Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda' | Hacker News Reader

Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia's Nonprofit Status over Alleged 'Propaganda'

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44 pointsnickcotter34 comments

Wikipedia is more vulnerable than you think, there are only around 840 administrators on the English Wikipedia, most of them who have been around for nearly 20 years. It would only take a few takedowns of major admins to disrupt the power balance on Wikipedia to a different viewpoint. The next level in the hierarchy, bureaucrats, only have 16 members. Many administrators, including one quite recently got demoted for conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia. Some of the other language Wikipedias already had their administrator's imprisoned by governments.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_imprisoned_for_edi...

What do you mean "different viewpoint"? Isn't it supposed to be neutral? Are you inadvertently making the administration's point?

> Isn't it supposed to be neutral

I'd consider this to itself be a viewpoint that could be changed

Neutrality and factuality is a viewpoint. The other viewpoint is making Wikipedia a platform for propaganda and revisionisy history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43799302

> […] process for auditing or evaluating the actions, activities, and voting patterns of editors, admins, and committees, […]

Voting patterns, note. Edward Robert Martin Jr expresses the totalitarian position of a secret ballot, something that was fought for long and hard in centuries past, being a bad thing.

> […] through its wholly owned subsidiary Wikipedia […]

An encyclopaedia is not a corporation, of course, and this is just plain ignorant nonsense.

The same individual making these legal threats has appeared on Russian state media over 100 times.

It is interesting that Russian government also believes that Wikipedia spreads misinformation, Western deceitful propaganda and plainly breaks the laws. Especially in articles related to politics and the war.

Difficult to live in a world where everyone has its own version of "truth".

At this point, Trump's and Putin's views very much align. So it makes sense they want to attack the same targets.

Aside from the blatant political bias, Wikipedia is a hornet's nest of intelligence pushing agendas.

[1] https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically...

Manhattan Institute lists Betsy DeVos on its Board of Trustees.

That's a seriously weird paper. They're showing different sentiment around left/right leaning people and claim lack of neutrality without even mentioning the possibility that maybe the criticised people were actually assholes.

Think about the results this way: if you inserted enough praise for Hitler into Wikipedia, their result would show Wikipedia as being more neutral. What does that say about their chosen method?

The figures stretch back hundreds of years, ironically even to the team Democrats and Republicans were ideologically flipped.

It shows a pretty clear bias. Just reading some of the articles confirms as such. Biden's son is credibly accused of peddling influence for cash with some of the proceeds going to his father and it's a 'conspiracy theory' (with citations from far left leaning papers and no counterbalance).

This is why one of Wikipedia's founders says it is ideologically biased.

Nothing here addresses the issue I raised. How would you tell whether it's clear bias rather than genuine reflection on the people in the reviewed articles?

Because it is statistically impossible. As I said, the parties have totally flipped at least once. Bias beyond that point makes no sense.

Democrats were pro slavery if you go back far enough. Bias still exists back then.

I've been critical of Wikipedia for years. Can't they come up with a more coherent argument like it put paid encyclopedias out of business so the donations it gets for running ads should be taxed like a business.

Someone made Adblock rules for Wikipedia ads that I use with Ublock Origin who refuses donations. https://gist.github.com/jnss95/0fb8872fa7ce73d7795916c84eb30...

Previous discussion calling Wikipedia wasteful was not well received but I'm inclined to agree. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34106982

Can the administration be more direct about it? Like Wikipedia shouldn't be able to threaten to obstruct to take back the data then place a banner ad covering 90% of the screen that I receive 0% of just to access my own thankless contributions I'd rather just pay than be subjected to domestic ads but maybe it's leaking overseas that would be scary.

Being competitive is not illegal and non-profits are not forbidden from creating better products. I don't understand what about that argument would be coherent.

How do I tell the difference between a profit-maximizing non-profit who says they contribute to the public using what I contributed 10 years ago to Wikipedia and thus not need to pay taxes under charity in 2025? Compared to actually helping? I would hate to be a non-profit surrounded by beggars it isn't sustainable.

What you think of them is mostly irrelevant for their status. They're a nonprofit advancing education from the IRS pov.

There are a whole lot of propaganda-spreading non-profits with agendas which contribute much less to the public interest compared to Wikipedia. This should be the starting point of this discussion because it's apparent that in this case, the "right" propaganda isn't called out as propaganda.

Wikipedia could be a lot better but it could be a lot worse too - the current pressure tactic can only make matters worse. The key point here is that if Wikipedia cannot be tax free, nobody should be, just remove that as a legal possibility because it can be used to suppress some views and promote others simply by arbitrary definitions of "propaganda".

Your problem is with nonprofits generally, not Wikipedia specifically. Nonprofit status in the United States has nothing to do with competitiveness and everything to do with an organization’s purpose and operations.

What's wrong with being a tax-paying non-profit?

It...defeats the entire point of nonprofit status? Are you talking about legal status or mission? Special legal status is afforded to nonprofits because (ideally) they are pursuing something that is in the public's best interest, providing some kind of service that the government does not. Should the red cross pay taxes because they pushed private blood banks and first aid companies out of business? Taxes (ideally) are used to pursue the public good, so if an organization is using their labor and/or products to further the public good, they why should they be double taxed?

I'm not saying that's how it always works, but that's how it's designed to work. So if the system is being abused, then I think your issue might be with the system, not with Wikipedia in particular. They're just an example of the abuse of the system (which I don't think they are).

You are correct to question the premise. I don't care about Wikipedia, I am asking about some systemic decisions from decades ago that most people take for granted these days. The Red Cross doesn't need defending because the AMA backs it up due to tax deductions and medical licensing/lobbying overlap. Yet, in this political thread, Wikipedia moderators argue that their curation is the value and that it's not political and not the contribution, similar to Stack Overflow moderators hollowing out their site.

This brings me to the handling of actual experts, like medical doctors. How could the Wikimedia Foundation justify removing a licensed doctor like James Heilman ("Doc James") from its Board, a decision even Jimmy Wales supported? I get that they put him back shortly after, but that's so arbitrary. Someone putting their professional credibility on the line to provide accurate public information without explaining the original removal publicly? Yes, he was reinstated shortly after, but the initial act and the lack of a clear public explanation for the original removal feel arbitrary and undermine trust. Here was someone putting their professional credibility on the line for accuracy, and they were treated in such a dismissive way. The exact type of caustic politics causes this split between public health advice and the medical profession. Frankly, I'd rather see funding go directly to the experts if this is how they treat people.

Imagine if Wikipedia were frozen as a "2017 Doc James Edition" snapshot. Would that be so bad if that could slash operating costs by 99%? I could live with a slightly outdated encyclopedia for a few years if it meant escaping the constant, resource-draining burden of moderation and the endless debates about needing more free contributions, now we're overloaded and needing more funding/moderators. Then the donations could go to archive.org, which I hope Wikipedia donates to, since I mostly use Wikipedia for links to archive.org snapshots, since I like to see the source, not what people "curate" for me.

The constant fundraising solicitations are grating when contrasted with how they treated Doc James, or when users are lectured about their "privilege" for accessing supposedly free information. It seems Wikipedia doesn't inherently need my contribution or money; they had a highly dedicated expert, pushed him out (temporarily, but damagingly), and kept asking for donations. Claiming that donating today supports the same original mission feels increasingly misleading. Doc James must have the patience of a saint. It infuriates me when that kind of undervaluation happens, and they get to deduct taxes "for the public good," I get yelled at by the moonlighting Wikipedia/Discord mods for even questioning it. It's no surprise he's focused on teaching now.

Anyways, thanks for not attacking me for a seemingly dumb question. I don't have the answer to my question either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

If you don’t like it you don’t have to use it. Freezing Wikipedia in 2017 would be pretty bad really.

> Can't they come up with a more coherent argument like it put paid encyclopedias out of business so the donations it gets for running ads should be taxed like a business.

... Hold on, are you saying that charities shouldn't be allowed to do things that businesses do? Close the food banks, to protect the poor innocent supermarkets! Ban the FSF and OSI, for competing with Microsoft!

I mean, really, what.

its true. wikipedias network of editors has been manipulated and infiltrated by special interest groups and intelligence agencies.

There is nothing "alleged" about wikipedia's activites that have absolutely nothing to do with publishing an open source online encyclopedia, and have gone from an "inclusivity" statement into spending money on "programs" in an entirely discretionary manner that has absolutly no possible conection or meaning to an ALL inclusive publishing endevour. knowledge IS power but picking WHO gets to be empowered, and heard is called censorship and discrimination, no matter how disadvantaged and under represented those chosen are. publishing is one thing, how people are empowered by that information is another. wiki crossed the line,failed to pick a lane, and will very likely end up causing more suffering, than if they had left the pie, alone and just done there stated job, very, very, well

I'm intrigued by your comment and others because, if true, they would shift my fundamental understanding of Wikipedia and its use. Would you mind offering some concrete examples of what you've described?

I suspect that we'll find that it's a conflation of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation. There are a lot of long-time Wikipedia editors who will state, sometimes quite forcefully, that the two are not the same thing. (There have been several confrontations over the years between the volunteer editorship and the people who work for the Foundation.)

"conflation"?, uh un, no go, it's right on the front page

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects. You can support our work with a donation.

Every single time something is published, you're picking some side. Your comment about picking sides is picking sides. You don't get to be ALL inclusive when you're publishing an encyclopaedia - even names of pages will be picking sides.

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