Trump-appointed lawyer threatens to revoke Wikipedia’s non-profit status, putting the online encyclopedia in jeopardy

The Wikipedia articles you use to do research and find basic info on your favorite games might include propaganda. At least, according to Ed Martin, acting attorney for the District of Columbia.

Last week, a letter from Martin sent to the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia, was obtained by The Free Press. The letter includes a flurry of accusations against Wikipedia, with Martin claiming that the Wikimedia Foundation is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.”

The letter effectively serves as a warning to the Wikimedia Foundation that Martin is taking aim at its Section 501(c)(3) status, meaning he’s threatening to attempt to revoke the Wikimedia Foundation’s status as a tax exempt non-profit charitable organization.

Martin’s letter is just the latest in a slew of similar attacks against individuals, organizations, and publications that voice opinions or viewpoints contrary to those of Martin and the Trump administration.

Martin recently penned similar letters threatening Democratic lawmakers, a scientific journal for chest doctors, and even seemingly anyone who criticizes the Department of Government Efficiency (which, to be clear, is not a legitimate department of the U.S. government, those can only be established or dissolved by Congress, not executive order).

As The Free Press points out, it’s unusual for an attorney to be launching an investigation into an organization’s tax exempt status since that falls under the domain of the IRS, which itself has threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard over its refusal to comply with federal demands for its curriculum and handling of pro-Palestinian protestors on campus.

Organizations have to meet strict criteria to get Section 501(c)(3) status, including a rule that an organization “may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.” The IRS’s requirements also limit how much political and lobbying activity a Section 501(c)(3) organization can participate in.

The Wikimedia Foundation is not a political organization. It describes itself as “a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge.”

The content of Wikipedia pages is verified and overseen by some 260,000 volunteers from around the world who edit content based on Wikipedia’s core content policies. While Wikipedia’s editors don’t always catch inaccurate information, multiple studies have shown that Wikipedia pages are more accurate than they’re often given credit for.

Of course, Wikipedia has been a battleground for political skirmishes over the years, with editors of differing ideologies dueling over the presentation of public figures and historical events, but the Wikimedia Foundation itself is not inherently political. If there was genuine concern about the Wikimedia Foundation violating Section 501(c)(3) requirements, that investigation should be handled by the IRS, not Ed Martin.

Threatening Wikipedia over the alleged actions of individual editors also echoes the debate over whether social media companies are legally liable for what people post on their platforms. 47 U.S. Code Section 230 has been credited as “The twenty-six words that created the internet” for protecting platform owners⁠—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram⁠—from liability for what is said on their websites:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” There’s an argument to be made that Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation have a similar defense when it comes to moderation of the online encyclopedia.

Regardless of your political viewpoint or how it intersects with your corner of the gaming community, situations like this should be seriously concerning. In our fractured and polarized media landscape it’s become increasingly difficult for everyone to agree on what the “truth” is, which is worrying in itself, but we should all be able to agree that access to information and the freedom to share it shouldn’t be dependent on one’s political views.