{"id":2479460,"date":"2025-08-27T11:31:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-opens-investigation-into-wikipedia-over-foreign-efforts-to-manipulate-information\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T11:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:34:08","slug":"congress-opens-investigation-into-wikipedia-over-foreign-efforts-to-manipulate-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/congress-opens-investigation-into-wikipedia-over-foreign-efforts-to-manipulate-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress opens investigation into Wikipedia over foreign efforts to &#8216;manipulate&#8217; information\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcongress-opens-investigation-into-wikipedia-over-foreign-efforts-to-manipulate-information%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2479460&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article reports that U.S. Congressional committees led by Representatives James Comer and Nancy Mace have launched an examination into the Wikimedia Foundation regarding alleged foreign attempts to manipulate wikipedia content. The investigation focuses on claims that foreign actors and individuals at U.S.-funded academic institutions have coordinated to influence wikipedia articles,promoting antisemitic and anti-Israel narratives as well as pro-russian,anti-Western messaging. <\/p>\n<p>The inquiry cites two studies: one by the Anti-Defamation League identifying a group of editors coordinating edits to skew Israel-Palestine coverage, and another by the Atlantic Council exposing a kremlin-linked operation flooding Wikipedia with pro-Russian content to influence AI language models like ChatGPT. The investigation highlights the meaning of Wikipedia as a source for AI training data and the impact of information manipulation.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the article notes that the wikimedia Foundation funds activist groups such as Art+Feminism, Whose Knowledge, and Black Lunch Table, which engage in coordinated editing efforts to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/unfit-to-serve-obesity-epidemic-creating-recruitment-woes-national-security-risk-bidens-dei-policies-dont-help\/\" title=\"Obesity Epidemic Hinders Recruitment, Poses National Security Risk - Biden&#039;s DEI Policies Ineffective\">address perceived biases<\/a> in Wikipedia content, often reflecting left-leaning perspectives.<\/p>\n<p>Congress is demanding extensive internal documents from Wikimedia, including those related to possible nation-state coordination, campus-originated campaigns, dispute resolutions by Wikipedia&#8217;s Arbitration Commitee, and policies on neutrality and manipulations involving antisemitism and Israel-related content. The Wikimedia Foundation has not commented on the investigation. <br \/> <!DOCTYPE html><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Congress opens investigation into Wikipedia over foreign efforts to &lsquo;manipulate&rsquo; information&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2208719\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>EXCLUSIVE &mdash; <\/strong>Congressional committees headed by Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) are demanding information from the Wikimedia Foundation about the efforts of &ldquo;foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars&rdquo; to &ldquo;manipulate&rdquo; information on Wikipedia and shape American public opinion, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/082725-letter-to-Wikimedia.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">letter obtained exclusively<\/a> by the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Comer and Mace charge that there have been &ldquo;systematic&rdquo; operations undertaken to &ldquo;advance antisemitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles,&rdquo; as well as a coordinated effort on the part of a &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >hostile nation-state actor&#038;rdquo<\/a>; to flood Wikipedia with pro-Russian and anti-Western messaging through Wikipedia edits. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, led by Comer and Mace, respectively, are requesting the Wikimedia Foundation provide them with internal records so they can investigate the extent to which such campaigns have been successful.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/investigations\/3780834\/wess-miller-wife-links-chinese-government\/\">Activist leading charge against national security legislation has wife with links to Chinese government<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/3782992\/university-of-michigan-medical-center-drop-transgender-services-minors-trump-pressure\/\">University of Michigan Medical Center becomes latest to drop transgender services for minors amid Trump pressure<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/house\/3782387\/house-gop-expands-antisemitism-investigation-university-of-california-system-documents-request\/\">House GOP expands antisemitism investigation into UC system with sweeping documents request<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>To support their claims, Comer and Mace cite two studies.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The first, conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adl.org\/resources\/report\/editing-hate-how-anti-israel-and-anti-jewish-bias-undermines-wikipedias-neutrality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">identified<\/a> a group of 30 editors who appeared to act in a coordinated fashion to edit pages related to Israel and the Palestinian state to amplify criticism about the former while downplaying negative information about the latter. According to the ADL, these editors communicated with each other extensively, made multiple edits on the same pages within short time periods, harassed dissenting editors, and voted in conjunction with one another to delete information critical of Palestinians while keeping negative information related to Israelis.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Wikipedia&rsquo;s homepage. (Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The second study mentioned in Comer and Mace&rsquo;s letter was conducted by the Atlantic Council and found that an operation linked to the Kremlin, dubbed the Pravda Network, has been working to place pro-Russian narratives in Wikipedia articles as a means to influence the outputs of popular large language models such as ChatGPT. The Atlantic Council&rsquo;s investigation <a href=\"https:\/\/dfrlab.org\/2025\/03\/12\/pravda-network-wikipedia-llm-x\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">uncovered<\/a> that 1,672 Wikipedia pages across 44 different languages cited fake news aggregation websites linked to the Russian government.<\/p>\n<p>The studies cited in the congressional letter, as well as the letter itself, highlighted the importance of Wikipedia in training AI chatbots, an increasingly common tool for seeking information.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to being influenced from the outside, the Wikimedia Foundation also <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2024\/09\/23\/wikipedia-donations-embedding-feminism-racial-justice-worlds-largest-encyclopedia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">doles out<\/a> hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/change-the-world-elon-musk-champions-recording-videos-to-bolster-on-the-ground-reporting\/\" title=\"Elon Musk advocates video recording to enhance on-site reporting and change the world.\">activist groups seeking<\/a> to bring the online encyclopedia more in line with traditionally left-of-center points of view. For instance, its 2022-2023 tax documents indicate that the philanthropy made grants to organizations such as Art+Feminism, Whose Knowledge, and Black Lunch Table, all of which conduct coordinated editing operations.<\/p>\n<p>Art+Feminism, for instance, mobilizes its members to correct alleged &ldquo;gender biases in biographical articles.&rdquo; Meanwhile, Whose Knowledge aims to &ldquo;decolonize the internet.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/investigations\/3777669\/john-arnold-billionaire-funding-consensus-healthcare-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>MEET THE BILLIONAIRE FUNDING CONSENSUS AT EVERY LEVEL OF THE HEALTHCARE DEBATE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In service of their investigation, Comer and Mace are requesting reams of documents from the Wikimedia Foundation, including records about &ldquo;possible coordination by nation state actors in editing activities on Wikipedia,&rdquo; records related to similar coordination schemes originating on college campuses, records from Wikipedia&rsquo;s Arbitration Committee related to disputes with such actors, information about the editors the letter alleges are operating in bad faith, Wikipedia&rsquo;s internal policies related to ensuring neutrality, and any internal analysis on &ldquo;patterns of manipulation or bias related to antisemitism and conflicts with the State of Israel.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script> <\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congress probes Wikipedia over foreign info manipulation efforts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":894,"featured_media":2479461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/051023-gop-biden-investigation-27-scaled.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[4402,41195,62096,3976,10199],"class_list":["post-2479460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-congress","tag-foreign-interference","tag-information-manipulation","tag-investigation","tag-wikipedia"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/051023-gop-biden-investigation-27-scaled.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2479460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2479464,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2479460\/revisions\/2479464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2479461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2479460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2479460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2479460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}