This is McCarthyism. You take a polarizing word, then you attack your enemies by claiming they are that thing, and couch the whole thing in an "investigation" whose outcome is predetermined.

There is no merit to discussing if the target is that thing, it doesn't matter. It's an ideological attack. If you take it on its face then the attackers win because you're treating them as if they were honest participants in a discussion, which they are not.

And remember even if the investigation (which is a farce) goes nowhere, allowing it to exist unchallenged means that some people are going to be harassed and intimidated. But, that too is the point, fear is what they want.

I don’t trust this administration to perform an unbiased investigation, but it’s not a secret that Wikipedia is a high profile target for anyone who wants to push an agenda.

Even trivial topics can attract die-hards who refuse to let an article say something they don’t like.

Wikipedia also seeks to have a similar problem to StackOverflow where some users have become very good at working their way into the site’s structures and saying the right things to leverage the site’s governance model to their advantage. The couple times I’ve visited “talk” pages for topics that seemed a bit off lately I found a whirlwind of activity from a handful of accounts who seemed to find a Wikipedia rule or procedure to shut down talk they disagreed with.

I used to (and still am) one of the highest ranked editors you can be without becoming an administrator. Wikipedia has its problems, and I spent years fighting them- but I slowly realized there is no better way to do it.

Wikipedia is not an arbitrator of truth: everything needs a reliable, secondary source[0]. This means the content has to be notable enough that a reputable source wrote about it, and you cannot reference things like git commits or research papers (since they don't provide context and most people can't understand them).

If a Wikipedia article does use one of those sources, delete the paragraph. If you get into an Edit war, you'll win.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources

This seems like just an attempt to change the news cycle, because there's no rule anywhere saying Wikipedia needs to be unbiased, any more than does Fox News or PragerU.

That's going to be awkward, when they find that there's been, for many years, a studious effort to push forth pro-Israel talking points and agendas.

(To be clear, there is also pro-Palestine, too, though certainly less organized.)

Also, RIP Wikipedia Review which, though it went downhill later, was an amazing source of revealing corruption in the Wikipedia bureacracy, cabalizing and literal secret mailing lists to coordinate protection of viewpoints, including pro-Israel, from the admins.

I don't see the point. Even if there is organized bias, what can Congress legally do about it?

There is a ton of bias on Wikipedia. But this is the nature of anything trying to create a collective understanding of the world that involves multiple authors with diverse viewpoints.

But given the way this administration works (looking at their treatment of Universities/Colleges), they will only identify specific types of bias:

- criticism of Republicans

- criticism of Christian conservatism

- pro-LGBTQ+

- criticism of Israel

and try to punish Wikipedia for it, while allowing all other types of bias to flourish.

This isn't that different than the TikTok ban being motivated in Congress by the prevalence of criticism of Israel on TikTok: https://forward.com/culture/688840/tiktok-ban-gaza-palestine...

I expect financial sanctions to be threatened. Because Wikipedia is a US-based, it will likely end up in US court like so many of the other Trump policies.

Does Wikepedia/Wikimedia receive funding from the US government? If not, what's the basis for an investigation? Wouldn't any bias here fall under normal freedom-of-speech, same as any other media outlet?

It's incredible the lengths the American political system will go to to keep the Zionist lobby happy.

Also worth noting that The Hill itself has fired at least 2 journalists over their criticisms of Israel.

> The request [...] is part of an investigation into “foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion.”

On that basis - should there also be an investigation into https://www.mikejohnsonforlouisiana.com/ ? He is the Speaker of the House, and it would be incredibly easy for some of his taxpayer-paid staff to do stuff, with the objective of influencing U.S. public opinion...

So reading the actual letter what they are asking for:

> 1.Records, communications, or analysis pertaining to possible coordination by nation state actors in editing activities on Wikipedia.

> 2. Records, communications, or analysis pertaining to possible coordination within academic institutions or other organized efforts to edit or influence content identified as possibly violating Wikipedia policies.

> 3. Records of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) including but not limited to all editor conduct disputes and actions taken against them.

> 4. Records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration dates, user activity logs) for editors subject to actions by ArbCom.

> 5. Documentation of Wikipedia’s editorial policies and protocols including those aimed at ensuring neutrality and addressing bias as well as policies regarding discipline for violations.

> 6. Any analysis conducted or reviewed by the Wikimedia Foundation (or by a third-party acting on its behalf) of patterns of manipulation or bias related to antisemitism and conflicts with the State of Israel.

---

IP adress of users who have gotten in trouble with arbcom is quite concerning. That could make people be afraid of contributing to controversial topics in case their IP ends up in US government hands. Definitely a chilling effect.

good thing wikipedia allows its entire database to be downloaded..... go ahead and change it to your will, we will have the data for a few years later....

The really big one and most likely origin of all of this, was this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide

Which calling it that, is of course a huge issue for all the zionist genocide deniers (both liberals and conservatives).

https://archive.ph/17L8H

> They referenced a report from the Anti-Defamation League about anti-Israel bias on Wikipedia that detailed a coordinated campaign to manipulate content related to the Israel-Palestine conflict

And there it is. The reason.

Do they have some kind of blackmail on people? It’s almost as if they had an operative throwing parties and video taping the depraved acts of people in power.

they can investigate all they want (which will be on the public record). The WP project, as hostile as it is to newbies and to those with an agenda, actually has a solid systemic policy foundation to address these concerns and the first amendment is basically a shield with a middle finger on it to petty legislative tyrants.

Of course it is biased.

Biased towards sanity while the government and a significant part of this country is biased in the opposite direction.

No wonder they're afraid.

Wikipedia should change the pop ups to feature Donald with an appeal to use his world view.

"And reality has a well-known liberal bias." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh...

Wait, I thought "bias" was a woke word

Republicans are ruining EVERYTHING.

To be fair objectivity is biased against an ideology that likes to just make things up and bullshit all the time so it’s quite likely there’s evidence of bias against said ideology.

Just another attempt to vilify a public source of information to keep the masses stupid. As usual. Pol Pot would be proud.

This is Orwellian doublespeak.

"Investigate" means "harass." There's no intent to do any fact-finding.

"Allegations" means "baseless accusations." Trump often employs the tactic of saying "people say" and then say something nobody has ever said before. It's a rhetorical device - appeal to anonymous authority - used to make people think this thought is widespread when it isn't.

Not propagating Trump’s lies is organized bias all right.

I guess Wikipedia does not echo the blatant lies the Trump Admin. is pushing.

Maybe Wikipedia should start blocking states the congress people asking for this investigation are from with a big banner saying "Your congress person wants us to push Trump Lies, so this site is blocked from your state until this investigation ends".

Then maybe these people understand what real bias looks like.

Hey, Let's investigate together if their freedom of speech is used correctly.

/s

Meanwhile: Hey EU, regulating our friedly corporate donors, means you harm their freedom of speech !!!!!!!!

Organized bias like creating a specific page to for a fictional syndrome in order to wave away any criticisms of your opponents. So organized that Wikipedia won’t remove the obvious bs:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome

One of the many reasons I don’t donate to Wikipedia. To keep this page up is to continue fueling unnecessary culture wars. Which in my opinion doesn’t align with their mission as it is not knowlege but an attack:

> Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by presenting information on all branches of knowledge.

They should also investigate Google, which often puts Wikipedia article extracts right at the top of the search results. There has been a great deal of misinformation spread this way.

Wikipedia is just the tip of the iceberg. How their biased viewpoints get amplified globally is a huge problem on top of that.