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 discussion, which they are not.
And remember even if the investigation (which is a farce) goes nowhere, allowing it to exist unchallenged means that some people are going to be harassed and intimidated. But, that too is the point, fear is what they want.
bix6 · 13m ago
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?
aeternum · 11m ago
Wikimedia has a huge amount of money and the vast majority is not spent on Wikipedia.
tovej · 1m ago
Definitely McCarthyism, or possibly a slippery slide towards something worse. These attacks on free speech are much more brazen than I expected.
Aurornis · 40m ago
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 structures and saying the right things to leverage the site’s governance model to their advantage. The couple times I’ve visited “talk” pages for topics that seemed a bit off lately I found a whirlwind of activity from a handful of accounts who seemed to find a Wikipedia rule or procedure to shut down talk they disagreed with.
chneu · 6m ago
Trust? They've loudly and proudly bragged about their bias. Anyone thinking modern Republicans have any morals is a fool just waiting to be tricked.
lukev · 2m ago
Should any administration be investigating a private entity for bias?
Whether there is bias or not is entirely immaterial! The government should not be the Ministry of Truth!
Fricken · 31m ago
It's time to move Wikipedia from the US to a safer haven
Not to give any ideas, but a likely outcome is a US-based fork that has the offending bias removed, with a "ministry of truth"-y name.
bbor · 5m ago
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…
riffic · 7m ago
Sorry for the dismissive tone, but this is a silly reactionary take. It's noise and the hot air is meant to serve as a distraction. Your doomerism isn't helpful.
bbor · 4m ago
Blatant, open, unabashed authoritarianism is just “noise”…?
What red line are you waiting for before acknowledging that we’re in a dangerous situation (aka headed towards doom)?
riffic · 1m ago
I'm just as concerned about all this as you are. I guess I just have a bit of faith left in that reason will prevail.
gnerd00 · 22m ago
I support Wikipedia from the first day -- and this is true. I had to laugh! there is bias for certain.. of many kinds.
OsrsNeedsf2P · 2m ago
I used to (and still am) one of the highest ranked editors you can be without becoming an administrator. Wikipedia has its problems, and I spent years fighting them- but I slowly realized there is no better way to do it.
Wikipedia is not an arbitrator of truth: everything needs a reliable, secondary source[0]. This means the content has to be notable enough that a reputable source wrote about it, and you cannot reference things like git commits or research papers (since they don't provide context and most people can't understand them).
If a Wikipedia article does use one of those sources, delete the paragraph. If you get into an Edit war, you'll win.
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.
amanaplanacanal · 29m ago
I don't see the point. Even if there is organized bias, what can Congress legally do about it?
nessbot · 26m ago
Yeah that'd be a very easy 1A case.
bhouston · 23m ago
> Yeah that'd be a very easy 1A case.
The Trump admin was very creative when it came to Harvard and figured out many different pressure points to push all at once. Don't expect it to be too simple. The guys running this have thought about avoiding the easy dismissal: https://www.ortecfinance.com/en/about-ortec-finance/news-and...
Just look at how the recent flag burning EO was worded in order to get around 1A concerns.
miltonlost · 13m ago
With this Supreme Court that has judges using the Constitution as toilet paper? Not so easy to win.
Not a lawyer tho, and it seems that even with a majority getting something like that through congress would be very difficult.
hshdhdhj4444 · 15m ago
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?
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 25m ago
Legally? As if Republicans care about legality.
bhouston · 26m ago
> 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.
foota · 25m ago
Does Wikipedia take any federal funding?
bhouston · 21m ago
> 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 cease the domain if they wanted to play hardball.
Do not underestimate the levers of pressure that could be deployed here.
hshdhdhj4444 · 14m ago
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.
mindslight · 24m ago
Exactly, more tempest-in-a-teapot spectacle that keeps their supporters cheering for the destruction of the Constitution and individual liberty.
bhouston · 31m ago
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+
- criticism of Israel
and try to punish Wikipedia for it, while allowing all other types of bias to flourish.
I expect financial sanctions to be threatened. Because Wikipedia is a US-based, it will likely end up in US court like so many of the other Trump policies.
gnerd00 · 19m ago
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
hshdhdhj4444 · 17m ago
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.
wrs · 7m ago
Also, note that only the second of those actors is prohibited by the Constitution from infringing free speech.
bhouston · 16m ago
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:
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....
xpe · 16m ago
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.
FireBeyond · 10m ago
That's going to be awkward, when they find that there's been, for many years, a studious effort to push forth pro-Israel talking points and agendas.
(To be clear, there is also pro-Palestine, too, though certainly less organized.)
riffic · 8m ago
they can investigate all they want (which will be on the public record). The WP project, as hostile as it is to newbies and to those with an agenda, actually has a solid systemic policy foundation to address these concerns and the first amendment is basically a shield with a middle finger on it to petty legislative tyrants.
bell-cot · 42m ago
> The request [...] is part of an investigation into “foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion.”
On that basis - should there also be an investigation into https://www.mikejohnsonforlouisiana.com/ ? He is the Speaker of the House, and it would be incredibly easy for some of his taxpayer-paid staff to do stuff, with the objective of influencing U.S. public opinion...
NoahZuniga · 30m ago
But you see, he is American. The xenophobia part is an important part of their reasoning.
zoddie · 25m ago
They should also investigate Google, which often puts Wikipedia article extracts right at the top of the search results. There has been a great deal of misinformation spread this way.
Wikipedia is just the tip of the iceberg. How their biased viewpoints get amplified globally is a huge problem on top of that.
jmclnx · 18m ago
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 under stand what real bias looks like.
No comments yet
righthand · 32m ago
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:
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 as it is not knowlege but an attack:
> Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by presenting information on all branches of knowledge.
NoahZuniga · 28m ago
This page didn't create or popularize the term "Trump derangement syndrome".
add-sub-mul-div · 5m ago
But legitimizing stupid shit is a choice.
righthand · 24m ago
So? It maintains it the presence and unhealthy status quo. What is your point? I never declared it created the pejorative.
miltonlost · 6m ago
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...
nessbot · 27m ago
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.
righthand · 22m ago
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.
epgui · 16m ago
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.
righthand · 12m ago
I am dealing with it. I am informing people about the crap quality of content on Wikipedia. All I’m doing is reflecting the hypocrisy. You don’t like the fact that I can post my dissent online? Deal with it.
Paratoner · 1m ago
This is has to be ragebait by a pathetic troll. You haven't even read the first 4 lines of the page you've linked, where it refutes your argument that "this is specific to Trump". At least work a little on your clown material.
lovich · 6m ago
You haven’t informed anyone of any such thing. Wikipedia does not generate original concepts on purpose and you are complaining that an equivalent term exists for other presidents. Right now if Wikipedia was to create pages for those terms, _that_ would actually be bias as those terms aren’t widely used/don’t exist and would only be added to meet some people’s concept of “fairness” where if something bad happens to my side something bad has to happen to yours too
Edit: Also as someone else pointed out the page describes the origin of the term as evolving out of Bush Derangement syndrome being coined in 2003 and even comments on a Thatcher Derangement Syndrome phrase used after her death. The Trump Derangement Syndrome appears to be the main article because of the actual usage by government and in legislation
bazzargh · 11m ago
Bush Derangement Syndrome is covered (the writeup is linked to from the TDS article) but there is something special when republicans in multiple state legislatures have proposed _legislation_ on the subject of TDS, under that name, which would spend taxpayer money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_derangement_syndrome#P...
mindslight · 10m ago
For an even handed treatment, it should really include discussion of or a link to the propaganda technique of projection / accusation in a mirror, which is how that term came about to begin with. Derangement is a key element of Trump's support. By preemptively lashing out and gaslighting the actually-conservative group as "deranged" for merely reacting to the destruction, they obscure the obvious.
mesk · 27m ago
Hey, Let's investigate together if their freedom of speech is used correctly.
/s
Meanwhile: Hey EU, regulating our friedly corporate donors, means you harm their freedom of speech !!!!!!!!
bamboozled · 11m ago
What about now the VP goes to Europe and lectures them on feee speech haha
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 discussion, which they are not.
And remember even if the investigation (which is a farce) goes nowhere, allowing it to exist unchallenged means that some people are going to be harassed and intimidated. But, that too is the point, fear is what they want.
Don’t these people have anything better to do? Like lowering prices for everyday Americans instead of running up baseless legal bills?
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 structures and saying the right things to leverage the site’s governance model to their advantage. The couple times I’ve visited “talk” pages for topics that seemed a bit off lately I found a whirlwind of activity from a handful of accounts who seemed to find a Wikipedia rule or procedure to shut down talk they disagreed with.
Whether there is bias or not is entirely immaterial! The government should not be the Ministry of Truth!
I wonder if they have any dedicated compute stateside, tho…
What red line are you waiting for before acknowledging that we’re in a dangerous situation (aka headed towards doom)?
Wikipedia is not an arbitrator of truth: everything needs a reliable, secondary source[0]. This means the content has to be notable enough that a reputable source wrote about it, and you cannot reference things like git commits or research papers (since they don't provide context and most people can't understand them).
If a Wikipedia article does use one of those sources, delete the paragraph. If you get into an Edit war, you'll win.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources
The Trump admin was very creative when it came to Harvard and figured out many different pressure points to push all at once. Don't expect it to be too simple. The guys running this have thought about avoiding the easy dismissal: https://www.ortecfinance.com/en/about-ortec-finance/news-and...
Just look at how the recent flag burning EO was worded in order to get around 1A concerns.
Not a lawyer tho, and it seems that even with a majority getting something like that through congress would be very difficult.
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?
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.
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 cease the domain if they wanted to play hardball.
Do not underestimate the levers of pressure that could be deployed here.
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+
- criticism of Israel
and try to punish Wikipedia for it, while allowing all other types of bias to flourish.
This isn't that different than the TikTok ban being motivated in Congress by the prevalence of criticism of Israel on TikTok: https://forward.com/culture/688840/tiktok-ban-gaza-palestine...
I expect financial sanctions to be threatened. Because Wikipedia is a US-based, it will likely end up in US court like so many of the other Trump policies.
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.
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...
Peaceful, sustained, popular, legal, loud resistance is necessary to push back against an administration that is trying to kneecap influential dissenting viewpoints.
(To be clear, there is also pro-Palestine, too, though certainly less organized.)
On that basis - should there also be an investigation into https://www.mikejohnsonforlouisiana.com/ ? He is the Speaker of the House, and it would be incredibly easy for some of his taxpayer-paid staff to do stuff, with the objective of influencing U.S. public opinion...
Wikipedia is just the tip of the iceberg. How their biased viewpoints get amplified globally is a huge problem on top of that.
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 under stand what real bias looks like.
No comments yet
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 as it is not knowlege but an attack:
> Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by presenting information on all branches of knowledge.
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...
Where is the Bush Derangement Syndrome? Where is the Biden Derangement Syndrome? Arguably this page owes everything to Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Wikipedia exists in the context of the real world. All it does is reflect it. Deal with it.
Edit: Also as someone else pointed out the page describes the origin of the term as evolving out of Bush Derangement syndrome being coined in 2003 and even comments on a Thatcher Derangement Syndrome phrase used after her death. The Trump Derangement Syndrome appears to be the main article because of the actual usage by government and in legislation
/s
Meanwhile: Hey EU, regulating our friedly corporate donors, means you harm their freedom of speech !!!!!!!!