this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
523 points (98.5% liked)

politics

26051 readers
2799 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to the nonprofit operator of Wikipedia alleging a pattern of liberal bias in articles on the collaborative encyclopedia.

"I write to request information about ideological bias on the Wikipedia platform and at the Wikimedia Foundation," Cruz wrote to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander in a letter dated October 3. "Wikipedia began with a noble concept: crowdsource human knowledge using verifiable sources and make it free to the public. That's what makes reports of Wikipedia's systemic bias especially troubling."

Citing research from the conservative Manhattan Institute, Cruz wrote that "researchers have found that articles on the site often reflect a left-wing bias." Cruz alleged that "bias is particularly evident in Wikipedia's reliable sources/perennial sources list" because it describes "MSNBC and CNN as 'generally reliable' sources, while listing Fox News as a 'generally unreliable' source for politics and science. The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center gets a top rating, but the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, is a 'blacklisted' and 'deprecated' source that Wikipedia's editors have determined 'promotes disinformation.'"

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 0ndead@infosec.pub 195 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ted Cruz thinks we should stop attacking pedophiles

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago

Anything he does from now on is an attempt to distract us from that uncharacteristically candid statement

[–] Godort@lemmy.ca 154 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Cruz alleged that "bias is particularly evident in Wikipedia's reliable sources/perennial sources list" because it describes "MSNBC and CNN as 'generally reliable' sources, while listing Fox News as a 'generally unreliable' source for politics and science. The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center gets a top rating, but the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, is a 'blacklisted' and 'deprecated' source that Wikipedia's editors have determined 'promotes disinformation.'"

It's kind of funny how when your goal becomes to present factual information, there aren't many especially right-leaning sources. I wonder why that might be.

Can you think of why that might be the case, Ted?

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm not sure ol' Rafael is capable of thought.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He is very capable of thought. He's an intelligent and well educated man who puts on a persona to further his own agenda. He is lacking empathy and morals, not thought.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

He’s an intelligent and well educated man...

I have yet to see any evidence of that. Everything I've heard from him has always been utterly moronic.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He probably took on the mantra of the SubGenius, but for dark purposes: "Act like a dumbshit, and they'll treat you like an equal".

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Also, these ding-a-lings keep confusing rather mid corporate news outlets as "liberal". Also, it's awfully interesting how butthurt the right is about SPLC, I have to say. They've been howling about that one for years. Gosh, I wonder what it is about SPLC that makes them so angry?

Reminds me of how they used to howl about ACORN until they had that little weasel O'Keefe make up a bunch of bullshit about it. Of course, a lot of these little shits have been whining about Wikipedia ever since its inception, since people constantly use it as a way to refute their LIES.

[–] loutr@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago

Also, these ding-a-lings keep confusing rather mid corporate news outlets as "liberal".

This is how you move the Overton window.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 74 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Left wing bias = says objectively true things about me I don’t like.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

This is literally where we are right now.

My MAGA parents told me that they consume news "from both sides". When pressed to name a single source that they consider on the left, they could not. They didn't even try to say "CNN" or some shit, they simply could not come up with a single source.

So thankfully, they recognized their irrationality, and are no longer MAGA.

Lol jk 🥲

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] emmanuel_car@fedia.io 69 points 1 week ago (1 children)

while listing Fox News as a 'generally unreliable' source for politics and science.

You mean that Fox News that argued it’s an entertainment show that no reasonable person would take seriously?

[–] ultranaut@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is this the same Fox News that had to pay out a $800,000,000 settlement for lying about the 2020 election?

[–] maccentric@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Did they ever pay that? Where’d the money end up?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 58 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The point of him making this dumb comparison is to quietly sell the idea to The Stupids that Heritage, Fox and other propaganda places deserve equal consideration as reality.

[–] whiwake@lemmy.cafe 26 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They need to make their own site. Magapedia? Wokepedia? Pedopedia?

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 38 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] whiwake@lemmy.cafe 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh, wow. That’s pretty wild.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (4 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia

It gets really wild when you see what motivated its creation. These people are unbelievably stupid snowflakes.

Schlafly also claimed that Wikipedia's allowance of both Common Era and Anno Domini notation was anti-Christian bias.

OMG! Using CE for dates!?

/clutches pearls

Also, apparently they don't teach very goodly at the Eagle Forum University. This guy seemingly has not even had a 101-level course in ethics...

However, some users may object to certain entries, such as that for 'Atheism': "Since atheists have no God, as a philosophical framework atheism simply provides no logical basis for any moral standard.

"They live their lives according to the rule that 'anything goes'. In recent years, this has led to a large rise in crime, drug use, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, pedophilia and bestiality."

This is the kind of argumentation you'll hear from complete dumbasses in junior high: "You guyz don't even believe in my god, so coming from a framework that bears no relevancy outside of accepting that framework on faith, I declare that you have no morals!"

Er, okay then.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 week ago

It’s been said before but if all that is keeping you from raping and pillaging is fear of an invisible sky daddy then that says far more about you than anybody else.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

It's worse than that, it's always such a self-report: "the only thing stopping me from doing evil is fear of punishment, so everybody else must be inherently terrible shitheads too!"

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If reality is left of you, maybe your position is far too right?

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

No it's obviously reality that's to blame!

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 45 points 1 week ago

Reality has a left wing bias

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 41 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Cruz alleged that “bias is particularly evident in Wikipedia’s reliable sources/perennial sources list” because it describes “MSNBC and CNN as ‘generally reliable’ sources, while listing Fox News as a ‘generally unreliable’ source for politics and science.

Fox News, the one that successfully argued in court they they were for entertainment purposes only and not actual news? That Fox News?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 39 points 1 week ago

"Wahhhh! They don't let us lie to you and treat us as reliable sources!"

I can't stand these scum...

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 week ago

Reality has a liberal bias

[–] mcv@lemmy.zip 36 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I recently looked into this on another forum where someone shared some articles supposedly proving bias. One article was itself highly biased to the right, so not particularly credible.

The other article, from an organization that ranked the bias of news sources, was very neutral and objective, took accusations of bias seriously, went into detail, and removed the "unbiased" classification from Wikipedia, but didn't conclude any provable bias, leaving it unranked. The best example of bias they had was the fact that articles on socialism and communism didn't list Soviet atrocities, but those atrocities have their own pages and are also mentioned on pages of the countries involved, so that was not a great example.

All these accusations are just the result of a massive right-wing campaign against facts and reality-based reporting. Everything that doesn't follow their propaganda is biased, according to them.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You mean Rafael Cruz, who uses the chosen first name of Ted?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] freeman@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Do not treat this as just a tantrum. It's the right's playbook of moving the overton window to the right by taking extreme positions and invoking the golden mean fallacy. It certainly has worked on MSM.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] voxthefox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 1 week ago

Not false. Reality is proven to have a left-wing bias.

[–] RustyRing@universeodon.com 31 points 1 week ago

@MicroWave

"Reality has a known liberal bias."

Stephen Colbert

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Attacking Wikipedia can not be normalized, we must protect it.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (5 children)

How long has Wikipedia been around? Looks like since 2001. I think their stupid attacks go back that far. I'm sure they'd love to use the battering ram of a compliant moron like Taco + the force of government to shut them down, though.

Just like they are attacking universities, law firms, science, the media, comedy....

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why are we still taking these right wing fascist morons seriously?

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Because they have a fuckload of power right now? Now, it’s really nore that we should take the problem seriously and the people should be dragged through the streets, so if that’s what you’re getting at then hell yea.

[–] PixeIOrange@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] decapitae@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago

Apparently things like truth and reality are left wing now. Good luck with that, psychotic ultra right wingers.

Repeat after me, Die Mad About It. The sooner the better.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ted Cruz picks a fight with mirror, accusing it of falsely making him look like Grandpa Munster grew a beard.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago

The truth has a left wing bias.

[–] sudo_shinespark@lemmy.world 19 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Is there a way to just download a straight copy of Wikipedia?

Def not asking because I expect every possible thing to go awry and we end up with Big Brother’s version of wiki

[–] karashta@piefed.social 20 points 1 week ago (5 children)

https://kiwix.org/en/applications/

Kiwix is an offline browser for wikis.

There's a library they have as well. I have a snapshot of Wikipedia from 2024 before the fascists took over. Also grabbed a couple others.

I think it was like 120GB for all of Wikipedia with pictures.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

These people are such little babies. The whole reason Conservapedia exists is because they had a meltdown over using CE and BCE for dates. You know, as is the standard. But little whiny conservatives need to have their little book club centered at all times.

[–] saimen@feddit.org 16 points 1 week ago

Sounds like the modern equivalent of burning books to me.

[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 week ago

Any publisher of truth exhibits strong anti-fascist bias. That's because fascism is inherently anti-truth

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 week ago

I love it when this comes up in internet arguments. The mob often agrees with an individual's statement that Wikipedia is bad, and then when asked for an example it's always 100% something absolutely insane. The logical conclusion is that we're all wrong in different ways, but some people simply refuse to accept it and argue with the encyclopedia.

[–] balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Now seems like a good time to do a backup.

For local use: https://www.howtogeek.com/260023/how-to-download-wikipedia-for-offline-at-your-fingertips-reading/

If you have a server: https://blog.stefan-koch.name/2024/11/14/self-hosting-wikipedia

(Kiwix-serve is what you're looking for)

Unfortunately I can't vouch for either of these instructions as I followed instructions from a now defunct privacy podcast.

[–] AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 week ago

Reality does not have a right-wing bias. Reality does not have a left-wing bias. But when the right has festered into such an anti-scientific culture as to be at war with truth and reality itself to the point at putting us all at an accelerated risk of a new dark age - then reality is maybe just a little more biased in favor of literally everyone else.

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

“Systemic issues are real when they affect the conservative agenda, and DEI is good when it requires including conservative propaganda.” Got it.

load more comments
view more: next ›