"Speaking to Ars Technica about a confused letter Cruz penned to the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization's attorney Jacob Rogers said the Senator has some homework to do. "The foundation is very much taking the approach that Wikipedia is actually pretty great and a lot of what's in this letter is actually misunderstandings," Rogers told Ars. He added that the Foundation is "more than happy" to explain how it works."
"Cruz's main concern with Wikipedia is "ideological bias," a longstanding right wing complaint with limited basis in reality. In his letter, he called on the Foundation to produce "documents sufficient to show what supervision, oversight, or influence, if any, the Wikimedia Foundation has over the editing community." He also accused the Foundation of imposing the will of wealthy donors onto its content. Without a hint of irony, Cruz shared his concern about the "influence of large donors on Wikipedia's content creation or editing practices.""
"Over the past few years, Cruz has used his extremely powerful position to platform all kinds of baffling political causes, including Sesame Street's vaccine literacy program, Sidney Sweeney's jeans, and of course the pressing threat of space piracy. Never one to pick an easy battle, Cruz's latest cause célèbre is a doozy. His target is none other than Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
Ted Cruz has targeted Wikipedia, alleging ideological bias and asserting wealthy donors may influence content. He asked the Wikimedia Foundation for documents showing any supervision, oversight, or influence the Foundation has over the editing community. The Wikimedia Foundation's attorney Jacob Rogers responded that many of Cruz's concerns appear to be misunderstandings and said the Foundation is willing to explain how Wikipedia works. Wikipedia's content is created and edited by volunteers who follow editorial guidelines rather than top-down directives. Cruz has previously focused on various unconventional political targets, and this inquiry reflects ongoing right-wing scrutiny of online platforms.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]