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Wikipedia sees tug of war break out over its definition of ‘recession’

Wikipedia became a political battleground this past week when the website’s page for the term “recession” was repeatedly modified in response to the Biden administration’s attempt to spin poor economic numbers.

Editors took to the publicly curated online encyclopedia to either remove or emphasize the typical definition of a recession — two consecutive fiscal quarters of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

One version of the page’s definition section dated July 25 scrubbed any mention of “two negative consecutive quarters of GDP growth,” according to online news site UnHerd.

Another version of the page’s lead section dated July 27 reportedly said: “There is no global consensus on the definition of recession.