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House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

thehill.com

31–40 of 180 posts

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#31
post #27
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

So 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.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#32
post #27
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

[deleted]

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#33

good 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....

That 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.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#34
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wikipedia is not a source of original research or thinking. If prominent and reputable sources spoke about and coined these other terms there would be articles about them, or the article would be more generic.

Wikipedia exists in the context of the real world. All it does is reflect it. Deal with it.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#35
post #27
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

I do not know the exact specifics of UC Berkeley and you didn't link to them.

That said, I am a financial supporter of FIRE, which often has come to the defense of free speech of conservatives. It is also opposed to the Trump administrations moves against Harvard:

https://www.thefire.org/news/findings-against-harvard-are-bl...

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#36
post #29

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.

[flagged]

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#37

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.

So bias is reason to remove 501c3 status?

Then should we remove the 501c3 status of every church, mosque, temple, etc in the U.S. because they are biased towards not just the existence of a god, but the existence of their particular version of god?

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ceas…

They could put them on a variety of lists that would prevent them from banking in the U.S. which would mean they couldn’t receive donations, etc.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#39

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 d…

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?

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#40
post #15

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.

With this Supreme Court that has judges using the Constitution as toilet paper? Not so easy to win.
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