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House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

thehill.com

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Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#21

Post by bhouston »

nessbot wrote: post #15
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #9

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

Yeah that'd be a very easy 1A case.

> 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...

Just look at how the recent flag burning EO was worded in order to get around 1A concerns.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#22

Post by righthand »

nessbot wrote: post #12
righthand wrote: post #5

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…

I 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.

Negative 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.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#23

Post by gnerd00 »

Aurornis wrote: post #3

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 stru…

I support Wikipedia from the first day -- and this is true. I had to laugh! there is bias for certain.. of many kinds.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#24

Post by iandanforth »

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.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#26

Post by bhouston »

foota wrote: post #18
bhouston wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if there is organized bias, what can Congress legally do about it? Something similar to their targeted of US Univerities/Colledes for anti-semitism and for being "woke." Trump has threatened the Harvard endowment, its ability to enrol foreign students, federal research funding, among others.

Does Wikipedia take any federal funding?

> Does Wikipedia take any federal funding?

As a charity they are tax exempt - that could be revoked. The US government could declare them to be a foreign influence operation and require them to register as foreign agents. They could add a requirement that everyone on Wikipedia must declare who they are before editing. They could restrict various pages from being displayed in the US. They could even block or even cease the domain if they wanted to play hardball.

Do not underestimate the levers of pressure that could be deployed here.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#27

Post by gnerd00 »

bhouston wrote: post #6

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+ - criticis…

UC 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

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#28

Post by bhouston »

Fricken wrote: post #7
Aurornis wrote: post #3

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 stru…

It's time to move Wikipedia from the US to a safer haven

Moving 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

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#29

Post by jmclnx »

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.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#30

Post by bazzargh »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #9

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

Remove 501(c)3 status, apparently. Trump's repeatedly threatened this in other cases - the TNPA concluded he didn't have that power with executive orders, but congress did https://tnpa.org/nonprofits-under-fire-how-the-irs-can-and-c...

Not a lawyer tho, and it seems that even with a majority getting something like that through congress would be very difficult.

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