Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin is accusing the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia — of violating its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status by allowing propaganda and misinformation from ‘foreign actors’ to flourish on the platform.
The Wikimedia Foundation’s tax-exempt status has been called into question by U.S. Attorney for D.C. Edward Martin, who sent a letter to the organization on Thursday implying that Wikipedia is not just biased, but may be breaking federal law, as first reported by the Free Press.
“It has come to my attention that Wikipedia, which operates via its fiscal sponsor, the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., is engaging in a series of activities that could violate its obligations under Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code,” Martin began in his letter.
As a nonprofit corporation, the Wikimedia Foundation “is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status,” the U.S. Attorney for D.C. said. Martin went on to explain that maintaining a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status means operating exclusively for “religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes.”
The Wikimedia Foundation, however, “is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public,” Martin asserted in his letter.
“Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States,” he continued.
“Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission,” Martin added, citing the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2023 IRS Form 990, which stated its mission is to allow “people around the world to collect and develop educational content” to be disseminated globally.
Furthermore, “Wikipedia’s operations are directed by its board that is composed primarily of foreign nationals,” which is “subverting the interests of American taxpayers,” Martin said.
The U.S. Attorney for D.C. also noted that popular search engines like Google “have agreed to prioritize Wikipedia results,” but if the content on the platform is “biased, unreliable, or sourced by entities who wish to do harm to the United States,” this type of search engine prioritization only amplifies propaganda to a larger American audience.
Martin is therefore calling on Wikimedia to answer several questions he included in his letter, no later than May 15, so that his office can determine if the foundation is in compliance with U.S. laws pertaining to tax-exempt status.
Among his 12 questions, Martin is asking Wikimedia what mechanisms it has in place “to safeguard the public from the dissemination of propaganda,” and how the foundation ensures “transparency and accountability” regarding the extent to which its practices are influenced by relationships with “donors, sponsors, funders, or other external stakeholders.”
Martin is also seeking answers on what steps the Wikimedia Foundation has taken “to exclude foreign influence operations from making targeted edits to categories of content in order to reshape or rewrite history.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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