Prominent Republicans are trying to fight "bias" online.

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.

    • FaceDeer@fedia.io
      3·
      1 day ago

      They were one example. As I said,

      Internet Archive, for example

      In my next paragraph I mentioned the international chapters of Wikimedia Foundation, they’re another example.

      Trump can’t erase Wikipedia. He can disrupt the smooth functioning of Wikipedia, though, which is the thing I was pointing out is a bigger concern. That’s not something that can be solved by randomly scattering yet more out-of-date database dumps in peoples’ closets. That’s something that the Wikimedia Foundation itself is best positioned to work on, they’re best positioned to ensure there are fail-over options to keep en.wikipedia.org running in the event that the American government goes full authoritarian on them.