9 ms·

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" w

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.

bix6 1y ago
Preach. 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 ago
    what 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 ago
      I 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
      - bawolff 1y ago
        > Reading it I have no idea if "support for volunteers" means supporting wikipedia editors, corporate, donations I think its pretty clear that "support for volunteers" does not mean corporate. I too would like more detailed budgets, but we do have some info here. > Usually non-profit organizations like this get significant corporate funding because they do work for companies and political organizations The list of large donors is public https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annual-report/#toc-donors https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annu... there are only 27 who gave > $50000. Which ones do you think Wikipedia is giving biased coverage to? I'd also point out that there is a wall of separation between editors and the foundation. > 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 Discussion about epoch times at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_279#The_Epoch_Times,_once_again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not... my understanding is the concern is around them promoting conspiracy theories without evidence not their political alignment.
        aeternum 1y ago
        >my understanding is the concern is around them promoting conspiracy theories without evidence not their political alignment. That might be their justification but is it actually true? Specifically: Do you believe that every major right-wing paper promotes conspiracy theories while every major left-wing paper does not?
        bawolff 1y ago
        I would disagree with your premise that every major right wing paper is listed. For example fox news and the Washington Examiner are considered right wing and are not listed as a deprecated source. Similarly there are left wing sources on the deprecated list like the grayzone or Occupy Democrats. (Arguably those are rather fringe) Certainly the epoch times has been widely criticized for being factually inaccurate in ways the new york times has not been. I also don't particularly think the new york times is equivalent to the epoch times in terms of reputation.
    - aeternum 1y ago
      https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annual-report/#toc-financial-accountability https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annu... They spend only $3mil on internet hosting. They spent almost 6 mil on travel and conferences, and 26 mil on awards and grants. They could easily run all wikimedia hosting on investment income (endowment) alone so the banner that often pleads for donations to keep wikipedia running is pretty scammy.
  - creativenolo 1y ago
    I’m not following this comment. Yes, it’s a true statement. But do you mean it changes the situation? Should your comment be read as support for them spending their money sourced through donations to defend the accusations?
- bawolff 1y ago
  From what I understand this is just a "polite" request, not a supeona, so Wikipedia can ignore it if they want.
  - bix6 1y ago
    You can just ignore congress?
    - bawolff 1y ago
      If they are just asking nicely, yes (although there are probably political ramifications). If its an actual demand then no. I imagine the way it normal goes is first they ask nicely and if you say no then they formally supeona you.
    - Freedom2 1y ago
      Depends if you're the president.
      - EGreg 1y ago
        Yup https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575819-trump-advising-4-former-aides-to-ignore-subpoenas-from-jan-6-panel/amp/ https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575819-trump-ad...
- tastyface 1y ago
  This is actually one of the most important things they can do. Reality does not conform to their twisted worldviews, so they must pervert publicly available sources of information in order to maintain legitimacy. This means the media, education, and the open internet. And they are readily assaulting all three.
tovej 1y ago
Definitely McCarthyism, or possibly a slippery slide towards something worse. These attacks on free speech are much more brazen than I expected.
stego-tech 1y ago
That’s the point of all this polarization: the era of mass dissemination of information revealed the horrors, mistakes, and transgressions of past regimes and histories that some parties would rather not be widely publicized. The result is a group who wishes to reauthor facts and data to fit their narrative, and the rest who want to act on quality data in good confidence. It’s not a partisan fight, it’s a fight over whether or not nations, parties, or groups have a right to re-author reality through data to fit their desires.
- butlike 1y ago
  Game theory would say that if you're looking to move the overton window, anything less than max would be a missplay. That is to say, anything except total polarization would fail to move the overton window the max amount in any given direction, since with max polarization, the possibility exists to move it the full amount, whereas a more nuanced claim that moved it only a little bit would only ever move it 'that little bit.'
nickpsecurity 1y ago
[flagged]
- mcphage 1y ago
  > This also ties into what DOGE kept finding. DOGE wasted billions of dollars and failed.
- throwaway-11-1 1y ago
  your accusations of progressives is basically describing actual christian americans
janice1999 1y ago
> This is McCarthyism. Roy Cohn was Trump's mentor after all.
blitzar 1y ago
In the US, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.
throw0101c 1y ago
[flagged]
- dazed_confused 1y ago
  It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith.
  - throw0101a 1y ago
    > It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith. The problem is that there are people who genuinely believe it is not a bad thing. > Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.[1] It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.[2] It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith These people are not pretending and saying these things for clicks or whatever. When they say they like this, and want more, it would be prudent to prudent to take them at their word.
deepfriedchokes 1y ago
Ideological suggests they have ideals, and values, but I think it’s simpler than that: This is about power and submission. All of Trump’s seemingly irrational decisions are his emotionally rational pursuit of forcing people to submit, just like his dad did to him [0]. Like a lot of boomers scarred by untreated trauma, that’s what he understands respect to be: submission. It was wrong then, and wrong now, but attacking Trump, while intuitive, is the wrong way to engage him. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump-abuse-father-niece-mary-book https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump...
onetimeusename 1y ago
Why do you say that? What makes you say this is McCarthyism which was an accusation made against people in the House? I read the article and it says they are opening a probe into foreign influence peddling and people receiving taxpayer funding to do influence peddling and they asked for information from the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. You might disagree those are worth investigating but that sounds a lot more reasonable than McCarthyism. The headline makes it seem like they are simply just investigating bias.
- cherry_tree 1y ago
  What do you think McCarthyism is?
  - onetimeusename 1y ago
    McCarthyism is generally when someone in power abuses their authority to accuse others without evidence, often for a personal vendetta. A wide-ranging investigation that goes beyond it's scope is carried out. An atmosphere of fear is created. People's reputations get damaged. People's Constitutional rights are violated. Although it can also just mean whenever someone accuses people of a conspiracy without evidence I will use the former definition. Have any of those things happened here? Whose rights have been violated? Oh and people routinely get dragged in front of Congress by both parties for grandstanding purposes and nothing comes of it. Perhaps something to keep in mind when using scary words.
    - bigbadfeline 1y ago
      > McCarthyism is generally when someone in power abuses their authority to accuse others without evidence, often for a personal vendetta. Your personal, ad hoc definition of McCarthyism is no better than any other. Generally, McCarthyism is persecution of people because of their ideas, because of wrongthink, which is the case here. > Oh and people routinely get dragged in front of Congress by both parties for grandstanding purposes and nothing comes of it. That's not an argument. Yes, many appear before Congress as was the case during McCarty too, but only some of those appearances, then and now, can be qualified as McCarthyism. Let me underline that "nothing comes of it" is wrong on several levels - first, wrongthink persecution always has consequences - at the very least, the target organization or individual are put on the defensive, stressed and strained for resources while the persecutors have no such constraints. Second, sometimes more serious consequences do "come out of it" which is not reflected at all in your argument. The most salient lesson in McCarthyism is that it caught roots in the US (something thought to be impossible) and for how long it dragged along. Therefore anything that even slightly looks like McCarthyism must be called out lest we slide down the slippery slope again. Trying to hide risks that are clearly manifested in history isn't fair play. > Perhaps something to keep in mind when using scary words. Perhaps it's better to keep in mind that one shouldn't be scared of words and should try to understand them instead.

bix6 1y ago

Preach. 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 ago
  what 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 ago
    I 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
    - bawolff 1y ago
      > Reading it I have no idea if "support for volunteers" means supporting wikipedia editors, corporate, donations I think its pretty clear that "support for volunteers" does not mean corporate. I too would like more detailed budgets, but we do have some info here. > Usually non-profit organizations like this get significant corporate funding because they do work for companies and political organizations The list of large donors is public https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annual-report/#toc-donors https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annu... there are only 27 who gave > $50000. Which ones do you think Wikipedia is giving biased coverage to? I'd also point out that there is a wall of separation between editors and the foundation. > 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 Discussion about epoch times at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_279#The_Epoch_Times,_once_again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Not... my understanding is the concern is around them promoting conspiracy theories without evidence not their political alignment.
      - aeternum 1y ago
        >my understanding is the concern is around them promoting conspiracy theories without evidence not their political alignment. That might be their justification but is it actually true? Specifically: Do you believe that every major right-wing paper promotes conspiracy theories while every major left-wing paper does not?
        bawolff 1y ago
        I would disagree with your premise that every major right wing paper is listed. For example fox news and the Washington Examiner are considered right wing and are not listed as a deprecated source. Similarly there are left wing sources on the deprecated list like the grayzone or Occupy Democrats. (Arguably those are rather fringe) Certainly the epoch times has been widely criticized for being factually inaccurate in ways the new york times has not been. I also don't particularly think the new york times is equivalent to the epoch times in terms of reputation.
  - aeternum 1y ago
    https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annual-report/#toc-financial-accountability https://wikimediafoundation.org/annualreports/2023-2024-annu... They spend only $3mil on internet hosting. They spent almost 6 mil on travel and conferences, and 26 mil on awards and grants. They could easily run all wikimedia hosting on investment income (endowment) alone so the banner that often pleads for donations to keep wikipedia running is pretty scammy.
- creativenolo 1y ago
  I’m not following this comment. Yes, it’s a true statement. But do you mean it changes the situation? Should your comment be read as support for them spending their money sourced through donations to defend the accusations?
bawolff 1y ago
From what I understand this is just a "polite" request, not a supeona, so Wikipedia can ignore it if they want.
- bix6 1y ago
  You can just ignore congress?
  - bawolff 1y ago
    If they are just asking nicely, yes (although there are probably political ramifications). If its an actual demand then no. I imagine the way it normal goes is first they ask nicely and if you say no then they formally supeona you.
  - Freedom2 1y ago
    Depends if you're the president.
    - EGreg 1y ago
      Yup https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575819-trump-advising-4-former-aides-to-ignore-subpoenas-from-jan-6-panel/amp/ https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/575819-trump-ad...
tastyface 1y ago
This is actually one of the most important things they can do. Reality does not conform to their twisted worldviews, so they must pervert publicly available sources of information in order to maintain legitimacy. This means the media, education, and the open internet. And they are readily assaulting all three.

tovej 1y ago

Definitely McCarthyism, or possibly a slippery slide towards something worse. These attacks on free speech are much more brazen than I expected.

stego-tech 1y ago

That’s the point of all this polarization: the era of mass dissemination of information revealed the horrors, mistakes, and transgressions of past regimes and histories that some parties would rather not be widely publicized. The result is a group who wishes to reauthor facts and data to fit their narrative, and the rest who want to act on quality data in good confidence. It’s not a partisan fight, it’s a fight over whether or not nations, parties, or groups have a right to re-author reality through data to fit their desires.

butlike 1y ago
Game theory would say that if you're looking to move the overton window, anything less than max would be a missplay. That is to say, anything except total polarization would fail to move the overton window the max amount in any given direction, since with max polarization, the possibility exists to move it the full amount, whereas a more nuanced claim that moved it only a little bit would only ever move it 'that little bit.'

nickpsecurity 1y ago

[flagged]

mcphage 1y ago
> This also ties into what DOGE kept finding. DOGE wasted billions of dollars and failed.
throwaway-11-1 1y ago
your accusations of progressives is basically describing actual christian americans

janice1999 1y ago

> This is McCarthyism. Roy Cohn was Trump's mentor after all.

blitzar 1y ago

In the US, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.

throw0101c 1y ago

[flagged]

dazed_confused 1y ago
It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith.
- throw0101a 1y ago
  > It is a bad thing and anyone who thinks otherwise is acting in bad faith. The problem is that there are people who genuinely believe it is not a bad thing. > Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.[1] It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.[2] It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith These people are not pretending and saying these things for clicks or whatever. When they say they like this, and want more, it would be prudent to prudent to take them at their word.

deepfriedchokes 1y ago

Ideological suggests they have ideals, and values, but I think it’s simpler than that: This is about power and submission. All of Trump’s seemingly irrational decisions are his emotionally rational pursuit of forcing people to submit, just like his dad did to him [0]. Like a lot of boomers scarred by untreated trauma, that’s what he understands respect to be: submission. It was wrong then, and wrong now, but attacking Trump, while intuitive, is the wrong way to engage him. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump-abuse-father-niece-mary-book https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump...

onetimeusename 1y ago

Why do you say that? What makes you say this is McCarthyism which was an accusation made against people in the House? I read the article and it says they are opening a probe into foreign influence peddling and people receiving taxpayer funding to do influence peddling and they asked for information from the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. You might disagree those are worth investigating but that sounds a lot more reasonable than McCarthyism. The headline makes it seem like they are simply just investigating bias.

cherry_tree 1y ago
What do you think McCarthyism is?
- onetimeusename 1y ago
  McCarthyism is generally when someone in power abuses their authority to accuse others without evidence, often for a personal vendetta. A wide-ranging investigation that goes beyond it's scope is carried out. An atmosphere of fear is created. People's reputations get damaged. People's Constitutional rights are violated. Although it can also just mean whenever someone accuses people of a conspiracy without evidence I will use the former definition. Have any of those things happened here? Whose rights have been violated? Oh and people routinely get dragged in front of Congress by both parties for grandstanding purposes and nothing comes of it. Perhaps something to keep in mind when using scary words.
  - bigbadfeline 1y ago
    > McCarthyism is generally when someone in power abuses their authority to accuse others without evidence, often for a personal vendetta. Your personal, ad hoc definition of McCarthyism is no better than any other. Generally, McCarthyism is persecution of people because of their ideas, because of wrongthink, which is the case here. > Oh and people routinely get dragged in front of Congress by both parties for grandstanding purposes and nothing comes of it. That's not an argument. Yes, many appear before Congress as was the case during McCarty too, but only some of those appearances, then and now, can be qualified as McCarthyism. Let me underline that "nothing comes of it" is wrong on several levels - first, wrongthink persecution always has consequences - at the very least, the target organization or individual are put on the defensive, stressed and strained for resources while the persecutors have no such constraints. Second, sometimes more serious consequences do "come out of it" which is not reflected at all in your argument. The most salient lesson in McCarthyism is that it caught roots in the US (something thought to be impossible) and for how long it dragged along. Therefore anything that even slightly looks like McCarthyism must be called out lest we slide down the slippery slope again. Trying to hide risks that are clearly manifested in history isn't fair play. > Perhaps something to keep in mind when using scary words. Perhaps it's better to keep in mind that one shouldn't be scared of words and should try to understand them instead.