How Wikipedia became a political lightening rod

Wikipedia has faced political threats for years, but this time, it may be at a breaking point.

Republicans have ramped up attacks against Wikipedia as yet another “woke” institution. Leaked documents from The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that, show a plan for exposing specific Wikipedia editors. In January, Elon Musk, the billionaire-turned-government-efficiency-czar, called the online library an “extension of legacy media propaganda.” (He also once offered to pay $1 billion for the site if it changed its name to “Dickipedia.”)

Conservatives have long accused Wikipedia of political prejudice. (And it’s not just staunch Republicans: Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger, who has never publicly identified himself as a Republican, turned on the digital library almost immediately after leaving in 2002, claiming it had a top-down left-wing bias.) In 2006, critic Andrew Schlafly even founded his own iteration of the site, Conservapedia. That conversation of bias continued for the following 20 years, and conservative think tanks have continually pumped out reports about Wikipedia’s supposed liberal tilt.

Musk is in the middle of the latest controversy

But those were complaints, not attacks. Now, Musk and the MAGA movement could effectively kill Wikipedia. This cycle started with Musk’s inauguration arm-raise, which his Wikipedia page said was “compared to a Nazi salute,” but added that “Musk denied any meaning” behind the gesture. That particular entry sent Musk into a tirade on his social media platform X, first posting about Wikipedia as “propaganda,” and later saying that we should “defund” it. (Wikipedia is supported by individual and corporate donations—not federal funds.) Wikipedia’s cofounder Jimmy Wales shot back: “I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale.” 

While Musk is the public face of the latest crusade, there’s been plenty of behind-the-scenes discussion about Wikipedia. According to documents obtained by Forward, The Heritage Foundation aims to target not just Wikipedia, but the site’s editors. These individual contributors often work under online pseudonyms but, using strategies like digital fingerprinting and edit-tracking, The Heritage Foundation seems to promote finding these editors’ real-life identities. It’s still unclear how The Heritage Foundation would use the information tracked, but the idea of being targeted itself could spook editors off the platform.

These threats have Wikimedia executives worried. According to 404 Media, the leaders hosted a series of calls in the past few weeks about their ongoing political struggles, with Wales saying that he’s “keeping an eye on the rising noise of criticism from Elon Musk and others.” Considering that The Heritage Foundation was behind Project 2025—the legislative blueprint that has made its way into the White House during Trump’s second term—their fears may be justified.

Wikipedia at the center of language politics

The left has gotten in some jabs against Wikipedia, too. Liberals have struggled with the site’s glacial conversations around potential edits to sensitive subjects. Should Ernest Hemingway’s trans daughter be referred to as “Gloria” or their birth name, “Gregory?” Should the term “squaw,” which the federal government deemed derogatory, be removed from the names of notable locations? These conversations can take weeks. Pro-Palestine activists have also been frustrated with the site’s language surrounding Israel. 

Our politics has centralized around language. The left and the right have spent years squabbling over just which words are appropriate—but now, under Trump, the right is turning that fight into legislative shutdowns. Any site that traffics in words is under threat, from the online databases that Trump has shut down to the trans terminology Trump scrubbed from the Stonewall Monument.

The culture wars have come for our public information sources. And Wikipedia is on the chopping block.

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