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House to investigate Wikipedia over allegations of organized bias

(thehill.com)
152 points xqcgrek2 | 3 comments | 27 Aug 25 18:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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.

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lukev ◴[27 Aug 25 19:27 UTC] No.45043942[source]▶
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!

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1. rafaelmn ◴[27 Aug 25 19:51 UTC] No.45044283[source]▶
Is a non-profit a private entity ?
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2. lukev ◴[27 Aug 25 20:02 UTC] No.45044424[source]▶
Yes. Although the privileged tax status of a 501(c)(3) does come with the restriction that they cannot engage in direct political campaigning or endorsement of candidates, they are still a private entity fully protected by the first amendment.
3. BobaFloutist ◴[27 Aug 25 20:50 UTC] No.45045071[source]▶
In this context, yes. It gets confusing, but a "public entity" refers to the government.