Trump DOJ takes aim at Wikipedia's tax-exempt status over alleged violations, 'propaganda'

The Trump administration is working to ensure that institutions granted federal funding and tax-exempt status are compliant with federal law and policy.

Shortly after putting woke medical journals that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health on blast over their alleged bias, Edward Martin Jr., the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced an investigation into Wikipedia.

Martin noted in an April 24 letter obtained by the Free Press that "Wikipedia, which operates via its fiscal sponsor, the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., is 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 statute cited by Martin holds that tax-exempt organizations must be:

organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals.

The IRS law notes further that tax-exempt organizations are not to "carry on" propaganda, attempt to influence legislation, or "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

Martin suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation, through Wikipedia, "is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public," and is "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 of the United States."

'Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform.'

Blaze News previously reported that editors at Wikipedia, whose parent company spent nearly 30% of its 2023-2024 budget on DEI programs,

• tried to hide Vice President JD Vance's military accomplishments in the lead-up to the 2024 election;
• strategically eliminated any mention of Kamala Harris' appointment as border czar on the site's list of executive branch czars;
• advocated deleting the entry detailing the mass killings executed by communist regimes, citing an anti-communist bias;
• blacklisted right-leaning sources such as Blaze News, the Washington Free Beacon, the Federalist, RedState, the Media Research Center, and the Alexander Hamilton-founded New York Post and effectively prohibits their citation in articles, all but guaranteeing a site-wide leftist bias;
• smears right-wing figures;
• labeled Elon Musk's temporary suspension of journalists who allegedly violated his platform's terms of service as the "Thursday Night Massacre"; and
• deceived readers about the history, existence, and nature of cultural Marxism, characterizing the well-defined and well-chronicled offshoot of Marxism as a "conspiracy theory."

A 2024 study published in Online Information Review found that Wikipedia suffers a "significant liberal bias in the choice of news media sources."

Wikipedia — which still claimed at the time of publication that COVID-19 lab leak "explanations are not supported by science" — has not only been criticized for being a repository of leftist propaganda but for its alleged "widespread antisemitic and anti-Israel" content.

While previously silent on the suppression of conservative voices, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League — whose censorious outfit Wikipedia categorized as an "unreliable source" last year — stated last month that "most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics."

The ADL alleged that a group of at least 30 editors "acted in concert to circumvent Wikipedia's policies to introduce antisemitic narratives, anti-Israel bias, and misleading information."

Martin, who has reportedly been aiding the Justice Department's Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, noted in his letter, "Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia's 'educational' mission."

The D.C. attorney also took issue with Wikipedia's apparent direction from a board "composed primarily of foreign nationals, subverting the interests of American taxpayers."

Martin indicated that his office has received information that "demonstrates that Wikipedia's informational management policies benefit foreign powers."

'The public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability.'

Martin expressed additional concern about the amplification of the leftist and foreign propaganda on Wikipedia, noting that search engines such as Google have prioritized Wikipedia results, and AI platforms train their large-language models on Wikipedia data.

The Department of Justice has requested that the Wikimedia Foundation provide information by May 15 concerning its policy and operations, including what:

• safeguards it has in place to both protect the public "from the dissemination of propaganda," and to fulfill its legal and ethical obligations as a tax-exempt organization;
• actions the foundation takes when confronted with editor misconduct and/or coordinated efforts to "use editorial or administrative authority to systematically distort content";
• the foundation does to ensure editorial transparency and accountability;
• steps the foundation has taken to counter foreign influence operations;
• efforts are taken to ensure a broad spectrum of viewpoints are represented, even if at odds with institutional backers; and
• third-party entities the foundation has contracted with to use, redistribute, or process Wikipedia content.

"As a nonprofit corporation, which is incorporated in the District of Columbia, the Wikimedia Foundation is subject to specific legal obligations and fiduciary duties consistent with its tax-exempt status," wrote Martin. "The public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability in its operations and publications."

Although it did not acknowledge Martin's latter, the Wikimedia Foundation claimed in a statement obtained by the Washington Post that Wikipedia's content was governed by policies that ensure information is presented as "accurately, fairly and neutrally as possible."

"Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles written to inform, not persuade," said the statement. "Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."

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