Wikipedia: Republicans launch investigation

The free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is coming under fire from the Republican Party in the USA. In the United States House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the most important investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, Republicans have launched an investigation into alleged organized efforts to bias Wikipedia entries and the Wikimedia Foundation's response to this. This was reported by the online newspaper The Hill from Washington D.C., which primarily reports on the inner workings of the US Congress.

According to the report, Committee Chairman James Comer and Representative Nancy Mace, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Government Innovation, sent a request for information on Wednesday to Maryana Iskander, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia. Their request is part of an investigation into "efforts by foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized with U.S. taxpayer funds to influence public opinion in the United States," they said in their letter. They ask for assistance in obtaining documents and communications about individuals who are volunteer Wikipedia editors and have violated the Wikipedia platform's policies. In addition, the foundation should outline its own efforts to "thwart deliberate, organized efforts aimed at influencing important and sensitive topics".

Accusation of manipulation

Several studies and reports have shown attempts to "manipulate information on the Wikipedia platform for propaganda aimed at a Western audience", Comer and Mace continue. They refer to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League on alleged systematic efforts to spread anti-Semitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles on conflicts with the state of Israel. Mention is also made of a report by the US think tank Atlantic Council on pro-Russian actors who would spread pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messages by manipulating Wikipedia articles and other news sources, which in turn are used to train AI chatbots.

The investigative committee recognizes, Comer and Mace said, that virtually all online information platforms struggle with hostile actors and attempts at manipulation. "Our investigation aims to shed light on how Wikipedia responds to such threats and how often it is held accountable when deliberate, egregious or highly suspicious patterns of behavior on topics of sensitive public interest are uncovered." This included questions about the tools and methods Wikipedia uses to detect and stop malicious behavior.

Transmission of information required

The committee is therefore demanding that the Wikimedia Foundation provide documents and records of possible coordination between state actors, coordination within academic institutions or other organized efforts to edit or influence Wikipedia content by 10 September at the latest. In addition, the Foundation shall provide records from the Wikipedia Arbitration Tribunal regarding the behavior of editors and actions taken against them. This includes records showing identifying and unique characteristics of accounts (such as names, IP addresses, registration data, user activity logs) of editors. A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed receipt of the letter to The Hill. They are looking into it, he said.

This is not the first time that the Wikimedia Foundation has come under the scrutiny of the US government under Donald Trump and related political actors. Last year, the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute published a report accusing Wikipedia entries of political bias. The online encyclopaedia is more likely to give negative connotations to right-wing terms. In April, a US federal prosecutor working for the US government accused the Wikimedia Foundation of violating the law and implicitly threatened to revoke its tax exemption. In a letter, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, referred to information he had that "foreign actors could manipulate information and spread propaganda".

In addition, an investigation by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) recently led to Wikipedia being criticized for many errors and outdated information. To counteract the growing flood of low-quality, AI-generated articles, Wikipedia introduced a new policy at the beginning of the month. It allows the rapid deletion of AI-generated articles.

(akn)