GOP launches probe into the Left’s main propaganda platform
House Republicans on Wednesday launched a probe into Wikipedia for serving as a “platform for propaganda aimed at Western audiences.”
The investigation was launched by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who chairs the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation. The Republicans sent a letter to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander requesting a litany of documents related to alleged efforts by foreign state-backed organizations to “inject bias into important and sensitive topics.”
“The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by US taxpayer dollars to influence US public opinion,” Comer and Mace wrote.
“Multiple studies and reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at Western audiences,” the letter continued. “One recent report raised troubling questions about potentially systematic efforts to advance antisemitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles related to conflicts with the State of Israel. A second investigation detailed actions by hostile nation-state actors to expose Western audiences to pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messaging by manipulating Wikipedia articles and other news outlets relied on for training AI chatbots.”
Wikipedia co-founder: ‘Shameless’
In 2021, Wikipedia Co-Founder Larry Sanger slammed the company for its bias, writing in a blog post that “Wikipedia openly repudiates neutrality,” and is “shamelessly hypocritical in how it continues to pay lip service to its ‘neutral point of view’ policy.” He added that the site’s “articles emerge more as propaganda than as reference material.”
“In short, and with few exceptions, only globalist, progressive mainstream sources — and sources friendly to globalist progressivism — are permitted,” Sanger wrote.
Studies have found that Wikipedia is heavily biased toward the Left. The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that owns Wikipedia, pays far-Left groups handsomely to edit the online encyclopedia so that it reflects feminist and racial ideologies. Wikimedia CEO Maryana Iskander was formerly the COO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York.
Pro-Palestinian propaganda
A study published in November 2024 found that “a powerful group of about 40 editors is hijacking Wikipedia, pushing pro-Palestinian propaganda, erasing key facts about Hamas, and reshaping the narrative around Israel with alarming influence.”
COVID-19 propaganda
During the pandemic, the Biden-Harris administration used Wikipedia to spread government misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. The government commissioned a group named Hacks/Hackers to hire Wikipedia censors — called “Research Coordinators” — for a project called NewsQ. The censors’ job was to list which sources of vaccine information were “credible sources” and which were “unreliable”. That list was comprised entirely of Left-wing sites that frequently peddle disinformation, like the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and The Atlantic. Right-leaning news sites, many of which questioned the safety and efficacy of the shots, were labeled “unreliable” or “conspiracy.”
Art+Feminism: Rewriting history
Although Wikipedia often begs visitors for donations to keep it alive, the Wikimedia Foundation’s tax records for the 2022-2023 fiscal year show that it has plenty of funds left over to spend on injecting Leftist ideologies into its articles.
According to a report last year, the Wikimedia Foundation paid a group called Art+Feminism $382,000 “to support work to further [its] mission.”
“Art+Feminism builds a community of activists that is committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts, beginning with Wikipedia,” the group says on its website.
“We envision dismantling supremacist systems and creating pathways for everyone to participate in writing (and righting) history. From coffee shops and community centers to the largest museums and universities in the world, Art+Feminism leads a do-it-yourself and do-it-with-others campaign that teaches people of all gender identities and expressions to edit Wikipedia.”
Art+Feminism boasts it is responsible for the “creation and improvement” of over 100,000 articles on Wikipedia and “sister projects.”
“When cis and trans women, non-binary people, Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities are not represented in the writing and editing on the tenth-most-visited site in the world, information about people like us gets skewed and misrepresented. The stories get mistold. We lose out on real history. That’s why we’re here: to change it.”
Whose Knowledge: ‘Decolonizing the internet’
The Wikimedia Foundation also gave $200,000 to Whose Knowledge, an organization with the aim to “decolonize the internet.” Whose Knowledge has several initiatives to populate Wikipedia with Leftist content, such as partnering with a “feminist LGBTQI group in Bosnia and Herzegovina” to add a “queer archive.”
The group is heavily pro-Hamas and obsessed with “body positivity.”
“Collectively, we surpassed our goal and brought over 3000+ images to Wikimedia Commons of bodies of all sizes, colors, and shapes; bodies that occupy workspaces, sports arenas, stages, and streets with the glorious plurality we want to see online and on wiki,” the organization’s website says, but adds: “2024 also bears a heavy burden of collective rage and grief as the masters’ tools continue to be weaponized against our bodies, our communities, and our lands.”
Black Lunch Table: Making history blacker
The Wikimedia Foundation gave over $300,000 to an organization called Black Lunch Table, which seeks to make the online encyclopedia blacker.
“The Wikimedia Foundation estimates that 77% of Wikieditors are white and 91% are men,” the organization’s website reads. “Our work shifts this demographic and empowers people to write their own history.”
“Black Lunch Table Wikimedians mobilize the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikipedia articles that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists,” the group says. “In the field of mainstream contemporary art, Black artists are still marginalized within their field.”
