←back to thread

Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

(www.washingtonpost.com)
754 points coloneltcb | 6 comments | 25 Apr 25 23:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.905s | source | bottom
Show context
mikeyouse ◴[25 Apr 25 23:34 UTC] No.43799467[source]▶
Remember when people pretended it was the scandal of all scandals that the IRS was reviewing PACs who were forbidden from doing political activity for political activity? And now many of those same people are cheering this, and the act blue ‘investigation’, and the threats against Harvard’s tax exempt status for nakedly corrupt reasons? Man I wish shame still had some stopping power.
replies(2): >>43799481 #>>43799553 #
nailer[dead post] ◴[25 Apr 25 23:36 UTC] No.43799481[source]▶
[flagged]
1. mikeyouse ◴[25 Apr 25 23:41 UTC] No.43799498[source]▶
I’m sure you’d find the exact same thing if some grifty billionaire funded a fake investigation into those people who were contributing money to WinRed and yet, only one of the two is facing investigation.. it is so far past the time when this DOJ should be given the benefit of the doubt and steel manning their obvious corruption doesn’t make anyone seem scholarly, just credulous.
replies(2): >>43799552 #>>43799590 #
2. mikeyouse ◴[25 Apr 25 23:52 UTC] No.43799580[source]▶
Go ahead and read some of the thousands of 1-star reviews on TrustPilot for WinRed:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/winred.com?stars=1

It turns out the name of the political donation game is recurring donations and spammy messages. I 100% believe people donated to some random cause via act blue and didn’t realize they were signing up for recurring donations through there —- like all political fundraising arms do as evidenced by all the people complaining that WinRed incessantly removes money from their account that they didn’t authorize. But again, only 1 of the 2 is being investigated and it’s obviously a corrupt investigation so here we are.

replies(1): >>43803395 #
3. SpicyLemonZest ◴[25 Apr 25 23:54 UTC] No.43799590[source]▶
It's not true that only one of the two is facing investigation. Multiple state AGs are investigating WinRed, and rightly so - there's substantial evidence that they're using dark patterns to trick people into recurring donations when they intended to donate only once. The controversy is that a political official is ordering an investigation of ActBlue, not that political fundraising platforms ought to be above scrutiny.
replies(1): >>43799686 #
4. mikeyouse ◴[26 Apr 25 00:06 UTC] No.43799686[source]▶
Federally it certainly is true. And I agree, they shouldn’t be above scrutiny which is why it’s so important for the DOJ to maintain their independence and to avoid partisanship.. but Elon was loudly claiming they were funding the Tesla protests a few weeks ago and the rest of the administration got in line to encourage this pretextual nonsense.
replies(1): >>43803355 #
5. ◴[26 Apr 25 13:18 UTC] No.43803355{3}[source]▶
6. nailer ◴[26 Apr 25 13:22 UTC] No.43803395{3}[source]▶
I have. People donate once and have trouble cancelling the donation. It’s bad but the people donating actually are republicans and have donated before - which is a different situation from the people who aren’t democrats, haven’t donated to democrats and have repeatedly been donating to ActBlue.

Likewise, I have not heard that winred don’t use CVVs, which HN, having many people with experience in handling online payments would agree is bizarre.