Never content to rest on their hoarded wealth, institutional power, and oligarchic control over our government, a growing number of moneyed right-wingers and their influential allies are now targeting the acclaimed online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Take a recent trove of documents, obtained by the Forward, that reveal plans by right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation to use cyber espionage tactics to "identify and target Wikipedia editors abusing their position by analyzing text patterns, usernames, and technical data."

The influential organization behind Trump's infamous Project 2025 joins a host of groups like the Anti-Defamation League, Accuracy in Media, and the Canary Mission in the practice of "doxxing" individuals they label antisemitic. As Jewish Currents reports, that charge has been increasingly weaponized by right-wing groups in recent months to silence Jewish groups, peace activists, lawyers, and journalists who don't support their political or ideological goals. The Forward — an award-winning Jewish publication — is also suspicious the charge is being deployed overbroadly by the Heritage Foundation to deter fair coverage on Wikipedia of topics including Israel's actions in the Middle East.

In order to wage this doxxing campaign against Wikipedia's editors, the Forward reports, the extremely well-funded think tank is organizing to capture IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device data, geolocations, ISP information, and network details from planted links that log unsecured data. Employees of the Heritage Foundation also shared plans, according to the Forward's reporting, to utilize social engineering through "curated sock puppet accounts to reveal patterns and provoke reactions [and] information disclosure," while cataloging sensitive info through facial recognition software and exploiting "breached datasets for reused names, emails, and online identities."

Also joining the fray is Elon Musk, who is reportedly furious at the inclusion of his Nazi salute on his Wikipedia entry, posting "defund Wikipedia until balance is restored!" (in reality, the bulk of Wikipedia's funding comes from small donations from individuals; the irony of a man under fire for a Nazi salute and a barrage of Holocaust jokes claiming to take a stand against antisemitism is also pretty striking.)

Not to be left out, Musk was joined in his broadsides against Wikipedia by fellow tech guys including billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and Sequoia Capital general partner Shaun Maguire.

Why are these billionaires all so mad? One compelling explanation is that Wikipedia is starting to feel like one of the last free information spaces available online, as Big Tech shoves AI slop down our throats and social media is increasingly overrun with artificial users, neo-Nazis, and AI marketing startups.

The volunteers who famously donate their time and effort to edit the world's largest trove of freely accessible information have gladly resisted these trends, which most of the old web has fallen prey to.

Luckily, and barring any acts of God — or executive orders — Wikipedia's webmaster and cofounder Jimmy Wales wants to keep it that way.

"I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale," Wales posted nonchalantly on X-formerly-Twitter.

"I hope his campaign to defund us results in lots of donations from people who care about the truth," he added. "If Elon wanted to help, he'd be encouraging kind and thoughtful intellectual people he agrees with to engage."

More on Wikipedia: Wikipedia Declares War on AI Slop


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