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Trump DOJ Threatens Wikipedia’s Nonprofit Status Over Alleged ‘Propaganda’
Between scrubbing government websites of information about everything from vaccine efficacy to LGBT health matters and the ongoing war with higher education, the Trump administration seems to have a problem with freely available information that doesn’t align with its particular ideology. That war on knowledge appears to have extended to Wikipedia. Earlier this week, a Trump appointed attorney sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation accusing it of allowing the spread of propaganda and threatening its nonprofit status. The letter—which was sent by Ed Martin, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, and first obtained by The Free Press—alleges that Wikipedia’s host organization may be “engaging in a series of activities that could violate its obligations under Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code”—the law that allows the organization to operate as a tax-exempt nonprofit. Martin accuses the Wikimedia Foundation of falling short of te requirements to maintain that status because, he claims, Wikipedia is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda,” and “permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.” He also claims that because the foundation’s board is made up of “primarily foreign nationals,” that it is “subverting the interests of American taxpayers.” In order to quell these supposed concerns that read more like a thinly veiled threat to fall in line with the administration’s preferred version of history, Martin requested documents and responses to a slew of questions, including details about the organization’s safeguards to prevent propaganda and processes in place to prevent foreign influence campaigns. The Wikimedia Foundation has until May 15 to respond to the inquiry. This type of attack made on Department of Justice letterhead has become Martin’s calling card, so Wikipedia is in good company for a very bad precedent. Martin also sent letters to CHEST Journal, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Obstetrics and Gynecology in recent weeks, accusing the peer-reviewed scientific journals of being “partisans in various scientific debates” and failing to include scientists with “competing viewpoints” in their publications. Martin is also the guy who threatened to take legal action against publications that reported on employees working for the Department of Government Efficiency and demanded that multiple lawmakers who spoke out against Elon Musk’s ongoing dismantling of the federal government clarify their statements that he alleged were threats against him. Given that Musk has made Wikipedia a target, calling it “Wokepedia” and claiming that it is “an extension of legacy media propaganda,” it’s no surprise that Martin turned his attention to the free, community-managed online encyclopedia. He’s serving as the government’s attack dog, and frankly he comes off as a petty little tyrant about the whole thing. He’s drawn the ire of free speech organizations who see through his pretty transparent efforts to scare people into subduing criticisms of the administration and silencing the spread of anything that may go against the party line. But credit where it’s due, he’s very good at sending letters.
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