Cultural information bubbles: A new approach for automatic ethical evaluation of digital artwork collections based on Wikidata.

This article focuses on the development and application of a new automated methodology for the ethical evaluation of large digital cultural collections, using Wikidata as a unifying ontological framework. The study quantitatively assessed the representation of artworks and creators in the online databases of two major Western art museums—the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA) and the Rijksmuseum (Netherlands)—and compared them to the aggregated Wikidata artwork collection. Findings reveal significant biases and a Western cultural information bubble across all collections, with Wikidata showing relatively more balanced and inclusive representation than the individual museum databases, though none fully meet ethical diversity and inclusion criteria. The research underscores the importance of raising awareness about biases in digital cultural heritage databases and recommends ongoing efforts by Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) institutions to enhance the representation of ethnic, religious minorities, indigenous cultures, and female artists in their digital collections.