Online Commenter Discovers That 'Do Your Own Research' Leads to Same Wikipedia Article Everyone Else Read

Self-described independent thinker and online commenter Gerald Contrarian has discovered, after four hours of what he called 'deep research,' that the conclusions he reached about the topic of vaccine development are identical to those presented in the first paragraph of the relevant Wikipedia article, which he had dismissed as 'mainstream narrative' before conducting his investigation. 'I went down the rabbit hole,' Contrarian told followers on his social media account, which has 340 followers. 'I read studies. I cross-referenced sources. I analyzed data. And I arrived at my own conclusion, independently, through my own critical thinking.' The conclusion — that vaccines undergo multi-phase clinical trials before regulatory approval — is the same information available in the opening section of the Wikipedia article he had urged his followers to 'look beyond.' 'The difference is that I verified it myself,' Contrarian said. 'When Wikipedia says it, that's the establishment telling you what to think. When I say it after four hours of reading the same sources Wikipedia cited, that's independent research.' Contarian's research methodology, which he documented in a 23-part social media thread, consisted of: reading the Wikipedia article, following the article's citations to the original papers, reading the abstracts of those papers, and concluding that the Wikipedia article was accurate. 'He did exactly what Wikipedia's editors did,' said information literacy researcher Dr. Sandra Source. 'He followed the citations, assessed the evidence, and reached the same conclusion. The only difference is that Wikipedia did it in 2008 and he did it last Tuesday. He has replicated the work of an unpaid encyclopedia editor and declared himself a free thinker.' Contrarian has since moved on to researching climate science, a process he expects will take 'weeks of independent analysis' and which his followers anticipate will culminate in him reading the IPCC summary for policymakers and agreeing with it. 'I go where the evidence leads,' Contrarian said. 'It just happens to lead to the same place every time.'