Chairman Comer and Rep. Mace Launch Investigation into Wikipedia Information Manipulation
For years, investigators have claimed that Wikipedia content was altered to promote specific narratives. Now, Congress seems to have had enough.
As previously reported by Sentinel News, the influence of moderators on fringe science topics on the most widely used content website has long been debated.
Recently, the downgrading of the news website "The Debrief" based on the opinion of a few moderators rekindled outrage. It seems that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has decided to intervene. In an announcement on their website, they state that they are “investigating organized efforts, undertaken in violation of Wikipedia platform rules, to influence U.S. public opinion on important and sensitive topics by manipulating Wikipedia articles”.
Americans, and increasingly AI chatbots, rely on Wikipedia to disperse credible and unbiased information on a variety of topics and persons of interest. The House Oversight Committee is investigating manipulation efforts to determine the role and methods of foreign individuals, those at academic institutions subsidized by United States taxpayer dollars, as well as Wikipedia’s awareness and response. The Committee also seeks information about the tools and methods Wikipedia utilizes to identify and stop malicious conduct online that injects bias and undermines neutral points of view on its platform.
Any reasonable person would be astonished by the fact that AI chatbot companies are using community-driven content to feed their software when there is already a wealth of trusted and reliable encyclopedias that could have provided the content. Sadly, cost-cutting logic and access to information over reliability drive such companies. With an information system so fragile that institutions have discouraged students from using it for decades, one can only wonder what damage and social manipulation a coordinated group could cause by infiltrating the organization and, in effect, "rewrite history."
Representatives Comer and Mace forwarded their concerns to Ms. Iskander, the Chief Executive Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation:
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. Multiple studies and reports have highlighted efforts to manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at Western audiences.
Our inquiry seeks information to help our examination of how Wikipedia responds to such threats and how frequently it creates accountability when intentional, egregious, or highly suspicious patterns of conduct on topics of sensitive public interest are brought to attention. This includes questions concerning the tools and methods Wikipedia utilizes to identify and stop malicious conduct that injects bias or undermines a neutral point of view on its platform. We also seek to better our understanding of the individuals caught engaging in prohibited behavior.
The authors then provide a list of documents that are to be provided to the committee by September 10. Among them are:
1. Records, communications, or analysis pertaining to possible coordination by nation state actors in editing activities on Wikipedia.
2. Records, communications, or analysis pertaining to possible coordination within academic institutions or other organized efforts to edit or influence content identified as possibly violating Wikipedia policies.
3. Records of Wikipedia’s Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) including but not limited to all editor conduct disputes and actions taken against them.
4. Records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration dates, user activity logs) for editors subject to actions by ArbCom.
It's hard to imagine the extent of the information that will be delivered to the committee and whether a transparent entity like the Wikimedia Foundation will make it available to the public.
Chairman Comer lends his authority to the newly formed Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, which is headed by Representative Luna and tasked with uncovering UAP information. Hopefully, they will be able to shed light on the claims that the moderation of this topic went rogue.
