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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

No, it must be complicated. Wikipedia isn't grant-funded (they have money coming out of their ears) and it isn't a government agency subject to regulation. Most private publications are proudly biased.

In fact, the most likely outcome to the House trying to play hardball with Wikipedia is a double-digit percentage increase in their donations. Which I don't think House Republicans mind, because none of this is actually about Wikipedia.

So, again, how is this supposed to work?

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The administration has just directed the head of the FHFA to create a pretext to illegally remove a governor of the Federal Reserve, what on earth do you think would stop House Republicans from ginning up some nonsense pretext for a politically motivated DoJ investigation? Why on earth do you think these people are bound by anything other than what they can get away with?

See the difference? The administration can in fact disrupt the Federal Reserve, and appears intent on doing so. But they would much rather you were talking about Wikipedia, which is something they have basically no power over whatsoever.

Uh, no. The administration explicitly cannot disrupt the federal reserve by law. That's why they're cooking bogus justifications against the governor.

Likewise, they'll just make shit up or use some tiny administrative technicality against Wikipedia.

I do not disagree. The administration should not be allowed to terminate Fed governors. I'm optimistic that there is a SCOTUS majority that will prevent it (they explicitly drew a line around the Federal Reserve recently), but we'll see. But clearly: the administration can fire Executive Branch employees, and has a legal interpretation extending that the the Fed.

There is nothing at all connecting the administration to Wikipedia. People are falling for an op the GOP is running.

Snatching editors off the street who revert regime-approved edits? It wouldn't be the first time they sent a goon squad to black bag someone for disfavored political speech.

If they're going to operate purely extrajudicially, what would House hearings have to do with anything? These theories aren't coherent.

Congress doing their investigation will be used in the media to "prove" that by virtue of being under investigation the executive actions against Wikipedia and its contributors are legitimate. Similar to how accusations of antisemitism led to the snatching of Ms. Ozturk.

How has it worked already?

Dragging people for public spectacles in Congress, lawfare through frivolous lawsuits, frivolous investigation through a variety of agencies, wasting the orgs time in court, allies doxxing org members to intimidate them with stochastic terrorism.

If you haven't been paying attention to how Trump and Co have been weapoinzing government to silence critics or pressure private orgs, you haven't been paying attention.

What happened to Harvard?

What happened to CBS/Paramount?

What happened with 60 Minutes?

What about ActBlue?

Harvard is extensively grant funded; that was the administration's leverage.

CBS's owners were existentially dependent on DOJ approval of an impending merger.

60 Minutes is a CBS property.

Nothing has happened to ActBlue.

So again I ask: how exactly is the House supposed to accomplish anything with Wikipedia?

maybe step back and think about what this targeted, repeated, deeply meticulous sequence of challenges to this very narrow topic of conversation is communicating about you, and is achieving in the net sense

is this the right application of your time and energy? perhaps that time and energy is more usefully spent fighting against the actively malicious current US political administration, than deconstructing arguments in that same vein?

No, I think I'm just going to continue having the discussion we're having here.

fair enough! your call. just know that this is, well, it's not a good look. if you don't care then more power to you.

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