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House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias
- bell-cot 1y ago> 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/ 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...
- NoahZuniga 1y agoBut you see, he is American. The xenophobia part is an important part of their reasoning.
- Aurornis 1y agoI 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.
- Fricken 1y agoIt's time to move Wikipedia from the US to a safer haven
- bhouston 1y agoMoving Wikipedia elsewhere will likely have to happen. Thought, the US may respond by blocking Wikipedia content as many regimes in the past have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
- dachris 1y agoNot to give any ideas, but a likely outcome is a US-based fork that has the offending bias removed, with a "ministry of truth"-y name.
- riffic 1y agoSorry for the dismissive tone, but this is a silly reactionary take. It's noise and the hot air is meant to serve as a distraction. Your doomerism isn't helpful.
- bbor 1y agoBlatant, open, unabashed authoritarianism is just “noise”…? What red line are you waiting for before acknowledging that we’re in a dangerous situation (aka headed towards doom)?
- riffic 1y agoI'm just as concerned about all this as you are. I guess I just have a bit of faith left in that reason will prevail. I'm cranky but also a perennial optimist.
- gnerd00 1y agoI support Wikipedia from the first day -- and this is true. I had to laugh! there is bias for certain.. of many kinds.
- chneu 1y agoTrust? They've loudly and proudly bragged about their bias. Anyone thinking modern Republicans have any morals is a fool just waiting to be tricked.
- lukev 1y agoShould any administration be investigating a private entity for bias? Whether there is bias or not is entirely immaterial! The government should not be the Ministry of Truth!
- rafaelmn 1y agoIs a non-profit a private entity ?
- lukev 1y agoYes. Although the privileged tax status of a 501(c)(3) does come with the restriction that they cannot engage in direct political campaigning or endorsement of candidates, they are still a private entity fully protected by the first amendment.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoIn this context, yes. It gets confusing, but a "public entity" refers to the government.
- Y-bar 1y agoI can think of a few instances where a government should investigate private entities for unlawful bias, such as biased non-merit based hiring, or biased interest rates based on the ethical background (e.g. via zip code) of the lender, or refusal to render service to people of colour.
- lukev 1y agoYes. Because there are laws against those things. There are no laws about bias in political content published by private entities. Because of the Constitution.
- sgnelson 1y agoIt's amazing how many discussions on HN are about "Company A is bad" instead of: "This behavior by the government is completely illegal or unethical and should not be occurring in a free society." And as the very first comment points out, whether there is truth in the charge or not, now there are people saying "A is bad because I read it on the interwebs!" And regardless of where the investigation goes, there will be more comments talking about the good/bad of Wikipedia, and not the good/bad of the US government (or other governments as the case may be.) This is about the 10th post in the past week that suffers from this phonomenon (see the US buying part of Intel posts for an excellent example.) HN commenters are very very good at missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes I wonder if it's intentional. Unfortunately, I think it often isn't.
- bawolff 1y agoI think that is what happens to every large system that tries to have fair rules. Eventually it gets lawyered. Either there are objective rules where people can get a benefit out of knowing the ins and outs of them better, or there are no objective rules and decision makers decide things on vibes. I'd definitely prefer the objective rules case. [Of course in real life its a spectrum and Wikipedia is somewhere in the middle] > 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. If you think legalese is bad on talk pages, try reading an arbcom case sometime ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Ca... ) its a fascinating pseudo-legal system.
- elcapitan 1y agohttps://archive.ph/17L8H https://archive.ph/17L8H
- righthand 1y agoOrganized 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 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.
- NoahZuniga 1y agoThis page didn't create or popularize the term "Trump derangement syndrome".
- righthand 1y agoSo? It maintains it the presence and unhealthy status quo. What is your point? I never declared it created the pejorative.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoBut legitimizing stupid shit is a choice.
- nessbot 1y agoI mean it is a "a pejorative term used to describe negative reactions to U.S. President Donald Trump..." How is having a page for that biased. And this is coming from some who has been described in the past (not anymore) of having TDS.
- righthand 1y agoNegative reactions to a US president isn’t exclusive to Trump. Yet here is a page indicating that there is something special about a person not liking a US President named Trump. Where is the Bush Derangement Syndrome? Where is the Biden Derangement Syndrome? Arguably this page owes everything to Obama Derangement Syndrome.
- bhouston 1y agoThere 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-israel-antisemitism/ 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.
- gnerd00 1y agoUC Berkeley students embarrassed themselves on the world stage by attacking the free speech rights of conservative speakers... petualant, threatening and very in the media. People in Berkeley familiar with the history bent their heads in grief to see it. Free speech means that yes, conservatives may also speak in public IMHO
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoSo what is a greater threat to free speech. A group of students throwing a tantrum because someone they don’t like was invited to speak? The most powerful government in the world using every tool it has to make the university whose speech they don’t like suffer? Tools including threatening to remove accreditation, refusing to disburse hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, threatening to end the student visas of the international students, etc.
- wrs 1y agoAlso, note that only the second of those actors is prohibited by the Constitution from infringing free speech.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoI don't see the point. Even if there is organized bias, what can Congress legally do about it?
- nessbot 1y agoYeah that'd be a very easy 1A case.
- bhouston 1y ago> Yeah that'd be a very easy 1A case. The Trump admin was very creative when it came to Harvard and figured out many different pressure points to push all at once. Don't expect it to be too simple. The guys running this have thought about avoiding the easy dismissal: https://www.ortecfinance.com/en/about-ortec-finance/news-and-events/new-us-administration-policies-could-cause-harvards-endowment-fund-to-plummet-up-to-40-percent https://www.ortecfinance.com/en/about-ortec-finance/news-and... Just look at how the recent flag burning EO was worded in order to get around 1A concerns.
- Sanzig 1y agoThe Trump admin has a lot less leverage over Wikipedia, though. The Wikimedia Foundation does not depend on US government funding and even if the US somehow made life difficult for donors, they are sitting on a substantial endowment fund that can float them for a long time. And at some point, if the harassment gets to be too much, Wikimedia can just up and leave. There's no reason that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to be headquartered in San Francisco, it could just as easily be in Oslo or Paris. That's a huge advantage that Harvard didn't have.
- gooseus 1y agoIt is painfully obvious that this administration and their party do not care about the Constitution, or even the principles they were willing to die to defend just 2 years ago. If Trump wants Wikipedia gone he'll just sue them or open an investigation that never needs to ever go before a judge. Then in return for dropping the suit/investigation all they need to do is make sure that a friend of MAGA sits on the board and can make sure that certain edits get approved and others don't. People who are surprised by this or still assuming that he can't/won't do something because of the law or norms or "but then the Democrats will do X" need to wake the fuck up. These people are going to do whatever the fuck they want under whatever justification they can cook up, and they don't fear any repercussions because they are not planning to turn over their new-found power to anyone else.
- mesk 1y agoHey, 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 !!!!!!!!
- bamboozled 1y agoWhat about now the VP goes to Europe and lectures them on feee speech haha
- jiggawatts 1y ago“Your freedom of speech is whatever we say it is.”
- boombapoom 1y agogood 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....
- xpe 1y agoThat would be an unfortunate backup plan to rely on. We want to keep the full value of Wikipedia alive. Wikipedia is (1) an ideal; (2) a community of volunteers; (3) a brand; (4) a habit for many people seeking information; (5) a center (if not the center) of many online textual / knowledge ecosystems. Peaceful, sustained, popular, legal, loud resistance is necessary to push back against an administration that is trying to kneecap influential dissenting viewpoints.
- boombapoom 1y agoagreed- I'd rather those ideals remain true
- zoddie 1y agoThey 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.
- beezle 1y agoOne man's biased is another man's correct.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- iandanforth 1y agoThis 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.
- bix6 1y agoPreach. How much time and money will Wikipedia have to waste defending this? Don’t these people have anything better to do? Like lowering prices for everyday Americans instead of running up baseless legal bills?
- aeternum 1y ago[flagged]
- mbeavitt 1y agowhat evidence do you have to back up this baseless claim? They openly publish their financial reports: https://wikimediafoundation.org/who-we-are/financial-reports https://wikimediafoundation.org/who-we-are/financial-reports $178 million might sound like an extremely large amount of money if you're a member of the general public, but for a global resource kept up to date that serves hundreds of billions of visitors per year this is actually not a huge quantity of money.
- guywithahat 1y agoI don't work for wikipedia and haven't seen their budget in depth, but the link is mostly fluff. Reading it I have no idea if "support for volunteers" means supporting wikipedia editors, corporate, donations, etc. All we really know is that hosting costs are about 3.1 million a year. Usually non-profit organizations like this get significant corporate funding because they do work for companies and political organizations, which is where the corruption comes from. I don't think there's any doubt Wikipedia is a politically biased organization, all you have to do is look at their URL blacklists to figure that out. The NYT is regarded as a high quality link, meanwhile you're not even allowed to link the epoch times as a reference despite it being the most comparable right-wing competitor to the NYT. Basically every major right-wing paper is banned, while every major left-wing paper is allowed
- jmclnx 1y agoI 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.
- 299632134809 1y ago[flagged]
- miltonlost 1y agoWhat are the lies being peddled by Wikipedia right now? Be specific please.
- FireBeyond 1y agoThat'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.
- tptacek 1y agoThis 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.
- strathmeyer 1y agoEverything is projection. They're upset they can't insert their own bias into Wikipedia and want that bias codified by law or at least by corrupt lawmakers.
- schoen 1y agoYes, the proper response is that the government isn't supposed to oversee Wikipedia's editorial policy (or other organizations' editorial policy). Wikipedia should clearly have a right to choose its policies without government interference.
- ASalazarMX 1y agoProbably an attempt at capturing Wikipedia, in preparation for censorship or historic revisionism. I feel like a cosnpiracy theorist, but such things seem less implausible these days.
- tptacek 1y agoHow exactly is that supposed to work?
- pjc50 1y agoIt's not complicated, same process as has been applied to government agencies and private universities: remove "DEI", that is any mention of anti racism. How it's enforced is a detail. They have the Supreme Court to issue whatever verdict is required.
- tptacek 1y agoNo, it must be complicated. Wikipedia isn't grant-funded (they have money coming out of their ears) and it isn't a government agency subject to regulation. Most private publications are proudly biased. In fact, the most likely outcome to the House trying to play hardball with Wikipedia is a double-digit percentage increase in their donations. Which I don't think House Republicans mind, because none of this is actually about Wikipedia. So, again, how is this supposed to work?
- riffic 1y agothey 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.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoI 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
- jmclnx 1y agoYes, I am sure what you say is true, but eventually the article(s) in question will be corrected, or tagged in some manner. But just look at what Trump is doing to the Smithsonian, one example is turning US Slavery History into something even all slaves loved. Or erasing Trump's 2 Impeachments. You and everyone with even a little bit of smarts knows the articles that will be first targeted is US Slavery History and Trump's multiple Impeachments.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoEven if whitehouse.gov rewrites history, or forces reputable outlets to make "corrections", Wikipedia articles can (and do) reference archives.
- serain 1y agothis is false. all you have to do is see a mildly controversial article like "woman". it is all opinionated. and citing sources to add similar content to "man" would not work. you can go to history and see the comment form the woman who started much of it, saying something like "trying to start something here" and since then, it is like this.
- breppp 1y agoToday, with infinite information you can always find a source no matter how low quality and place it in equal setting with a high quality source. Then it is suddenly "However" If someone challenges you, you have infinite time due to obsession or being paid. You can then quote a barrage of wikipedia rules until the other side submits. If whatever side of the "truth" has a time advantage, they will usually win. That's very common on topics that attract the obsessed, and the end result does not usually correlate with reality
- like_any_other 1y ago[flagged]
- alistairSH 1y agoDoes 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?
- creativenolo 1y agoWikipedia should change the pop ups to feature Donald with an appeal to use his world view.
- lyu07282 1y agoThe really big one and most likely origin of all of this, was this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide 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).
- Krasnol 1y agoOf 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.
- bawolff 1y agoSo 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.
- arresin 1y ago> 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Fairburn 1y agoJust another attempt to vilify a public source of information to keep the masses stupid. As usual. Pol Pot would be proud.
- taylodl 1y agoThis 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.
- throw0101c 1y ago"And reality has a well-known liberal bias." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_White_House_Correspondents%27_Dinner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh...
- more_corn 1y agoTo 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.
- g8oz 1y agoIt'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.
- srid 1y ago[flagged]
- thiht 1y agoWait, I thought "bias" was a woke word Republicans are ruining EVERYTHING.
- tempodox 1y agoNot propagating Trump’s lies is organized bias all right.