> Before being named U.S. attorney, Martin appeared on Russia-backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post reported last week. In one appearance on RT in 2022, he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine’s boarders only nine days before Russia invaded the country. He further criticized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia security concerns. This is getting ridiculous.…
[flagged]
Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
121–130 of 1001 posts
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#122The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…
There are counterexamples where this has failed/continues to fail, the gamergate article is famously non-neutral, only accepting primary sources from journalists directly involved in the controversy. This is rather than true secondary sources with less extreme and biased views, like is supposed to be the rules there. You can switch from the english one to other languages and get completely different content with very…
Also, your anecdote is specifically about a social media article about an attempt to use social media spaces to harass people.
Seems extra “special case” to me.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#123The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#124Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power. There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provide…
The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.
I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.
All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world population.
While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to materialize that truth.
To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to address its bias problem and that's best done through internal reform.
Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of equal weight.
[1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you bothered to do any sort of comparison as to how similar attacks are reported? At a quick glance, I see nothing on George W Bush's wiki page[0] about the 2002 consulate attack in Kolkata[1], for example. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_attack_on_American_cultur...
Not that it's necessarily wrong for it to not be listed there, though. The article on GWB is about him and what he did as president - it isn't meant to be a complete history of the United States between 2001 and 2009.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#126I have a question on non-profits in general. What exactly is the advantage of being incorporated as a non-profit, when all you have to do to not be taxed as a for-profit corporation is spend all your money each year and not show any profit? It seems you'd have more privacy as a for-profit corporation, since you don't have to disclose donors.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#127[flagged]
A polemic! It must all be true. Last revised by deleted account 1 month ago Damn Wikipedia assassinating critics now? Where will it all end
FTFY. If you go dig deeper at foundation.wikimedia.org you'll inevitably come across an Israeli court document describing systemic smear defamation and libel campaign mounted by toxic editors against an academic, which lasted around a decade.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an account created to avoid doxxing myself. My Wikipedia username is easily linked to my main HN account. I still rarely make minor Wikipedia edits now and then, and don't want my account banned. Anyone who's edited Wikipedia long enough will recognize the pattern of what I'm describing. It's not a misrepresentation.
I would really like to read some concrete examples.
Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#129Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
#130Wikipedia/Wikimedia could move to a country that allows this type of manipulation on their platform or figure out how to comply with the existing US law. Wikipedia could also stop operating as a 501c3 and incorporate. But the typical out for these organizations are that they are not responsible for what people post. I don’t feel like that is very responsible. They already have moderation on the platform. But Wikimedi…