Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;JozhY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;JozhY</a>

I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia&#x27;s biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it&#x27;s editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and&#x2F;or care about can benefit from your attention. Fixing typos is valuable. Adding photos is valuable. Flagging vandalism is valuable. Please edit Wikipedia.

Here&#x27;s the letter: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;file&#x2F;d&#x2F;1ocNyx34Et19sKtlta0bTPPzSPcpi375T&#x2F;view" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;drive.google.com&#x2F;file&#x2F;d&#x2F;1ocNyx34Et19sKtlta0bTPPzSPcp...</a><p>No claims, no evidence. No sources, except &quot;it has come to my attention&quot; and &quot;information received by my office&quot;.

&gt; Before being named U.S. attorney, Martin appeared on Russia-backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post reported last week. In one appearance on RT in 2022, he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine’s boarders only nine days before Russia invaded the country. He further criticized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia security concerns.<p>This is getting ridiculous. Is there anyone associated with this administration who does <i>not</i> have a record of promoting Russia&#x27;s positions?

Acting DC AG Martin has a history of sockpuppetry. Bought a sycophant a laptop and then ghostwrote Facebook posts attacking a judge in a case against Martin. Should have been disbarred.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;ed-martin-trump-interim-dc-us-attorney-secret-judge-attacks" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;ed-martin-trump-interim-d...</a><p>It&#x27;s <i>always</i> projection with the MAGA crowd

Yeah... this Ed Martin? -- rhetorical question! &quot; Martin was a CNN contributor in 2017.[38] From 2016 to 2024, Martin appeared more than 150 times on RT America and Sputnik, both of which are Russian state-controlled news agencies.[39] None of these appearances was disclosed to the Senate on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire asking for a list of all media interviews.[39] Nine days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine’s boarders and critized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia security concerns.[40] &quot;<p>Time to archive a lot of snapshots.

I am not a lawyer but this sounds absurd. Even if everything in here were true it seems irrelevant to their non profit status. There are issue based non profits that do nothing but publishing information with an ideological slant. There is no restriction on a 501c3 being run by non-citizens let alone influenced. 501c3s can even engage in lobbying.<p>I know taking it at face value isn&#x27;t the point but this claim is particularly galling.

Haven&#x27;t read the article in full yet, but it reminded me of this nice excerpt on Wikipedia and truth and the best of what we know:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;emilygorcenski.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;on-truth&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;emilygorcenski.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;on-truth&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;&quot;But one of the most significant differences critical for moving from polarization to productivity, is that the Wikipedians who write these articles aren’t actually focused on finding the truth. They’re working for something that’s a little more attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now. &quot;

I have a question on non-profits in general. What exactly is the advantage of being incorporated as a non-profit, when all you have to do to not be taxed as a for-profit corporation is spend all your money each year and not show any profit? It seems you&#x27;d have more privacy as a for-profit corporation, since you don&#x27;t have to disclose donors.

Seems relevant: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whitehouse.gov&#x2F;presidential-actions&#x2F;2025&#x2F;01&#x2F;ending-the-weaponization-of-the-federal-government&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.whitehouse.gov&#x2F;presidential-actions&#x2F;2025&#x2F;01&#x2F;endi...</a>

To be honest, many of the people who critize wikipedia.. just do not want to fork the content. it would be possible. they all like the work people put into it. but as soon as it does not fit the worldview anymore...<p>are there manipulations? sure. then more people should watch it. and wikipedia should have a better process on controversal topics in own areas.<p>but the whining is abysmal.

Letter should be thrown in the trash. Let him bring up charges if they feel a crime has been committed.

Wikipedia needs decentralized hosting infra, away from any single country. It is way too important.

This admin has no shame. They’re burning everything good&#x2F;stable about the US because of an unstable, megalomaniac idiot happened to win the presidency.

Let&#x27;s remove nonprofit status from all churches. Because they are involved in politics

The US are no longer a safe country for volunteer projects.

Obviously this would happen with the current administration in the USA.<p>The foundation should be moved to a country where the rule of law and neutrality are respected. Switzerland perhaps?

In my humble opinion Wikipedia is the single best thing thing to emerge from the Internet boom. Its name is a wordplay on one of the most important intellectual projects of the Enlightment.[0] The DC prosecutor letter reads like something straight out of the totalitarian playbook.[1]<p>Please donate now to show your support. It&#x27;s time to fight back against this crap.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Encyclop%C3%A9die" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Encyclop%C3%A9die</a><p>[1] &quot;Show me the man and I&#x27;ll show you the crime.&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_give_you_the_case_against_him" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_giv...</a>

Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.<p>There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious places, universities, historians, museums, books or any institution that grounds itself in reality which provides you a way to reasonably criticize authoritarian actions. Many authortarian regimes will &quot;purge&quot; as many of the country&#x27;s intellectuals as they are able.<p>Wikipedia is absolutely the enemy of this administration and authoritarians everywhere in the world would love to see it&#x27;s demise or collapse into chaos.<p>Whether the Wikipedia page for Israel says Gaza is a genocide or not, or that it&#x27;s an ongoing debate matters. It matters because it influences what people think and therefore what they consent to or what they deem worth fighting for or applying resources to and that goes for just about any issue out there. If you can&#x27;t read about the suffering that racism has caused, then how bad is racism really? If there are no examples of successful labor movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?

Works where archive.is is blocked:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20250425235105if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;25&#x2F;wikipedia-nonprofit-ed-martin-letter&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20250425235105if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wa...</a><p>The letter:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20250427075702if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;documents&#x2F;3902ac06-7b82-4280-95f7-8cd0fde34abc.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20250427075702if_&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wa...</a>

So the issue is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.” and they are going after wikipedia instead of say TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X?

It&#x27;s 2 paragraphs... What&#x27;s the substance of the allegation?

I once wrote an essay on how to deal with conflict of interest problems on Wikipedia.[1] It&#x27;s not that hard. It&#x27;s just work.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia:Hints_on_dealing_with_conflict_of_interest_problems" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia:Hints_on_dealing_wit...</a>

Wikipedia IS ideologically captured and a propaganda target. This is not up for debate.<p>What it needs now is a bipartisan, sybil resistant algorithm like X’s community notes’ in order to accept&#x2F;reject edits.

Wikipedia has its share of issues, and anything political&#x2F;controversial is never going to be perfectly balanced and there will always be a tug of war over content and complaints from all sides. I tend to stay away from articles on highly politicized people&#x2F;topics.<p>But having an independent (not ad-driven therefore not subject to corporations), transparent (you can see edit history and authors), and funded by its users, is an amazing accomplishment and a great boon to mankind. One of the best sites on the internet.<p>Independent sources of information are a threat to autocrats and dictators, so it&#x27;s no surprise that the Trump admin would attempt to kill Wikipedia or reduce its influence (and no better way than to hit its tax status and therefore reduce donations to it).

Wikipedia definitely isn&#x27;t perfect - bias in editing is real, and it&#x27;s fair to critique how reliable it is - but threatening their nonprofit status over it is wild.

I&#x27;ve edited a page about my grandfather&#x27;s accounting firm that was bought out by some iteration of Peat Marwick (I have the deets somewhere, just don&#x27;t recall now). Referred to documentation and the edit was reverted.<p>Done some other edits, some stick, some are reverted. I don&#x27;t have time to deal with this so as much as I&#x27;d like to contribute, I am doing stuff where I can actually contribute.

It&#x27;s long due that we come up with an uncensorable, decentralized digital encyclopedia, with different versions for every article, each qualified perhaps by a voting or comment system of sorts, so we can work out biases and make up our own minds on any subject. That way, it&#x27;ll also be truly nonprofit, afforded by its own users.

As a non american that edited wikipedia.<p>You guys control the servers, if anything you have the psyop advantage.<p>However, the librarians are very vocal about self determination and keeping wikimedia out of important decisions.

Same person also threatened the New England Journal of Medicine. Thought crime is real.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;25&#x2F;health&#x2F;nejm-prosecutor-letter.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2025&#x2F;04&#x2F;25&#x2F;health&#x2F;nejm-prosecutor-le...</a>

All US organizations should seriously consider moving out of the country, at this point; it might become harder to do it in the future

Wikipedia website even says your donation goes to other projects. As a 501c3, they are banned from making political contributions. They should change from 501c3 and break off their political arm into another appropriately categorized IRS recognized model.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opensecrets.org&#x2F;orgs&#x2F;wikimedia-foundation&#x2F;recipients?id=D000085196" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.opensecrets.org&#x2F;orgs&#x2F;wikimedia-foundation&#x2F;recipi...</a>

Remember as you read more and more news like this that many of the owners of Y Combinator supported this.

Ed Martin seems like a SME when he himself has been influenced by foreign agencies and spoke their case.

Curtis Yarvin has a riff that goes something like this: Liberal Wikipedia, Communist Wikipedia, and Fascist Wikipedia will all actually agree on the vast majority of topics: Physics, botany, the solar system, chemistry, math, statistics etc.<p>However they&#x27;ll be worlds apart on history, economics, anthropology, sexuality, politics, previous leaders and so on.<p>Our Wikipedia is the world seen through the eyes of the New York Times + Harvard. Our Wikipedia is probably correct about Physics, botany...

Similar to TikTok, ADL were effectively banned from Wikipedia.<p>This coincidences nicely with all of this.

Well, why go after everything?

&quot;Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the online encyclopedia of “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.” April 25, 2025 at 6:54 p.m. EDT&quot;<p>How about these wankers turn their attention to their own administration ...<p>Oh, pardon me ... what a ludicrous thing to suggest.

Wikipedia is a shining example of what the internet could have been. Before the internet was &quot;Enshittified&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Enshittification" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Enshittification</a><p>I am going to increase my monthly contribution.

He&#x27;s just mad that there are references to Trump&#x27;s facism on there. I hope Americans aren&#x27;t stupid enough to think that nonprofits can only exist if they support MAGA propaganda and fascism. One such article that he has no doubt skimmed and turned red in the face at<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Donald_Trump_and_fascism" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Donald_Trump_and_fascism</a>

How do I start worshipping Wikipedia so it can become a church?

Remember when people pretended it was the scandal of all scandals that the IRS was reviewing PACs who were forbidden from doing political activity for political activity? And now many of those same people are cheering this, and the act blue ‘investigation’, and the threats against Harvard’s tax exempt status for nakedly corrupt reasons? Man I wish shame still had some stopping power.

The scale of deep body trauma that has been done to the US will not seem clear today, but it will have dire consequences for the future trajectory of US. I am sad for this, for the current status quo I was born under, but I suppose History must happen.

A &quot;NOBUS&quot; weapon. Any system (country&#x2F;gov&#x2F;para-...) needs the right &#x27;tools&#x27; for people-manipulation and people-programming. And such weapons should not be allowed to be used against &#x27;us&#x27;. Kinda like devices that must accept (and malfunction) but not cause interference.<p>So, for a &quot;let people speak their mind - don&#x27;t control information&quot; the Trump side quickly goes to universities must teach only what &#x27;WE&#x27; want, Wikipedia must mention only what &#x27;WE&#x27; like. Hilarious if not pathetic and dangerous (very-very 1984-ish...)<p>Side-note: it has since amused me but apparently it&#x27;s not often told&#x2F;at all.. the absolute propaganda tool for Russia&#x2F;Soviet was &quot;Pravda&quot; (the &quot;Truth&quot;). Imagine my amusement when Trump created &quot;Truth Social&quot;. You can&#x27;t make that shit up....<p>Now, as I&#x27;ve said before, I live in the EU and don&#x27;t vote in the US, so you folks decide, and then we all get to &#x27;share&#x27; the experience (since I do have some&#x2F;plenty of SP500 and similar instruments).

Unrelated to the issue here, I remain disappointed with the Wikipedia redesign. I find it too like a mobile-first-page, and I&#x27;m put off whenever I go to the site in a browser where I&#x27;m not logged in.

Fascists hate knowledge, as is made apparent by Trump, Musk and co&#x27;s repeated claims that Wikipedia is &quot;radical-left woke DEI propaganda&quot;. I can only hope Wikimedia considers moving the bulk of their servers and organization to outside of the US before it is stolen by the evil bunch.

A worrying thing about this, along with a few other examples such as the case of Harvard, is how branches of the federal government are using tax regulations, legal structure status and grant rules as mechanisms for openly threatening certain types of tendencies and practices in what are basically independent organizations. I don&#x27;t know how novel it is for the feds to do this, but it&#x27;s a chilling technique that sets dangerous regulatory precedents on speech control in a legal system that &quot;supposedly&quot; protects free speech.<p>I could argue that it&#x27;s ironic coming from the supposedly free speech-obsessed Trump government, but given how bloviatingly, mendaciously hypocritical that particular swine is, there&#x27;s nothing surprising here at all.<p>Also, nice to see the WaPo actually covering this, considering Jeff Bezos more recent and not so subtle sucking up to Trump.<p>Edit: and Yes, this tendency I mention above is much more worrying than any idiotic authoritarian canard about &quot;spreading misinformation and propaganda&quot;.

Is this the start of the shakedown by Trump to start allowing misinformation?

the status of Washington Post is clear :&#x2F;<p>...now where&#x27;s my ladder..<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;12ft.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;12ft.io&#x2F;</a>

“allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.”<p>How dare they? Don&#x27;t they know that&#x27;s our job Mr Putin?

The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don&#x27;t think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example:<p>There&#x27;s certain individual or group that edited under the name &quot;Icewhiz&quot;, was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia&#x27;s coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named &quot;Eostrix&quot;, that spent years making clean uncontroversial edits until one day going for adminship.<p>Eostrix got 99% approval in their request for adminship. But it didn&#x27;t matter, because an anonymous individual also spent years pursuing Eostrix, assembling evidence, and this resulted in Eostrix&#x27;s block just days before they became a Wikipedia administrator.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations&#x2F;Icewhiz&#x2F;Archive" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee&#x2F;Noticeboard&#x2F;Archive_48#Eostrix_Blocked" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...</a><p>It&#x27;s a useful contrast to a place like Reddit, where volunteer moderators openly admit to spreading terrorist propaganda or operating fake accounts when their original one gets banned. You don&#x27;t get to do that on Wikipedia. If you try, someone with far too much time on their hands <i>will</i> catch you because Wikipedia doesn&#x27;t need to care about Daily Active Users and the community cares about protecting a neutral point of view.<p>Not denying the existence of influence campaigns. There have been several major pro-Palestinian ones recently, which is probably why this letter has been sent. But the only reason you know about them is because Wikipedia openly fights them instead of covering them up. Most social media websites don&#x27;t care and would rather you don&#x27;t bring it to their attention. That is why Reddit banned &#x2F;r&#x2F;bannedforbeingjewish.

Serious question, after the past few months, how can anyone deny that America is heading in a totalitarian direction? Those of you who believe that all of the many actions that have happened in the past few weeks are &quot;okay&quot;, please explain your perspective without resorting to &quot;whataboutism&quot; or cherry picking only one or two of the things that have occurred lately. Because from what I&#x27;m sitting, this is not behavior of a government based on democratic ideals.

Well seems the war on truth has started. There is a 1984 quote about history that escapes me now.

It sounds weird. Why does it look like a conspiracy theory?<p>Yo dawg, I heard you like to appeal to conspiracy theory types...<p>Why would someone introduce lots of seemingly indiscernible edits into important articles, fully knowing that the edit history is available to anyone who wants to look?<p>It would make more sense to spread propaganda in a place that doesn&#x27;t fully track it.<p>Unless the exposition of such tracking edits as an obvious smoking gun exists to be staged to look like someone else did it.<p>Of course, it could all be to trigger a recursive conspiracytheorypocallipse that further erodes any belief in community generated content.<p>What should we do, Master Anakin? There&#x27;s too many of them conspiracies.

Wikipedia&#x2F;Wikimedia could move to a country that allows this type of manipulation on their platform or figure out how to comply with the existing US law.<p>Wikipedia could also stop operating as a 501c3 and incorporate.<p>But the typical out for these organizations are that they are not responsible for what people post. I don’t feel like that is very responsible. They already have moderation on the platform.<p>But Wikimedia&#x2F;pedia can’t claim 501c3 status. It could spin off the political content&#x2F;controversial into 501c4 which has more leeway. It can tighten editorial controls, emphasize first amendment, look at Section 230. Publish reports showing how misinformation is identified and corrected, partner with fact checking organizations.<p>But also if they cannot police their own content without an unpaid army of volunteers then herein lies the bigger issue with their model.

Nearly everyone has a viewpoint and taking the time to contribute is a strong clue the viewpoint is deeply-felt. Some people primarily adopt the Wikipedia rules as their viewpoint, but in hotly debated social issues like (oh, pick one out of a hat) the Covid-19 crisis and origin investigation-- Wikipedia is drowned in other viewpoints, and, because administrators mosly are alike, substantive groupthink.<p>I&#x27;m impressed by Wikipedia&#x27;s efforts to root out &quot;abuse&quot; but in the end it&#x27;s all a contest over truth, and Wikipedia fails in precisely the dynamic, high-interest, high-consequence topics that users seek out on the site.