This long read in The Verge does a remarkable job of describing how Wikipedia's editing community works, the project's strengths and weaknesses, and the threats it faces.
In a time of misinformation, in a time of suppression, having this place where people can come and bring knowledge and share knowledge, that is a statement.
The letter’s requests read like a fishing expedition designed by people who fundamentally misunderstand both Wikipedia and the Constitution.
"Rather than end the genocide," Johnson said, "the response instead is to continue firing, doxing, smearing, and attempting to censor inconvenient narratives."
I’ve spent the better part of two decades dealing with people trying to dox and harass the volunteers who make Wikipedia the incredible resource it is today.
I liked it better when they weren’t in Congress.
Letter from House Oversight Committee Chairs James Comer and Nancy Mace
I also spent six years on the same (volunteer!) Arbitration Committee from which Oversight is now demanding private communications. Even just threats like this one, regardless of followthrough, will it so much harder for them to do their thankless work.
"I don't like them. I wouldn't read them. I'll be honest I've read the reviews on some of them…" With these words at a public meeting, Tennessee's Rutherford County School Board member Stan Vaught admitted to banning books he hadn't read — a revelation that kicked off a federal lawsuit. According to the complaint, board members relied primarily on BookLooks.org, a website connected to the Hitler-quoting group Moms for Liberty, instead of reading the books themselves or considering their literary merit. The board repeatedly overruled their own librarians' recommendations to keep books like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, and Ernest Cline' Ready Player One because it has "characters discussing beliefs that heaven and god are not real."
The DOE “book banning hoax” press release claimed that challenged books are “age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene”. Only 13% of banned books in 2023–24 included “on the page” sexual scenes—but 36% featured PoC characters and 25% featured LGBTQ characters.
America was once seen as the home of the free internet. That era is now over.