Trump DOJ takes aim at Wikipedia's tax-exempt status over alleged violations, 'propaganda'



The Trump administration is working to ensure that institutions granted federal funding and tax-exempt status are compliant with federal law and policy.

Shortly after putting woke medical journals that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health on blast over their alleged bias, Edward Martin Jr., the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced an investigation into Wikipedia.

Martin noted in an April 24 letter obtained by the Free Press that "Wikipedia, which operates via its fiscal sponsor, the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., is engaging in a series of activities that could violate its obligations under Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code."

The statute cited by Martin holds that tax-exempt organizations must be:

organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.

The IRS law notes further that tax-exempt organizations are not to "carry on" propaganda, attempt to influence legislation, or "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

Martin suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation, through Wikipedia, "is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public," and is "permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security of the United States."

'Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform.'

Blaze News previously reported that editors at Wikipedia, whose parent company spent nearly 30% of its 2023-2024 budget on DEI programs,

  • tried to hide Vice President JD Vance's military accomplishments in the lead-up to the 2024 election;
  • strategically eliminated any mention of Kamala Harris' appointment as border czar on the site's list of executive branch czars;
  • advocated deleting the entry detailing the mass killings executed by communist regimes, citing an anti-communist bias;
  • blacklisted right-leaning sources such as Blaze News, the Washington Free Beacon, the Federalist, RedState, the Media Research Center, and the Alexander Hamilton-founded New York Post and effectively prohibits their citation in articles, all but guaranteeing a site-wide leftist bias;
  • smears right-wing figures;
  • labeled Elon Musk's temporary suspension of journalists who allegedly violated his platform's terms of service as the "Thursday Night Massacre"; and
  • deceived readers about the history, existence, and nature of cultural Marxism, characterizing the well-defined and well-chronicled offshoot of Marxism as a "conspiracy theory."

A 2024 study published in Online Information Review found that Wikipedia suffers a "significant liberal bias in the choice of news media sources."

Wikipedia — which still claimed at the time of publication that COVID-19 lab leak "explanations are not supported by science" — has not only been criticized for being a repository of leftist propaganda but for its alleged "widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel" content.

While previously silent on the suppression of conservative voices, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League — whose censorious outfit Wikipedia categorized as an "unreliable source" last year — stated last month that "most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics."

The ADL alleged that a group of at least 30 editors "acted in concert to circumvent Wikipedia's policies to introduce antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias, and misleading information."

Martin, who has reportedly been aiding the Justice Department's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, noted in his letter, "Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia's 'educational' mission."

The D.C. attorney also took issue with Wikipedia's apparent direction from a board "composed primarily of foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers."

Martin indicated that his office has received information that "demonstrates that Wikipedia's informational management policies benefit foreign powers."

'The public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability.'

Martin expressed additional concern about the amplification of the leftist and foreign propaganda on Wikipedia, noting that search engines such as Google have prioritized Wikipedia results, and AI platforms train their large-language models on Wikipedia data.

The Department of Justice has requested that the Wikimedia Foundation provide information by May 15 concerning its policy and operations, including what:

  • safeguards it has in place to both protect the public "from the dissemination of propaganda," and to fulfill its legal and ethical obligations as a tax-exempt organization;
  • actions the foundation takes when confronted with editor misconduct and/or coordinated efforts to "use editorial or administrative authority to systematically distort content";
  • the foundation does to ensure editorial transparency and accountability;
  • steps the foundation has taken to counter foreign influence operations;
  • efforts are taken to ensure a broad spectrum of viewpoints are represented, even if at odds with institutional backers; and
  • third-party entities the foundation has contracted with to use, redistribute, or process Wikipedia content.

"As a nonprofit corporation, which is incorporated in the District of Columbia, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status," wrote Martin. "The public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability in its operations and publications."

Although it did not acknowledge Martin's latter, the Wikimedia Foundation claimed in a statement obtained by the Washington Post that Wikipedia's content was governed by policies that ensure information is presented as "accurately, fairly and neutrally as possible."

"Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles written to inform, not persuade," said the statement. "Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

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At Harvard-Hosted 'Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon,' Law Students Target the Pages of Firms That Criticized School's Response to Anti-Semitism

Anti-Israel Harvard Law School students organized a workshop on the Ivy League campus earlier this month to edit the Wikipedia pages of more than a dozen prominent law firms, singling out some that threatened to stop recruiting at the school over its failure to rein in anti-Semitic activity.

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Wikipedia scandal exposed: Big Tech manipulates what you see



Wikipedia is no longer what it used to be, and co-founder Larry Sanger knows exactly why.

“Wikipedia can be used to advance a particular social and political agenda,” Sanger tells James Poulos on “Zero Hour.” “This becomes evident only if you know a lot about the topic. So sometimes the only people who are really qualified to tell whether a treatment of a topic is neutral are the people who know a lot about the topic.”

“It’s gotten really, really bad, though, in the Trump years, I mean really noticeably,” he continues, “and I think that is what sort of enlightened people about the problem. So while conservatives and Libertarian and anti-establishment types, they generally continue to despise Wikipedia, this seems to have had little impact on Wikipedia itself.”


“Why would it?” he adds. “This is a feature of the mainstream media. They’re not going to change, and Wikipedia now is essentially a summary of what the mainstream media thinks, at least when it comes to current events, politics, social issues, and so forth.”

However, it’s not just the twisting of the truth to fit a political agenda that’s bothered the co-founder, but the lack of care taken to stop others from spreading horrifying imagery on the website.

This became an issue to Sanger when he was enlightened to the existence of pedophile rings and “graphic representations of child rape on Wikipedia.” He reported it to the FBI in 2010.

“It didn’t do any good. They didn’t follow up. It’s still there. That did change my views insofar as I felt now it’s important to speak out about this, especially in this context,” he explains. “They’re not trying to hide their disdain at all any more, and from my point of view, it felt like simply speaking about such things as a moral imperative has emboldened me to say things that I have believed for many years.”

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'Demons exist': Wikipedia co-founder shares how studying Hollywood cults led him to Christ



Larry Sanger, Wikipedia co-founder, philosopher, and writer, was a devout atheist at one point in his life — but that all changed as his own philosophical writings started to challenge his belief system.

“I wrote a series of essays that sort of dismantled some of the reasons that I had for disbelief,” Sanger tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.” “My take on it was, what God is essentially is the creator of the universe and a spirit. And he created the universe essentially with a thought, but we have no experience of thoughts bringing things into existence directly.”

“I didn’t conclude that the universe is therefore a simulation, which was Elon Musk’s conclusion,” he continues, adding, “I think that is merely evidence that it’s possible that a creator exists.”

However, it wasn’t just Sanger’s own musings that led him to the word of God.


“A friend of mine was opening my eyes to the existence of various, call them elite pedophile rings, Epstein was not the only one,” he tells Stuckey. “And then there’s, like, pedo-wood, which is what we call the prevalence of pedophilia in Hollywood. It’s very weird that a lot of the people who are involved or at least accused of being involved in such activities have occult beliefs.”

“And my friend said he worked with such people, knew them personally, and he confirmed that. He said that’s why they use all of these symbols, you know, like the old one eye, which people were obsessing about five years ago,” he continues. “I think they avoid it now, but generally speaking a lot of movie posters would show up with this one. That’s an occult symbol.”

Not only have the stories surrounding what happens in Hollywood opened Sanger’s eyes but what happens once any suspected pedophiles have been outed.

“These people are able to get away with horrific crimes. Just look at how Epstein has been dealt with. It cannot be denied that justice has not been done. There’s a lot of guilty people walking around free right now,” he says, noting that our culture is ruled by people like this.

“Our culture is ruled by people who believe this,” he continues. “Doesn’t that mean that if they’re going to go to all these risks and these moral horrors, as part of their beliefs, that’s putting a lot on the line for something that you actually think is a lie?”

“So if it were true, then that would at least mean that the spirit world is true,” he says, adding, “Demons exist."

"Doesn’t that mean it’s possible that God exists?”

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Wikipedia blacklists Blaze News and other right-leaning sources, ensuring it's a one-stop liberal propaganda shop



Wikipedia maintains that articles on its site "should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered."

A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America highlighted that Wikipedia has discounted right-leaning sources as reliable and prohibited their citation in articles, all but guaranteeing that the site is little more than a repository for liberal propaganda.

It's no secret that Wikipedia's volunteer editors are predominantly ideological myopes favorable to leftist causes, ideas, and personalities and antipathetic to conservatives of various stripes.

For instance, editors at Wikipedia, whose parent company blew 29.2% of its 2023-2024 budget on race-obsessive DEI programs, tried to hide Vice President JD Vance's military accomplishments in the lead-up to the 2024 election; strategically eliminated any mention of Kamala Harris' appointment as border czar on the list of executive branch czars; advocated deleting the entry detailing the mass killings executed by communist regimes, citing an anti-communist bias; labeled Elon Musk's temporary suspension of journalists who allegedly violated his platform's terms of service as the "Thursday Night Massacre"; and gaslighted readers about the history, existence, and nature of cultural Marxism, characterizing the well-defined and well-chronicled offshoot of Marxism as a a "conspiracy theory."

'Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead.'

A 2024 study published in Online Information Review found that Wikipedia — now run by the former chief operating officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and previously run by a censorious alumna of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader program who stated that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done" — suffers a "significant liberal bias in the choice of news media sources."

The Dutch researchers noted further that "this effect persists when accounting for the factual reliability of the news media."

Wikipedia, which now deals primarily in "propaganda" and exists only to "give an establishment point of view" according to co-founder Larry Sanger, has apparently leaned harder into its bias.

The new MRC study noted that Wikipedia editors are permitted to cite a variety of leftist publications that have a reputation for pushing false narratives and fake news, including Jacobin, Mother Jones, NPR, and Rolling Stone, but are precluded from citing publications not similarly staffed by liberal activists.

Citing the Wikipedia page on reliable and perennial sources, the study highlighted that numerous reputable right-leaning publications have been blacklisted.

Wikipedia states, for instance, that Blaze News, the Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Epoch Times, Fox News, ZeroHedge, the Washington Free Beacon, the Federalist, RedState, the Media Research Center, and the Alexander Hamilton-founded New York Post "should normally not be used" as sources and "should never be used for information about a living person."

"Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead. If no such source exists, that may suggest that the information is inaccurate," added the Wikipedia entry on reliable sources.

'It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.'

Whereas most right-leaning publications were flagged as "generally unreliable," Breitbart News appears to have been among the few singled out for a formal blacklisting. Wikipedia alleged that the "site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories as fact" and complained that the publication had revealed the identity of multiple Wikipedia editors.

The New York Times qualifies as reliable despite falsely accusing President Donald Trump of lying about Democrats' abortion ambitions; characterizing the suggestion that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab that conducted dangerous experiments on coronaviruses as a "fringe" "conspiracy theory lack[ing] evidence"; printing false Hamas propaganda; pushing the Russian collusion narrative; and misleading readers on various other issues.

Rolling Stone, which has paid out millions in the past for false and defamatory reporting, appears not to have learned its lesson, lying, for instance, in recent years about an imagined Florida book ban and smearing Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. It was also characterized as "generally reliable."

Politico similarly received a reliable rating despite — or perhaps as a result of — its willingness to help a cabal of former intelligence officials interfere with the 2020 election by mischaracterizing the New York Post's reliable Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinfo," and to mislead Americans about the working relationship between former President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the benefit of the former vice president's campaign.

According to the MRC study, only 16% of left-wing media sources were unable to secure Wikipedia's stamp of approval. Meanwhile, 100% of right-leaning sources were effectively blacklisted.

The MRC study noted further that the predicable result is that "conservatives, Republicans, and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned, and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people."

Christopher Bedford, senior editor for politics and Washington correspondent for Blaze Media, noted, "You've got to remember, none of this — none of it — is based in fact. We were right about COVID, right about Biden, right about immigration, right about trans. We were right about virtually every major contested issue impacting this country for the past 10 years, while over and over again outlets from the New York Times to PolitiFact were embarrassingly wrong."

"They can't handle that, and so the ideologues ban us," continued Bedford. "It's pathetic, but it's also dangerous, and every penny you give to support this project is a penny given against speech and truth."

Dan Schneider, MRC vice president, noted, "There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke."

"Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions," continued Schneider. "It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative."

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Wikipedia Declares Hamas the Victor in Nearly Every Battle Against Israel Since 10/7—Then Quietly Deletes Section

Wikipedia editors quietly deleted an entry claiming that Hamas has won nearly every battle against Israel since Oct. 7, setting off a fiery debate about the online database’s bias and inability to accurately portray the war.

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Wikipedia spent over $50M on DEI last year, focusing on 'equity' in culture and 'gender' across the globe



Wikipedia's parent company, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, spent massive swaths of its budget on ideological initiatives in the last fiscal year.

In total, the organization spent $51.7 million on programs relating to "equity" and "safety & inclusion," amounting to 29.2% of its 2023-2024 budget of $177 million.

This included programs to strengthen efforts related to ensuring "equity in decision-making" surrounding the themes of education, culture and heritage, and gender.

Specifically for gender, the organization described prioritizing "more inclusive, gender-equitable and safe spaces" in order to contribute to "intersectional content on women's biographies and material."

The confusing descriptions for the programs included a need for "facilitated processes" for contributors and editors so they can have "extended rights to onboard gender equitable norms and practices into the volunteer experience."

Reacting to the company's budget, X CEO Elon Musk commented, "Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority."

Musk was alluding to the fact that much of Wikipedia's political and historical content is heavily slanted toward a left-wing perspective.

"They spent $50M on DEI!? Damn, they suck," Musk added on Christmas Day.

They spent $50M on DEI!? Damn, they suck.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 26, 2024

Less than half of Wikimedia's operating budget went to company infrastructure and just 22% to "effectiveness."

The company also claimed there is a need to push funding toward "safety" initiatives because there exists a "threat to free knowledge" that is present because of "mis- and disinformation."

The nonprofit also claimed an alleged "massive" amount of disinformation, government interference, and surveillance threatens the safety of its volunteers.

Another chart showed the company spends a whopping $7.4 million on travel and events while nearly $25 million goes toward grants and "movement support."

'Supporting equity represents the second largest part of our programmatic work.'

Despite a massive slice of the budget going toward what most would call woke initiatives, contributors to the platform did not list political positions or activism as their reason for donating.

Of the top 10 reasons listed, these were the top three:
  • "I use Wikipedia often, so I want to support it."
  • "I support free knowledge for all."
  • "I want Wikipedia to stay online."

"Supporting equity represents the second largest part of our programmatic work, with grants and Movement support representing the majority of the budget within the equity goal," the company wrote in its report.

Although Wikimedia's budget has increased year over year, the increase slowed from 15% in 2022-2023 and 30% in 2021-2022 down to just 5% growth in the last fiscal year.

This has led the company to conclude that it must "reduce internal expenses" or increase the annual budget by 6-7%. However, the company has projected increases of just 3-5%.

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Media ‘Pounce’ To Cover Up Kamala Harris’ Plagiarism Scandal

A 2009 book co-authored by Kamala Harris contains passages seemingly lifted from other published works, according to a new report.

The Contrarians Were Right About Covid Hysteria

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-11-at-2.05.47 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-11-at-2.05.47%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]And the fearmongers did irreparable damage.

NPR boss accused of being something far more impactful than just another radical World Economic Forum anointee



A Peabody Award-winning senior business editor who worked for NPR for 25 years penned a damning exposé earlier this month, confirming critics' suspicions that NPR is a Democratic propaganda machine.

For speaking truth to power, Uri Berliner was suspended. He later resigned, writing, "I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay."

The CEO who drove out this "EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag-carrying coastal elite"-styled liberal is Katherine Maher.

Maher, a censorious alumna of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader program, was announced as the president and CEO of the company in January. She previously served as CEO of Wikipedia's parent company, Wikimedia, and worked at the National Democratic Institute, which is primarily funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundations.

Blaze News previously explored some of the Orwellian revisionism that took place at Wikipedia under her leadership — where she made clear that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done" — and also recently highlighted some of her radical, race-obsessed comments online.

It appears, however, that beside her complicated relationship with the truth, her knack for spotting racism in unlikely places, and her apparent intolerance for dissenting views, Maher might also be a bit player in the regime-change business.

Christopher Rufo recently suggested in City Journal that Maher may have been involved in various color revolutions abroad — and may now be involved in one stateside.

Color revolutions — such as the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004 — are political upheavals aimed at toppling supposedly illegitimate or abusive regimes and replacing them with supposedly liberal democratic regimes. In many cases, the revolutionaries appear to have been afforded help and direction by state actors and/or by non-governmental organizations, such as the outfits Maher has worked with.

Rufo noted, "The West's favored methods of supporting Color Revolutions include fomenting dissent, organizing activists through social media, promoting student movements, and unleashing domestic unrest on the streets."

Maher apparently toured the ground zeroes of various regime changes in recent years as they were unfolding.

Rufo claimed that beginning in 2011, the NPR CEO, who has a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and has studied in Syria and Egypt, "traveled numerous times to Tunisia, working with regime-change activists and government officials. In 2012, she traveled to a strategic city on the Turkey-Syria border, which had become a base for Western-backed opposition to Bashar al-Assad. That same year, she traveled to Libya, where the U.S. had just overthrown strongman Muammar Gaddafi."

During her tour of toppled or toppling regimes in 2011 and for years afterward, Maher worked for the National Democratic Institute, which Rufo suggested was "a government-funded NGO with deep connections to U.S. intelligence and the Democratic Party’s foreign policy machine."

The Guardian indicated in 2004 that the NDI, founded in the early 1980s after Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy, was among the supposed NGOs dispatched by the U.S. to Ukraine and other nations to help "enginee[r] democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience."

National security analyst J. Michael Waller suggested, "NDI is an instrument of Samantha Power and the global revolution elements of the Obama team."

"It has gone along with, and been significant parts of, color revolutions around the world. It is very much a regime-change actor," added Waller.

Waller told City Journal that Maher was "part of a revolutionary vanguard movement."

Rufo appears convinced the woke CEO has since turned her sights from the Orient to the United States.

According to the New College of Florida board member, the "summer of rioting following the death of George Floyd, which ushered in the new DEI regime, was in many ways a domestic Color Revolution."

Rufo did not produce a smoking gun concerning Maher's possible direct role in the DEI revolution while at Wikipedia, "a key strategic way station ... [that] defines the terms, shapes the narrative, and launders mostly left-wing political ideologies into the discourse, under the guise of 'neutral knowledge.'"

However, he noted that Maher, a longtime BLM supporter, made clear the general policy at Wikipedia was to "eliminate racist, misogynist, transphobic, and other forms of discriminatory content" and elsewhere highlighted her aim of rebelling against the idea of "radical openness," which she associated with a "white male Westernized construct."

With Wikipedia still operating a "closed loop that operates surreptitiously, using its reputation for unbiased knowledge as a cover for its own disinformation," Rufo intimated that Maher has moved on to another key component in the "American Color Revolution" underway: NPR.

NPR "has formative power in many culture-shaping institutions and increasingly represents the voice of blue elites. It is state radio, in the Soviet sense: it produces propaganda to advance its own cultural power and move the nation toward a desired end-state," wrote Rufo.

Berliner previously highlighted how Maher's predecessor was already active in this regard.

"When it comes to identifying and ending systemic racism," former NPR CEO John Lansing allegedly noted in a company-wide article, "we can be agents of change."

"America's infestation with systemic racism was declared loud and clear: it was a given. Our mission was to change it," Berliner wrote earlier this month.

Maher, an apparent agent of change, wrote in a December 2010 NDI blog post, "Control over the flow of information in a closed society can be tantamount to control over the state."

Rufo indicated that Maher's remarks in the blog post, which concerned an electoral crisis in the Ivory Coast that led to civil war, were "more descriptive than prescriptive." Nevertheless, "[t]he production of media works in Cote d’Ivoire as it does in America; the difference is only a matter of scale and complexity."

Responding to the City Journal piece, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote, "I don't know if she is actual CIA, or just ideologically aligned. What is clear though is that she will assiduously advance establishment narratives."

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