This week, two prominent Republicans, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) and Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina), both of whom play influential roles in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced plans to probe into everybody’s favorite digital encyclopedia. In a letter that Comer and Mace sent to the Wikimedia Foundation (which helps run the site), they asked for internal documents that might show evidence of bad actors who had commandeered Wikipedia for their own ends. The letter, dated Aug. 27th, states that the committee is

investigating the efforts of foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars to influence U.S. public opinion. We seek your assistance in obtaining documents and communications regarding individuals (or specific accounts) serving as Wikipedia volunteer editors who violated Wikipedia platform policies as well as your own efforts to thwart intentional, organized efforts to inject bias into important and sensitive topics.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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    1 day ago

    you can never have too many backups of humanities knowledge. i guess youre just overflowing with optimism and prescience. we all know thats never bit anyone in the asshole.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      Sure, one can have too many backups. When those backups are taking up space that other more at-risk or more useful data could be taking, then that’s a bad thing. When those backups are not actually useful, then the making of them was a waste of time and effort. When making those backups makes people think “ah, there, I’ve solved it” and then they do nothing more, that’s bad.

      It’s like all those people switching over to paper straws instead of plastic and thinking that made a lick of difference to ocean microplastics, or whatever. I’m all for taking action to try to help with problems, I’m just saying that it’s best to take actions that actually help with stuff.

      Maybe instead of buying a portable hard drive to stick that backup onto, donate the money to one of those international chapters I mentioned.

      • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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        1 day ago

        ahh the next hilarious stretch.

        yes storage is soo expensive nowadays all those people sacrificing their precious storage! most peoples laptops have hundreds of GBs of storage they will never actually utilize… and thats just on crappy retail boxes.

        youre clearly struggling to find some reason why people shouldnt be doing this, but i have yet to hear a single reason thats actually detrimental to anyone but those whose egos are tied the to contributor metadata that might get lost.

        again, not a single reason this data shouldnt be replicated.

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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          1 day ago

          i have yet to hear a single reason thats actually detrimental to anyone but those whose egos are tied the to contributor metadata that might get lost.

          So you’re not even doing a full backup?

          Complete waste of time.

          • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
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            1 day ago

            right, because you lack context. your world is very tiny. your parochial views limit any cogent arguments.

            you have this notion that humanity will always exist in its present form. theres only one constant; everything changes.

            your assumptions to the contrary are telling, as well as the nod to the fact you care as much about the editors as the content.