[Ars Technica] asked Cruz's office to explain why a senator pressuring Wikipedia is appropriate while an FCC chair pressuring ABC is not and will update this article if we get a response.
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.
“We will use the donated money to replace the books and buy more like them.”
And with the internet eating major broadcasters’ lunch, it’s very likely that the Ellison family paid billions of dollars for a network whose fortunes are headed to the toilet, and whose viewers are headed elsewhere. They have the potential to create a right wing propaganda bullhorn that rivals Fox News; but it’s just as likely their disastrous management turns the network of Walter Cronkite into a sad, historical footnote.
This model of media capture has since become a case study in soft authoritarian control. Its blueprint rests on four pillars: the takeover of public media, the political capture of the media regulator, the deployment of state funds as leverage over editorial content, and the strategic acquisition of private outlets. This formula has been successfully exported—with variations—to other countries. ... Efforts to manipulate the media are nothing new; history is littered with regimes that sought to bend the press to their will. What distinguishes this modern form of capture, however, is the role of the private sector. Corporations reliant on government contracts or regulatory leniency buckled under pressure, buying up media outlets and turning them into mouthpieces of state propaganda. In the digital age, media capture is often coupled with digital authoritarianism, where governments and non-state actors collaborate to use technologies to conduct surveillance, restrict access to information, and distort the journalistic ecosystem with authoritarian-friendly outlets and campaigns of disinformation.
Lawsuits like this one are not something to celebrate just because you hate Fox News.
I'm not normally one to agree with Fox, but they're right in their statement that suits like this are "designed to chill free speech critical of [Newsom]."
Even if Wikipedia’s content was biased (it isn’t), even if every editor was actively trying to push an anti-Israel narrative (they aren’t), that would still be protected by the First Amendment. The government doesn’t get to threaten organizations over their editorial choices, no matter how much certain prosecutors or publications might dislike those choices.