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    House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

    (thehill.com)
    152 points xqcgrek2 | 12 comments | 27 Aug 25 18:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.607s | source | bottom
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    Aurornis ◴[27 Aug 25 18:49 UTC] No.45043467[source]▶
    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.

    replies(5): >>45043573 #>>45043697 #>>45043887 #>>45043942 #>>45043984 #
    1. Fricken ◴[27 Aug 25 18:58 UTC] No.45043573[source]▶
    It's time to move Wikipedia from the US to a safer haven
    replies(4): >>45043742 #>>45043870 #>>45043897 #>>45044085 #
    2. bhouston ◴[27 Aug 25 19:10 UTC] No.45043742[source]▶
    Moving Wikipedia elsewhere will likely have to happen. Thought, the US may respond by blocking Wikipedia content as many regimes in the past have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
    replies(1): >>45043963 #
    3. riffic ◴[27 Aug 25 19:21 UTC] No.45043870[source]▶
    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.
    replies(1): >>45043923 #
    4. bbor ◴[27 Aug 25 19:23 UTC] No.45043897[source]▶
    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…

    replies(3): >>45043979 #>>45044037 #>>45044106 #
    5. bbor ◴[27 Aug 25 19:25 UTC] No.45043923[source]▶
    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)?

    replies(1): >>45043948 #
    6. riffic ◴[27 Aug 25 19:27 UTC] No.45043948{3}[source]▶
    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. I'm cranky but also a perennial optimist.
    7. dachris ◴[27 Aug 25 19:28 UTC] No.45043963[source]▶
    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.
    replies(1): >>45044279 #
    8. perihelions ◴[27 Aug 25 19:30 UTC] No.45043979[source]▶
    > "not as safe as Europe"

    French spooks once detained a randomly-chosen Wikipedia admin and coerced them into using their credentials to delete an article (about French spooks),

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5503354 ("French homeland intelligence threatens a sysop into deleting a Wikipedia Article (wikimedia.fr)" (2013)—191 comments)

    9. lenerdenator ◴[27 Aug 25 19:34 UTC] No.45044037[source]▶
    I wouldn't put it past the Canadian government to do the same thing. Other Anglosphere governments already have, see Australia and UK.
    10. nostrademons ◴[27 Aug 25 19:37 UTC] No.45044085[source]▶
    You can just download it:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

    Downloading Wikipedia is usually a first step for people getting involved in prepping or data-hoarding communities, because it's so much easier than most other websites, and the utility you get from it is pretty large. And the downloads, while fairly large, will still fit on a typical home computer. There are probably tens of thousands of copies, if not more, floating around.

    11. bawolff ◴[27 Aug 25 19:39 UTC] No.45044106[source]▶
    > I wonder if they have any dedicated compute stateside, tho…

    Wikipedia has data centers in Virginia, texas and san francisco. (They also have some in other countries)

    12. bhouston ◴[27 Aug 25 19:51 UTC] No.45044279{3}[source]▶
    There is already https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page