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| U.S. Attorney Edward Martin's letter to the WMF |
UPDATE April 28: The Foundation speaks! See the bottom of this post.
On April 23 this blog examined the latest of a slew of antisemitic blood libels in Wikipedia, this one the article titled "Rafah paramedic massacre," which Wikipedia (in its own voice) termed part of the "Gaza genocide."
In keeping with our view that Wikipedia is hopeless and immune to internal reform, we ended as follows:
Since Wikipedia clearly does not serve the public interest, one area that should be explored is removal of the Wikimedia Foundation's tax-exempt status.
The Trump Administration is expected to act against Harvard's tax exemption. Whether that's valid or not is for others to decide. But look at this article, this rubbish, this Hamas propaganda and ask yourself: Why does the U.S. taxpayer support a website that produce this drivel in not one but thousands of articles?
As we all know, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Edward R. Martin, began the process of doing just that a day later, sending a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation demanding answers to a bunch of questions, with a clear threat to remove the WMF's tax-exempt status.
The WMF has until May 15 to answer Mr. Martin but no problem. We will save everyone the trouble by answering this letter on the WMF's behalf. In our answers we will be stating what the WMF would say if it would honestly answer the questions, free of doubletalk and self-serving gobbledygook.
As you can plainly see from what follows, the Foundation has a problem on its hands.
1. What mechanisms does the Wikimedia Foundation have in place to fulfill its legal and ethical responsibilities to safeguard the public from the dissemination of propaganda, particularly in light of its designation as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and in light of the Foundation’s longstanding hands-off policy regarding Trust & Safety (including content moderation and editor misconduct)?
Answer: There are no mechanisms. The WMF, as you point out, has a "hands-off policy" regarding everything that appears on Wikipedia. Our position is "if you don't like the way we run things, go ahead and pound sand."
2. Regarding Trust & Safety, what does the Foundation provide in terms of employees and contractors, budget, day to day oversight, and enforcement mechanisms, for the purposes of content moderation and actioning of editor misconduct? Here, editor misconduct includes but is not limited to content manipulation, bullying, and off-platform canvassing (for edits or committee elections).
Answer: We have no role in content moderation and editor misconduct. That is up to the anonymous editors of the website we finance. Since we have no role, we have no enforcement mechanisms. We just stand by passively while we raise money and pay ourselves immense salaries.
Have you looked at our IRS Form 990, Mr. Martin? Our CEO, Maryana Iskander, pays herself $512,179 plus $22,289 in other compensation. Our General Counsel, who will blow you off in our official response, consists of two people. One is Amanda Keton. Her pay is $376,362 and $35,320 respectively. She served through Feb. 23. The other is Stephen Laporte. His pay is $230,141 and $19,371, respectively. That's a lot of legal firepower designed specifically to keep people like you from butting into our operations, and telling people suing us to get lost.
3. How does the Foundation ensure transparency and accountability regarding the extent to which its editorial practices and platform governance are influenced by ongoing relationships with donors, sponsors, funders, or other external stakeholders?
Answer: I hate to be monotonous, Mr. Martin, but since we have a "hands off" policy concerning content we do absolutely nothing to ensure transparency and accountability yadda yadda. Next question!
4. What steps has the Foundation taken to exclude foreign influence operations from making targeted edits to categories of content in order to reshape or rewrite history? Who enforces these measures, and how? What foreign influence operations have been detected, and what did the Foundation do to reverse their influence and prevent it from continuing?
Answer: Nothing, nobody and nothing. Those are the answers to these three sub-questions. We don't know what foreign influence operations skew our content and we don't want to know. We may suspect, as we are highly paid and not stupid, but it's none of our business. Those anonymous editors we finance have things well in hand, or not well in hand.
If we ever say differently, don't believe us, since we have that hands-off policy we discussed earlier and if we were concerned, we wouldn't be hands-off would we?
5. What policy does the Foundation have in place to ensure that content submissions, editorial decisions, and article revisions reflect a broad spectrum of viewpoints, including those that may be in tension with the views of major financial or institutional backers?
Answer: Absolutely nothing, as explained above. Why are you treating us like an ordinary organization? We are specifically designed not to be accountable, Mr. Martin.
6. What is the Foundation’s official process for addressing credible allegations that editors or contributors have materially misled readers, engaged in bad-faith edits, or otherwise manipulated content in ways that undermine Wikipedia’s commitment to neutrality? Similarly, what is the Foundation’s official process for auditing or evaluating the actions, activities, and voting patterns of editors, admins, and committees, including the Arbitration Committee, in order to ensure the Foundation’s policies and the policies of its projects are enforced? Detail all instances in which these processes have been utilized in the last six years.
Answer: Our official process for addressing credible allegations of bad-faith edits and manipulated content is simple. Glad you asked. We write letters denying responsibility. We are organized not to be responsible. We do not know and do not care what the "Arbitration Committee" and so forth do or don't do. We can't give them orders. They don't report to us. They report to the "community."
Do you know what the "Wikipedia community" is? It does not exist. There is no "community." There are only bunches of anonymous editors who organize to influence content, and often congregate offsite to do so.
Attached are copies of all the letters and statements we've made over the past six years telling people who bring complaints to us to drop dead, so you can see how our "processes" work.
7. Does the Foundation maintain a public, formally adopted policy explicitly prohibiting hateful content and conduct by editors? If so, what enforcement mechanisms are in place to ensure compliance and accountability, and which namespaces and content on the platform do these mechanisms apply to? Further, how does the Foundation ensure that sources used in writing content on Wikipedia and elsewhere do not violate its policies, including but not limited to those against discrimination?
Answer: Surely you must be joking. We have no such policies. If we do, if at some point we adopted some vaguely worded statement on the subject, it would mean nothing as we cannot enforce it. Since we have no policy on hateful content, we obviously can't ensure that people don't discriminate yadda yadda.
Come on. Ask me a tough question!
8. Given growing public concerns regarding the large-scale manipulation of particular categories of content by ideologically motivated editors, what safeguards exist to detect and prevent undue influence by individuals or coordinated networks who use editorial or administrative authority to systematically distort content? Provide details regarding actions taken by the Foundation using these safeguards over the last six years. Additionally, detail any changes over time to these safeguards.
Answer: You call that a tough question? As I explained, we don't stick our nose into content. Those anonymous, axe-grinding "members of the community" are our "safeguard" against everything naughty that might take place. I had a straight face while I wrote those words, but it's true.
9. In view of public criticisms, including those expressed by Wikipedia Co-Founder Dr. Lawrence M. Sanger, regarding the opacity of editorial processes and the anonymity of contributors, what justification does the Foundation offer for shielding editors from public scrutiny? How does it reconcile this policy with broader editorial standards, which typically require attribution, accountability, and subject-matter transparency as safeguards in the public interest What measures does the Foundation take to assess the integrity and competence of senior editors and administrators?
Answer: We don't care about public criticisms and we don't care what Sanger says. We don't like Sanger and the public can go f--- itself. Now I know you don't like hearing that but that's our attitude here at the WMF, and the same goes for that "community" of nice anonymous people who contribute to the "project," thereby enabling us to pay ourselves those great salaries I mentioned earlier.
We have no justification for shielding editors from scrutiny. The subject never comes up, since "accountability" is a foreign concept and we don't abide by it. As for the "integrity and competence" of senior editors and administrators: we don't care about that any more than we do about the content appearing in Wikipedia. We just keep the website alive and pay ourselves nice salaries, as previously noted.
10. Given the anonymity protections presently afforded to all Wikipedia editors—even in cases where individuals have been banned for engaging in prohibited conduct—what internal safeguards or enforcement mechanisms exist to prevent such users from creating new accounts and resuming the same impermissible practices? In particular, how does the Foundation address concerns regarding the apparent lack of a robust and transparent process to detect, deter, and permanently exclude repeat offenders from the editorial ecosystem?
Answer: We have something called "Checkuser" that provides a very rough technical safeguard against banned editors creating new accounts. But since organized bands of Wikipedia editors, pushing a pro-Hamas, antisemitic agenda on Israel and Jews, have personnel available in unlimited supply, such "sockpuppeting" is unnecessary. I am sure that when we give you our official answer we will seize on this question and go on and on and on about how much resources we use to prevent socking. This was a softball of a question, really not a very good one, Mr. Martin.
11. What third-party entities, including but not limited to artificial intelligence, large language model companies, and search engines, has the Wikimedia Foundation contracted with to use, redistribute, or process Wikipedia content? Please produce all documents, memoranda of understanding, contracts, or related agreements reflecting such arrangements, including any amendments, appendices, or correspondence pertaining thereto.
Answer: Good question. I have no snotty response. The WMF is not going to like this question, assuming the premise behind your question is correct.
12. When editors or the Foundation delete content which was found to be harmful or illegal but has already been shared with third parties (including search engine and LLM companies), what steps does the Foundation follow in order to repair the downstream effects of that content on search results and data already used to train LLMs? What measures does the Foundation take to ensure that these companies, as well as the broader public, understand misinformation, bias, and other problems across its projects, including Wikipedia?
Answer: As mentioned before, the Foundation doesn't delete anything. When editors do, and that is exceedingly rare, they don't know or care what third parties have been doing to replicate the former content.
Thanks for the questions, Mr. Martin! Look forward to giving you our formal response but don't bother with it. These are the correct answers.
UPDATE April 28: In a statement emailed to an anti-Trump publication called "The Verge," Wikimedia Foundation "associate general counsel" Jacob Rogers said as follows;
“Wikipedia’s content is governed by three core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research, which exist to ensure information is presented as accurately, fairly, and neutrally as possible. The entire process of content moderation is overseen by nearly 260,000 volunteers and is open and transparent for all to see, which is why we welcome opportunities to explain how Wikipedia works and will do so in the appropriate forum.”
So in other words, the Foundation is responding as predicted in this post. It can't be honest, so it recites the party line.
Hopefully Wikipedia's CEO will be summoned to Congress to testify under oath. Subpoena the bastards. Force them to tell the truth, and toss them in prison if and when they lie.
