After Acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin sent a letter last week to the foundation that owns Wikipedia raising questions regarding the online encyclopedia’s political bias, editors made repeated attacks against Martin on the site. Editors also attacked Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger and Elon Musk due to their criticism of the site’s left-wing bias.
Some editors suggested Wikipedia respond to the letter by imposing a temporary blackout of the site as happened when protesting copyright laws they deemed too restrictive. Others suggested moving the site’s servers or the Wikimedia Foundation itself outside the United States.
Martin’s letter cited concerns about Wikipedia’s political bias and foreign actors pushing propaganda. Discussion of Martin’s letter began at the discussion page for Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. Although Wales has lost many of his privileges on Wikipedia, he remains a member of the Foundation’s board of trustees. Multiple editors, including an admin who was formerly part of the site’s Arbitration Committee akin to a Supreme Court, suggested the site’s Foundation owners say “fuck off” or “fuck off Nazi” as their official response.
Criticism also focused on Martin’s requests to the Foundation showing a misunderstanding of the group’s role in governing Wikipedia. However, while the Foundation largely avoided interfering with the community previously, in recent years it has imposed a left-wing “code of conduct” on all Foundation-owned sites like Wikipedia, though enforcement is largely delegated to volunteers. Prior attempts at more direct enforcement of policy have prompted editor revolts. Although there were also suggestions Martin raised legitimate concerns, many editors insisted Martin’s concerns were not genuine and his objection was “facts” on Wikipedia contradicted his and the Trump Administration’s views with their intention being to intimidate and co-opt the site.
Editors in a wider community discussion launched into attacks on Martin. Administrator “Voorts” called Martin a “clown” in a hostile rant. Several editors followed up by making other attacks with administrator “Llywrch” claiming “those around the short-fingered convicted felon” were either clowns or incompetent hacks along with other incendiary political statements. Yet another editor responded to this stating they, including Martin, were “killer clowns” and “literally supporting more than one genocide” at the moment. Editor “Cambalachero” commented in the middle of this discussion to note that Wikipedia’s policies on claims about living people still apply in the discussion, though none of the editors modified their remarks.
Administrator “Bishonen” wryly suggested creating a Wikipedia article about the letter itself. Her comments unfavorably referenced an Indian court case against the Foundation and how an article created about the court case had to be pulled down on the order of the court, while suggesting an article about Martin’s letter would more likely stay up. Bishonen has previously used her privileges to favor left-wing editors on the violent far-left Antifa group and the GamerGate anti-corruption movement in gaming.
Martin’s Wikipedia page was also vandalized shortly after the letter’s release by non-account users calling him a “Nazi” and a “cuckold” with another labeling him “far-right” repeatedly before an admin, a user with special privileges, locked the page so only registered accounts over a few days old with multiple edits could edit. However, the “far-right” label was soon added back by an admitted Trump critic who added a paragraph labeling Martin a “conspiracy theorist” citing blogs and opinion pieces, despite such sourcing violating policy and the label was also added to the first sentence of Martin’s article.
One editor added negative material about Martin’s involvement in a leadership battle over the conservative Eagle Forum founded by Phyllis Schlafly, without noting any material from the source describing members of the Schlafly family supporting Martin’s position and defending his conduct. Another editor added a line to the first paragraph of the article stating Martin “has a history of making incendiary claims about opponents and causing ethical and legal controversies” citing a single ProPublica article, which itself sourced its statement to a piece at left-wing Media Matters.
When an editor attempted to remove several labels attacking Martin from the first paragraph of his page, editor Paul Lee, who edits as “Valjean” on Wikipedia and is an obsessively anti-Trump editor, restored them. Administrator “Zzuzz” later removed the “conspiracy theorist” label, but the “far-right” label was restored by Bishonen after another editor removed that label citing a paragraph that had exactly one source using the label. Site policy is that articles on people should avoid contentious terms in the first sentence in favor of those widely used in sources deemed reliable on Wikipedia.
Site co-founder Larry Sanger also was targeted as a result of the opening post in the community discussion stating he was “involved” in the letter. Sanger was merely mentioned for his criticisms of Wikipedia, but several editors attacked Sanger as complicit in Martin’s letter with one editor calling him extreme and dismissing as “ridiculous” his criticisms of the site’s left-wing bias. Previously, Sanger has been smeared by Wikipedia editors over his criticism of the site.
Multiple editors suggested there was some credibility to the criticism or concern in the discussion, but this often received a hostile response from other editors. When Cambalachero suggested responding seriously to Martin, another editor insisted the letter was “intimidation by a government that does not like press freedom, free speech, academic liberty, sciences, and more broadly knowledge.”
Cambalachero criticized the suggestion of there being a conspiracy to silence Wikipedia, but several editors objected with one arguing Musk along with others were trying to silence Wikipedia, though deferred on whether it was a conspiracy. Editor Andy Mabbett insisted a conspiracy existed with Musk specifically identified as involved along with the Heritage Foundation. As evidence against Musk, he merely cited an article about Musk criticizing Wikipedia for negatively-slanted edits about him and general issues of political bias. Mabbett has served as a “Wikipedian in Residence” at numerous research institutions and universities and organized various editing events at others.
Regarding the Heritage Foundation, which has been alleged to be looking to uncover the real identities of editors engaged in antisemitic editing, Cambalachero said its goal was sympathetic. However, several editors objected that it was not about antisemitism with editor “Viriditas” insisting Republicans do not care about Jews and comparing Jews who support Republicans to “kapos in Nazi-era WWII who helped their fellow Jews to their deaths” in concentration camps.
“North8000” suggested they “create and publicize initiatives to find systemic fixes” to Wikipedia’s bias on politics to address criticism. Some editors were sympathetic to the suggestion, but editor “Simonm223” criticized the idea by claiming “the far-right” wants Wikipedia’s “submission” rather than neutrality. He further argued Wikipedia has a “center-right” bias, a claim previously used by the main Wikipedia community newsletter to dismiss left-wing bias claims, and that a “neutral encyclopedia would be more critical of the Trump regime” than Wikipedia is now. Simonm223 is a self-identified socialist that previously praised an Antifa terrorist who attacked an ICE detention facility during Trump’s first term.
Some editors in the discussion suggested counter-measures to evade any legal response by Martin such as moving the Wikipedia servers or the Foundation itself to another country, though many editors raised concern about which countries would allow them the same degree of freedom they currently enjoy. Other editors suggested decentralizing the site’s fundraising efforts across multiple countries. Wales expressed his view in the discussion that pressure from the United States was not a serious vulnerability.
Victor Grigas, a former Wikimedia Foundation staffer, suggested a “blackout” of the site as a protest similar to actions taken in response to copyright laws editors deemed too restrictive, though other editors were resistant. When an editor in that discussion suggested the Foundation might take steps to comply with Martin’s concerns and “threaten Wikipedia freedomness and neutral point of view” in the process, Wales responded by rejecting the idea and referred to Martin’s letter as an attack arguing “when being attacked, one of the thing that the attackers usually want is for the attackees to turn on each other for no reason. We can be unified because we are unified.”
Wikipedia has come under increasing scrutiny due to its apparent left-wing bias as identified in numerous studies. Part of the scrutiny has focused on the online encyclopedia’s sourcing policies and its purging of conservative media. The site has been increasingly relied on by Big Tech platforms and praised by corporate media who have even copied its contents as with Wikipedia’s extremely biased article on GamerGate. Such reliance comes in spite of Wikipedia’s long history of spreading hoaxes and issues with paid editing. The Wikimedia Foundation’s promotion of Wikipedia as a solution to “fake news” came after the firm run by the Clinton Foundation’s Communications leader suggested the strategy.
(Disclosure: The author has previously been involved in disputes on Wikipedia with some parties referenced in this article)
T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.
Read the full article here
