House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

Probably an attempt at capturing Wikipedia, in preparation for censorship or historic revisionism. I feel like a cosnpiracy theorist, but such things seem less implausible these days.

How exactly is that supposed to work?

It's not complicated, same process as has been applied to government agencies and private universities: remove "DEI", that is any mention of anti racism.

How it's enforced is a detail. They have the Supreme Court to issue whatever verdict is required.

No, it must be complicated. Wikipedia isn't grant-funded (they have money coming out of their ears) and it isn't a government agency subject to regulation. Most private publications are proudly biased.

In fact, the most likely outcome to the House trying to play hardball with Wikipedia is a double-digit percentage increase in their donations. Which I don't think House Republicans mind, because none of this is actually about Wikipedia.

So, again, how is this supposed to work?

They are *already* retroactively rewriting reports and documents to align with the dear leaders brain farts.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250807-us-to-rewrite...

And? They can rewrite their own reports as much as they want. They don't get to rewrite Jacobin articles.

I’m just establishing that they have been in power for 5 minutes and haven’t hesitated to try and literally rewrite history already. You should expect them to continue to do so wherever they think they can get leverage.

Wikipedia doesn’t receive any federal funding, what leverage does the House of the current administration have without money to withhold?

Nothing I'm saying has anything whatsoever to do with thinking that the GOP is operating in good faith.

How has it worked already?

Dragging people for public spectacles in Congress, lawfare through frivolous lawsuits, frivolous investigation through a variety of agencies, wasting the orgs time in court, allies doxxing org members to intimidate them with stochastic terrorism.

If you haven't been paying attention to how Trump and Co have been weapoinzing government to silence critics or pressure private orgs, you haven't been paying attention.

What happened to Harvard?

What happened to CBS/Paramount?

What happened with 60 Minutes?

What about ActBlue?

Harvard is extensively grant funded; that was the administration's leverage.

CBS's owners were existentially dependent on DOJ approval of an impending merger.

60 Minutes is a CBS property.

Nothing has happened to ActBlue.

So again I ask: how exactly is the House supposed to accomplish anything with Wikipedia?

Snatching editors off the street who revert regime-approved edits? It wouldn't be the first time they sent a goon squad to black bag someone for disfavored political speech.

If they're going to operate purely extrajudicially, what would House hearings have to do with anything? These theories aren't coherent.

The administration has just directed the head of the FHFA to create a pretext to illegally remove a governor of the Federal Reserve, what on earth do you think would stop House Republicans from ginning up some nonsense pretext for a politically motivated DoJ investigation? Why on earth do you think these people are bound by anything other than what they can get away with?

Not directly but I have seen some people (senators) claim that at least one of their funds is "democratic dark money."

"Dark money" is a term of art meaning partisan donation dollars that aren't itemized or tracked by the FEC. Dark money isn't illegal. It's "dark" because it's unregulated. When Republicans call money that doesn't end up in a campaign general fund "dark", they're literally saying they have no authority to regulate it.

maybe step back and think about what this targeted, repeated, deeply meticulous sequence of challenges to this very narrow topic of conversation is communicating about you, and is achieving in the net sense

is this the right application of your time and energy? perhaps that time and energy is more usefully spent fighting against the actively malicious current US political administration, than deconstructing arguments in that same vein?

No, I think I'm just going to continue having the discussion we're having here.

Congress doing their investigation will be used in the media to "prove" that by virtue of being under investigation the executive actions against Wikipedia and its contributors are legitimate. Similar to how accusations of antisemitism led to the snatching of Ms. Ozturk.

See the difference? The administration can in fact disrupt the Federal Reserve, and appears intent on doing so. But they would much rather you were talking about Wikipedia, which is something they have basically no power over whatsoever.

Uh, no. The administration explicitly cannot disrupt the federal reserve by law. That's why they're cooking bogus justifications against the governor.

Likewise, they'll just make shit up or use some tiny administrative technicality against Wikipedia.

I do not disagree. The administration should not be allowed to terminate Fed governors. I'm optimistic that there is a SCOTUS majority that will prevent it (they explicitly drew a line around the Federal Reserve recently), but we'll see. But clearly: the administration can fire Executive Branch employees, and has a legal interpretation extending that the the Fed.

There is nothing at all connecting the administration to Wikipedia. People are falling for an op the GOP is running.