@ani.social 9 points 2 hours ago

Not a german national, but I'm learning it at school, and they say that if you go to a german-speaking region, it's better to say "chef", because "führer" is still connected to that guy

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 6 points 55 minutes ago

You don‘t really call him just the Führer in academic works so anything that works like an encyclopedia shouldn‘t either. The title is charged with either mockery or admiration. It should have no place in this context, because it should at least try to be neutral if you ask me.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 20 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

Conservapedia already did this something like twenty years ago. It missed the entire purpose of the project, which was to invite a kaleidoscope of specialists and journalists to document the volume of known information categorically, primarily through citation to other online works.

Instead, you had a basket case of ultra-orthodox ideologues carving out a very niche set of contrary opinion posts that weren't well documented or continuously maintained.

Conservapedia isn't a right wing vanity project because of it's hot takes on Hitler, it's a vanity project because of the yawning gulfs in it's data set. Nobody engages with the site, because it is so heavily censored.

I get the sense Grokapedia will suffer the same fate. If a subject doesn't tickle Musk's interest, it'll either go undocumented or be a naked plagarization of some other online encyclopedia. And as soon as Musk loses interest entirely, support for the service will go the same way as so many private vanity projects.

Incidentally, Wikipedia's fate is also an open question. What happens when Jimmy Wales can't administer and fundraise for it anymore? How long until some hacks get their hooks in and corrupt it like so many other private media outlets?

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

That's exactly why it's freely licensed, because we can't even trust King Jimbo.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I mean, just having the ability to roll up your own Wiki is very handy.

I would appreciate a way to archive the citations, so that a link-break down the line doesn't cause the raw data to be lost. But that's a problem with copywrite and IP more than anything Wikipedia does natively.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 56 minutes ago

Sure, that's a work around. But it relies on a trusted third party, along with wiki mods who don't yank the entry because they don't recognize the archived source as a valid citation.

It isn't a feature integrated into the encyclopedia.

[–] tpihkal@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Queue the return of the door to door Encyclopedia salesman. Soon everyone will have a World Book Encyclopedia set in their home again!

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

I still have my dad's 1957 edition sitting on my childhood bedroom shelf.

It is genuinely kind of wild to read through that thing, in light of modern history.

[–] sramder@lemmy.world 15 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It’s the holidays and he misses his dad…

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 53 minutes ago

he misses his sister mom too. She probably gives him special favors

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 14 points 1 hour ago

I just watched a tech video that reviewed two North Korean smartphones. Its autocorrect assertively blocks out or autoreplaces anything deemed unfit by the government, along with absolute control of what can be done on it, and absolute fingerprinting of anything sent.

I was reminded of this for no reason.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 7 points 27 minutes ago

I wonder how (or if) grokopedia defines "woke"?

Most of the people who complain about "the woke" arent able to define it.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 3 points 23 minutes ago

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