Wikipedia’s Dark Secret: Foreign Hands Twist Israel and Russia Narratives
Congressional committees are investigating the Wikimedia Foundation for alleged foreign manipulation of Wikipedia, focusing on antisemitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Russian content
Today, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, chaired by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), launched an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation. The probe targets alleged foreign efforts to manipulate Wikipedia content, accusing “foreign operations and individuals at academic institutions subsidized by U.S. taxpayer dollars” of shaping public opinion through biased edits. The lawmakers claim there are “systematic” campaigns to “advance anti-Semitic and anti-Israel information in Wikipedia articles” and a coordinated push by a “hostile nation-state actor” to insert pro-Russian and anti-Western narratives.
The investigation cites two studies. An Anti-Defamation League report identified 30 editors working in concert to skew Israel-Palestine content, amplifying criticism of Israel while downplaying Palestinian violence. These editors, active for over a decade with 1.5 million edits, communicated extensively, harassed dissenters, and voted together to remove content critical of Palestinians while retaining negative information about Israelis. An Atlantic Council study uncovered the Kremlin-linked Pravda Network, which embedded pro-Russian narratives in 1,672 Wikipedia pages across 44 languages, citing fake news sites to influence AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The letter emphasizes Wikipedia’s role in training AI, amplifying the impact of such manipulations.
Comer and Mace requested internal Wikimedia records, including communications about nation-state actors, campus-based coordination, Arbitration Committee disputes, and policies on neutrality. The probe also notes the Wikimedia Foundation’s funding of activist groups like Art+Feminism, which addresses “gender biases in biographical articles,” and Whose Knowledge, aiming to “decolonize the internet,” with grants totaling hundreds of thousands in 2022-2023. These groups conduct coordinated edits, raising concerns about left-leaning bias. The investigation follows a 2025 bipartisan letter from 23 lawmakers, led by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Don Bacon, urging stronger oversight to curb antisemitic and pro-Hamas content, amid a 200% rise in U.S. anti-Semitic incidents since October 2023, per ADL data.