> In view of public criticisms, including those expressed by Wikipedia Co-Founder Dr. Lawrence M. Sanger, regarding the opacity of editorial processes and the anonymity of contributors, what justification does the Foundation offer for shielding editors from public scrutiny?
The Heritage Foundation has been open about their desire to strip Wikipedians of anonymity, this is just the government putting that plan into practice:
Kind of explains a lot in the balancing act in Trumps rise to power while trying to look like a marionette for various interests this term. They should remember Hitler's rebellion from his masters.
Getting really bad vibes from this. Plenty of people in power are unhappy with Wikipedia for years. So far it’s an amazing source and surprisingly neutral given the complexity of the problem. Would not want to lose it in a political fight.
This is legal communication written by a lawyer and intended to be read by lawyers.
Consistently, the first thing every lawyer has said to me when preparing for any interaction with third parties that had a legal aspect was "never volunteer information you were not explicitly asked for". Of course lawyers would practice this among themselves. The law requires him to suspect something wrong to investigate, so he states "I hereby formally suspect something wrong". If the investigation leads to a court filing, the law would then require him to submit evidence, so he will strategically decide which evidence to submit and submit it. Why would he commit in advance to what evidence he believes relevant if not required by law?
But also, if reading the letter as if written in good faith - which I find hard to do - those are all true reasons to suspect something wrong (it is common knowledge and well established that Wikipedia is a very influential source of knowledge, and that there are attempts at foreign influence), and great questions to ask to investigate whether the Foundation is making a reasonable effort to fight it if you were a regulator or auditor or other investigator, all of which have great answers already written up that prove the foundation is doing a very good job at establishing and maintaining processes to ensure the neutrality of its articles. In my headcanon, Wikipedia's lawyer responds simply with a list of URLs.
What is happening is very scary. Many people don't seem to care about any evidence or sources. They blindly follow whatever lies that their leaders say. I think this has been the case at anytime in history. However, now, with the internet, it is easy to spread such lies to mass and easy for such leaders to make blind followers.
Clearly people care very deeply about sources and evidence -and they're attacking things (wikipedia, various gov websites) which can be used as objective sources.
If you don't have objective sources, it's easier to lead people around by the nose -hence the attack.
No claims, no evidence. No sources, except "it has come to my attention" and "information received by my office".