U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has demanded answers from the Wikimedia Foundation for “left-wing bias” on the information platform Wikipedia.
In the letter to the foundation’s CEO, Cruz expressed concern that innumerable internet users are affected by the alleged political tilt, further mentioning the use of Wikipedia in AI language model training.
Cruz says the committee he chairs needs relevant documents by next week.
Ted Cruz says Wikipedia is biased
Cruz’s letter, on behalf of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, says Wikipedia’s promise of a neutral point of view (NPOV) is dead.
Cruz quotes Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who claims the site is “badly biased” and that the editors are against “conservatism, traditional religiosity, and minority perspectives on science and medicine.”
The senator goes on to give examples like the editing community’s consensus on information sources and specific instances of alleged censorship.
A main point of the letter alleges that an editing campaign has been pushing anti-Semitic content for over a decade, making more than 1.5 million edits to spread their message.
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Wikipedia answer deadline
Cruz organized nine requests for specific descriptions of content creation and editing, article mediation, and documentation of operations and communications dating as far back as January 2020.
The letter says Wikimedia must fulfill the requests by Oct. 17.
Ted Cruz criticizes FCC chair
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The letter came about two weeks after Cruz chastised FCC chair Brendan Carr for threatening ABC’s license during the Jimmy Kimmel situation.
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On his podcast The Verdict, Cruz said Carr’s comments about pulling ABC’s broadcasting license sounded more like an organized crime boss than a federal regulator.
Cruz went on to say that allowing the government to decide which speech it likes and doesn’t like and threatening to take media companies off the air was “unbelievably dangerous.”
Cruz warned that using the FCC and the government to determine what can be said sets a bad precedent that could allow Democrats to go after conservative hosts when they are in power.