It’s a new day in America.
With President Donald Trump moving swiftly on a whole host of pro-American priorities, including two important executive orders concerning tech — one banning federal bureaucrats from carrying out acts that infringe on Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech rights, and the other reversing former President Joe Biden’s efforts to make AI secretive, woke and censorship-prone — one would think Big Tech companies would take the hint. As outlined in numerous reports in recent weeks, some Big Tech companies have — perhaps most notably, Meta.
But other players in the Big Tech field have not yet changed their ways, which is why it's more important now as ever to apply pressure and effect positive change.
MRC Free Speech America’s most recent exposé, first published as an Op-Ed with The Daily Wire, revealed an absurd level of left-wing bias emanating from one of the most used and promoted sources on the internet: Wikipedia.
From the report:
“The once reliable online encyclopedia ran off the rails under the leadership of its previous CEO Katherine Maher, who made sure that not a single right-leaning outlet was deemed ‘reliable’—a stark contrast to the 84 percent of leftist media Wikipedia deems reliable.
“A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America found that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia behemoth, has effectively blacklisted all right-leaning media from being used as source material, exclusively relying on leftist, legacy media notoriously known to spread misinformation and attack opponents of the left.
“Among the effectively blackballed media sources are Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN and the Media Research Center. Meanwhile, leftist media like The Atlantic, Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, The Guardian and National Public Radio (NPR) are given the green light. This blatant misinformation means that Wikipedia is purposely feeding Americans information exclusively through the lens of one side of the political spectrum—the left.
“Positioning themselves as arbiters of truth, Wikipedia and its editors have effectively institutionalized a blacklisting system utilizing a ‘Reliable sources/Perennial sources’ page that forbids the use of some of the most popular media sources on the right when editing Wikipedia pages. Their claims? Right-leaning sources are not “reliable,” and in some cases literally ‘blacklisted’ — Wikipedia’s actual word — from use on the platform altogether. The predictable effect? Conservatives, Republicans and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people. …
“As detailed below, any outlet that is not part of the “generally reliable” category is effectively blacklisted and deemed guilty by lack of association.”
It’s bad enough when Big Tech companies openly clamp down on content with interstitials, flags, context warning labels and even outright bans under the guise of protective “content moderation” policies, but the new nefarious game being played by platforms appears to be a rebrand of the old: only display one side of the story.
As MRC Free Speech America has already exposed, Google has been using this tactic for quite some time — almost exclusively elevating leftist media sources in searches on political candidates and even Trump nominees. The most recent examples of this can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Wikipedia has been, and still is, doing the same. Vice President of MRC Free Speech America put it this way: “There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke. Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions. It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.”
Schneider added, “The leadership as well as the rank and file editors are in constant overdrive to tear down their political opponents. From the policy issues Wikipedia highlights to the tone their editors use to castigate Trump and his appointees. Wikipedia is obviously designed to indoctrinate Americans into despising anything good and decent about mainstream conservatives.”
What can be done? In a write up about the MRC Free Speech America study, the New York Post Editorial Board gave a step Big Tech companies could take — especially Google, which routinely lists Wikipedia as a top result in its searches: “Whether they blacklist Wiki or simply flag its blatant bias, Big Tech firms need to prove their commitment to open discourse is more than just cosmetic.”
Beyond private sector action, Congress can again renew its efforts to reform Section 230, clarifying the tech company liability shield to those platforms (not publishers) — common carriers, really — that allow public discourse to flourish rather than slyly discriminating against one side of the political aisle.
The MRC will continue to provide the evidence both the private sector and lawmakers in Washington, D.C. need to make sure that happens. Let’s continue this fight together!
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
