It was only a matter of time, I suppose.
The interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia is challenging the Wikimedia Foundation’s non-profit status:
The Trump administration cannot tolerate any independent source of information.
I hope this place is bulletproof
Doubtful.
Absolutely not. Authoritarians can not tolerate any form of dissent, even the most minor.
And the fact that Wikipedia doesn’t restrict contributors to properly screened, certified non-DEI cis White het male Christian republicans just means it’s tainted with “foreign influences”.
Why, some people are using Wikipedia cites to “prove” that the Trump administration is attempting to scrub history!
No, not bulletproof. I’m hoping obscure enough that they don’t get to us for awhile
Foundation page
executives
“The Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.”
Why can’t they move to say Canada?
Can to blame them? Wikipedia has been notoriously left biased for decades. It’s clearly a propaganda arm of the democrat party.
If you think Wikipedia is independent, you’re either being deceptive or you’re being foolish. Just because you agree with their slant, that doesn’t mean they aren’t slanted.
Got any specific examples to show us?
I’m guessing the response will be:
I’m guessing the irony of this phrase " It’s clearly a propaganda arm of the democrat party" will be totally lost.
There is no “democrat party” in the US.
Yeah, facts and truth have a notoriously left-wing bias.
Erdogan, Putin, Musk, Orban, Trump, and the list could go on. What do they have in common? Among many other vices: a deep hate of Wikipedia. And Greenpeace, and Médecins Sans Frontières, and the International Tribunals (all of them, there are many), and minorities (except their respective own, which they claim is a moral majority if need be) and, and, and… And because they are mean spirited, persistent and don’t care for legality or fairness they often win. Sad.
Almost as sad as waiting fifteen years in obscurity only to come back and start a post with a spelling mistake in the first two words.
Come to think of it, it is actually funny. And fitting: content and form and all that.
Hmmm. Okay, so if the government should pointedly investigate bias and falsity, then by the same right you fully 100% endorse Fox News being dragged across the coals and having it’s licensing revoked since it’s own knowingly incorrect reporting, slant, and efforts to create false, politically biased news was amply demonstrated in their own documents released during the discovery phase of their recently(ish) settled lawsuit?
You are arguing “right vs. wrong” with people that are operating on a “win vs. lose” mindset.
Moi? Perhaps. I feel it is worthwhile to determine if the quote in question should be applied to all sources of propaganda, especially in a case where there’s direct, court-documented evidence, rather than unsupported allegations.
I mention this because, well, almost all such allegations of bias and illegal activity (including the specific from the OP) from the current administration have been sadly lacking in any actual evidence.
Offered without comment necessary,
Conservapedia Fund Inc, Designated as a 501(c)(3), Tax-exempt since May 2009
Conservapedia Fund Inc - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica
But clearly, this is about 501(c)(3)s being biased!
I’d stop posting this one if it wasn’t the perfect comment for so many things under this guy and his regime:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
–Hugh Trevor-Roper, English historian, paraphrasing Joseph Goebbels, WWII German Propaganda Minister
[Also: Wikipedia may appear to have a leftward bias for the same reason basketball may seem to feature a lot of taller-than-average people playing.]
Oh, yeah. Also worth repeating…
This is #6 in Laurence Britt’s “14 Characteristics of Fascism:”
A controlled mass media
Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.
I can say definitively that Wikipedia is not an arm of the Democratic Party. I can say this with insider knowledge. I was an administrator over there for years. And for the vast majority of that time, I was politically conservative.
My struggle was containing my right wing bias, and I’d like to think I did a pretty good job. It was at times difficult to go against my own beliefs to ensure neutrality in articles, and to treat editors fairly when I disagreed with them politically, but I did it.
I was also at one time the primary person looking after conflict of interest complaints on the site, and dealing with people who wanted to edit articles with a conflict of interest. And funny enough, the only time I recall working with a political group was when I collaborated with Newt Gingrich’s campaign manager at the time to make changes to his article. (Basically, the campaign manager would lodge a complaint or make a request, we would verify that the request fit with the best information our reliable sources claimed, and if it was reasonable we would make the changes, and if not we’d explain why we couldn’t.)
The web site strives its best to be neutral and factual as much as it can with the information available, and with different editors who might disagree with the best way to present that information. That’s a real passion there. When verifiable facts don’t match the lies that the right are trying to push, well then it might seem that the site has a bias against them. But that’s like saying that police are biased against the guy who keeps getting caught committing crimes.