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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

#81

Post by righthand »

miltonlost wrote: post #54
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…

Should the dictionary not list slurs in them because they preserve an unhealthy status quo as well? That article makes sure to mention that Trump derangement syndrome is a logical fallacy in the first paragraph. They aren't fueling culture wars by being an information source. I'm not sure where the bias would be coming from here with this article, and on which side and to whom...

So then I should create Derangement Syndrome pages for every other Potus so we all may know and understand why you can and can’t criticize a Potus?

What knowledge does this page offer beyond indicating a cultural logical fallacy and listing a bunch of hypocrisy that can also be found on Trump’s main wikipedia page? What is so significantly different about TDS from Bush Derangement Syndrome that it needs it’s own page?

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#82

Post by tptacek »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #76
tptacek wrote: post #47

This seems like just an attempt to change the news cycle, because there's no rule anywhere saying Wikipedia needs to be unbiased, any more than does Fox News or PragerU.

Probably an attempt at capturing Wikipedia, in preparation for censorship or historic revisionism. I feel like a cosnpiracy theorist, but such things seem less implausible these days.

How exactly is that supposed to work?

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#83

Post by nostrademons »

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

You can just download it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

Downloading Wikipedia is usually a first step for people getting involved in prepping or data-hoarding communities, because it's so much easier than most other websites, and the utility you get from it is pretty large. And the downloads, while fairly large, will still fit on a typical home computer. There are probably tens of thousands of copies, if not more, floating around.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#84

Post by xpe »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #9

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

At face value, the letter (from the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform) offers a sensible-sounding top-line explanation:

> The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion.

Based on the track record of the Trump administration, it is unwise to take any of their official letters at face value. This House committee may claim it really wants what is best for American citizens -- and they might actually believe it themselves -- but the dominant motivation has little to do with foreign influence. Rather, I think their primary motivation is to suppress or intimidate dissenters.

If the committee decided that it wanted to systematically investigate foreign influence, that would be a different matter. The differential targeting is quite telling.

About me (in case you want to know my leanings, so you can take them into account): I do not support this letter nor the current administration. That said, I didn't categorically reject the whole idea right away. I read the letter and thought about it. I'm not necessarily opposed to requiring private organizations do certain kinds of foreign actor tracking and reporting, but it has to be done legally and applied fairly.

Finally, I refuse to call this "politics as usual". Yes, sadly, committee investigations are often used as PR stunts. Both parties have done it. What is happening here is orders of magnitude worse to the extent it undermines freedom of speech and attempts to subvert another information source.

[1]: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/08272...

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#85

Post by bawolff »

bbor wrote: post #55
Fricken wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Real… luckily they can just hop the border into Vancouver - not as safe as Europe or east Asia, but certainly an easier ask. I wonder if they have any dedicated compute stateside, tho…

> I wonder if they have any dedicated compute stateside, tho…

Wikipedia has data centers in Virginia, texas and san francisco. (They also have some in other countries)

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#86

Post by sixothree »

mindslight wrote: post #20
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.

Exactly, more tempest-in-a-teapot spectacle that keeps their supporters cheering for the destruction of the Constitution and individual liberty.

These are the same people who have spent the last 40 years lecturing me about how they are better patriots, attach American flags to everything they touch, know more about the founding fathers, and have a greater understanding of the constitution than we do.

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#88

Post by fuzzfactor »

righthand wrote: post #22
nessbot wrote: 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.

>Where is the Bush Derangement Syndrome? Where is the Biden Derangement Syndrome?

I'd say not everybody was paying attention at the time, but these syndromes defintely exist, it's just that no former President actually did what it takes to reach this level of regard.

All kinds of people agree that Trump can not be matched in a number of ways, conservatves, progressives, independents, whether they are deranged or not.

With any syndrome it does take a lot of consenus but eventually it's foolish to deny.

Every Presdient has it, some are just more prominent and widely recognized than others.

Edit: not my downvote BTW

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#89

Post by nickpsecurity »

iandanforth wrote: post #24

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…

[flagged]

Re: House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

#90

Post by bawolff »

xpe wrote: post #84
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #9

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

At face value, the letter (from the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform) offers a sensible-sounding top-line explanation: > The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion. Based on the track record of the Trump administration, it is unwise…

>Caveat: I do not support this letter nor the current administration. At face value, the letter (from the House Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform) offers a sensible-sounding top-line explanation:

>> The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion.

Wikipedia is not subsidized by us tax dollars.

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