The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that maintains Wikipedia, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in fiscal year 2022-2023 to activist groups seeking to align the online encyclopedia with its traditional center-left views, tax documents show.

Wikipedia readers are often met with solemn messages that they risk losing the site's independence if they don't donate, but tax filings show that the Wikimedia Foundation had enough surplus funds between July 2022 and June 2023 to make grants to nonprofits dedicated to introducing feminist and racial justice perspectives into Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia Criticized He is considered by many to have left-of-centre tendencies, Site co-founder In 2010, he said there was a “liberal bias on most topics.”

“Feminism and racial justice are not neutral perspectives; they are highly politicized views of the world that involve sifting through conflicting facts,” Heather McDonald, Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If Wikipedia is actively trying to strengthen feminism/racial justice content, the articles are sure to be one-sided, if not completely inaccurate. The site is also betraying its original mission of anonymous and blind writing and editing, a mission that was problematic for its left-leaning founders from the start.”

For example, Art+Feminism received approximately $382,000 in funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to ” [its] According to his tax return, this is a “mission.” (Related article: How major charities blacklist conservative groups and block donations)

Feminist organization “Envision[s] “We are dismantling systems of chauvinism and creating pathways for everyone to participate in writing (and correcting) history.” According to Check out their website: “From coffee shops and community centers to the world's largest art museums and universities, Art+Feminism is leading a campaign to teach people of all gender identities and expressions to edit Wikipedia, to do so themselves, or with others.”

a Core Part of the organization's mission is to get more women involved in contributing to Wikipedia and address “gender bias in biographical articles.”

“When cisgender and transgender women, non-binary people, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities are not reflected in the writing and editing of the 10th most visited site in the world, information about people like us is distorted and misrepresented,” the Art + Feminism website reads. “Stories are misrepresented and we lose sight of our true history. And that's why we're here: to change that.”

According to its website, since 2014, Art+Feminsim has hosted events that have resulted in more than 100,000 articles being written or edited. Recent Posts Wikipedia activists have translated guides encouraging people to upload LGBTQ+ biographies written with a “human rights perspective” to the site, and edited Wikipedia articles about abortion while raising money for abortion funds.

Art+Feminism did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.

“It's not surprising that Wikimedia's liberal-left leadership would do everything in its power to push left-wing discourse into the Wikipedia community,” Michael Watson, research director at the Capital Research Center, told DCNF.

The Wikimedia Foundation funds organizations that aim to incorporate racial justice and feminism into its resources, but several researchers have found that the website is already biased toward liberal viewpoints.

2016 Harvard Business School analysis Another study from Harvard Business School found that Wikipedia shows a significant liberal bias in articles about abortion, civil rights, government, and taxes. Conclusion Left-leaning editors tend to be more vocal and partisan than conservative editors.

In 2024, researcher David Rozado analyzed the language used in a sample of 1,628 Wikipedia articles about politics and government. Found “Wikipedia articles are mildly to moderately more likely to harbor negative feelings toward ideologically center-right public figures than toward ideologically center-left public figures.”

Whose Knowledge, whose mission is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation with a donation of about $200,000,Decolonizing the Internet” by “Center[ing] “Knowledge of marginalized communities (the majority of the world) on the Internet” According to Please visit our website. Contributing to Wikipedia The organization has supported reporting on “queer feminist knowledge from Bosnia and Herzegovina” and efforts to address “the tension between indigenous knowledge and Wikipedia's norms and values.”

This organization is made a statement According to social media posts, it supports increased access to abortion and encourages people to “document feminist and LGBTQIAP+ activism, protests, parades and other acts of resistance” to support the pro-abortion movement.

Whose Knowledge did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.

The fight against reproductive rights and gender-based violence are inextricably linked, both in the streets and online. #VisibleWikiWomxn Contribute, Protesters in Sao Paulo resist anti-abortion restrictions in Brazil. 🧶 pic.twitter.com/v4L5CSnJ5O

— Mastodon's @whoseknowledge@whoseknowledge.social (@WhoseKnowledge) June 20, 2024

Black Lunch Table, which has a similar mission to Whose Knowledge and Art+Feminism but focuses on black artists, has received more than $300,000 in funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to support its operations.

“Black Lunch Table Wikimedians are committed to creating and improving Wikipedia articles about the lives and work of Black artists,” the group's website states. read“In the mainstream contemporary art field, black artists continue to be marginalized within the field.”

Black Lunch Table declined to comment.

Mariana Iskander, who raised more than $500,000 as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation last year, has a background in left-of-center philanthropy. Previously provided as chief operating officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York;

“It seems Wikipedia has given up on the idea of ​​crowdsourcing and is now committed to propaganda,” McDonald said. “No one should be supporting Wikipedia with a dime.”

The Wikimedia Foundation did not respond to DCNF's request for comment.

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