An American prosecutor places Wikipedia below stress | EUROtoday

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DAté of April 24, 2025, the mail of the prosecutor Edward R. Martin, Attorney of the District of Columbia, runs on solely 4 pages, however he hits the place it hurts.

As a non -lucrative group topic to an advantageous tax regime, together with for its donors, the WikiMédia Foundation should adjust to sure obligations of neutrality, transparency and duty, writes the prosecutor within the preamble. However, he continues, the muse, by way of Wikipedia, which belongs to it in entire, “allows foreign actors to manipulate information and disseminate propaganda to the American public”, together with on topics referring to “national security and the interests of the United States”.

This is all of the extra worrying, continues Ed Martin, that Google offers precedence to Wikipedia in its analysis outcomes, “due to the links that the portal has established with tech platforms”. Without forgetting the truth that synthetic intelligences use Wikipedia knowledge to develop their responses, “used daily by Masses of Americans, including teachers”.

The indignant questions

Follow twelve questions that may be summed up as follows. What mechanisms has put in place the muse to fight the dissemination of propaganda? What does its moderation system in staffing, monetary means, each day operations characterize? Can it account for the potential affect of its donors on its editorial content material? Has she noticed international influences and did she struggle them? What has it carried out to make sure the illustration of a large spectrum of opinions?

How has she dealt previously six years “credible allegations” of editorial biases and manipulation of content material? What safeguards restrict the undesirable affect of people or collectives? How does the muse justify the anonymity of contributors? What did she do to make sure the integrity and competence of senior publishers and directors? Can it assure that banned contributors don’t return below pseudonym? With what third social gathering did she contract for using Wikipedia content material? How does it take care of the dissemination of illicit content material withdrawn from the encyclopedia, however which proceed to flow into?

Answers anticipated for May 15, which is extraordinarily quick. Edward R. Martin is aware of it. 55 years previous is a politician and an skilled lawyer. Faithful of Donald Trump, he’s among the many first personalities named by the latter in key positions, first interim. He was confirmed at his publish just lately, with a transparent roadmap, drop heads. Ed Martin was answerable for dismissing dozens of justice officers who labored on the assault in opposition to the Capitol launched in January 2021 by supporters of the defeated president.

An older debate than Trumpism

However, besides to wish to discredit it immediately, the process initiated by the prosecutor can hardly be summed up with a Trumpist offensive directed in opposition to free data. It is a part of a global debate on the duty of very giant on-line platforms (very giant on-line platform). The European Union has recognized nineteen, together with Wikipedia. Their actions have been supervised since 2022 by the European Regulation on Digital Services (Digital Services ACT, or DSA).

On the American facet, the important thing textual content is part 230 of the deed act on respectable communications. Adopted in 1996, this transient article poses a basic precept of editorial non-responsibility of platforms, which aren’t thought-about as publishers. Already in 2013, the overall prosecutors of 47 states requested the congress the lifting of the authorized immunity offered for by part 230. The controversy has by no means ceased since.

Without part 230, “Wikipedia cannot exist,” mentioned Jacob Rogers in 2023, answerable for authorized problems with the Wikimedia Foundation. According to him, any reform geared toward “centralizing content moderation” would kill the Wikipedia social portal. In an interview in August 2024, Jacob Rogers complained of the burden represented by the European DSA for a non -profit group such because the Foundation, whereas emitting doubts about its usefulness, on the grounds that “Wikipedia is written and verified by a global community of 265,000 volunteers contributing to more than 63 million articles”.

Authentic anti-regulation libertarians

A factual, simple remark, however which doesn’t reply the query requested: what does the Wikimedia Foundation do to make sure that a few of these 265,000 volunteers don’t do something? Many examples present that, removed from systematically stopping drifts, collective motion typically strengthens them.

“We see threats around the world, both litigation and regulation,” mentioned the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, Maryana Iskander, throughout a gathering on January 30, 2025. She introduced the identical day technical variations geared toward making the identification of contributors harder. Wikipedia stays a libertarian venture for which regulation represents a menace. The Foundation accesses as little as potential to the requests for justice, and it needs to make it recognized.

At the identical assembly of January 30, one other Wikimedia lawyer, Jacob Rogers, mentioned that twenty-four formal requests for contributors had been obtained within the first half of 2024, and that solely two had been glad.

Obstruction assumed to justice

“French justice cannot compel the Foundation to reveal the identity of its contributors,” mentioned a Frenchman on a Wikipedia discussion board on February 2, 2021. It is an American firm that has no server in France. It is essential to stay nameless and recorded by an account in case you by no means wish to be prosecuted. The message most likely sums up the frame of mind of many contributors, who think about authorized immunity as proof and anonymity with no consideration.

With regard to the DOJ (Department of Justice), this immunity doesn’t exist. As for anonymity … American legal guidelines, particularly the Cloud Act From 2018, give the legal professional entry to all knowledge from service suppliers (private communications, purchases, geolocation, and so forth.) working within the United States, together with if they’re saved on servers overseas! Moving the Foundation in Europe to take away it from the Trumpist regime, as members of the French -speaking neighborhood counsel, could be ineffective.

Muscular strategies

The prosecutor Ed Martin left a really quick delay to the muse to reply important questions, most likely to place it below stress. The lack of non -profit group standing, fiscally advantageous, could be a really exhausting blow for Wikipedia. We are removed from it. In the functioning of American justice, negotiated agreements are very frequent. But as many French firms have realized at their expense, the Doj is a violent negotiator. The sport is simply starting.


To uncover



The kangaroo of the day

Answer



Curiously, the prosecutor Ed Martin doesn’t quote any concrete instance of manipulation or interference in his mail. In this register, the file that has essentially the most agitated debates within the United States in current weeks is that of the Heritage Foundation.

In January 2025, the American press revealed that this highly effective conservative reflection circle launched an enormous operation in opposition to anti -Semitism on Wikipedia, by giving themselves the means to determine the contributors to the maneuver. All the main points haven’t been revealed, however it could be a query of utilizing pseudonym databases, making cross -analysis by textual evaluation and creating bonds or traps websites. Methods that some would name controversial, however which appear fully authorized. The operation is overseen by a former FBI to the distinguished profession.


https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/un-procureur-americain-met-wikipedia-sous-pression-28-04-2025-2588393_24.php