Wikipedia and Government Employees

Recently, in an article which appeared in the New York Post, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger called on Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to look into whether government actors have infiltrated the online encyclopedia that he helped start over two decades ago.

 

Sanger has indicated that over the years, the website has long abandoned its neutrality policy, which he helped develop at its beginning. He feels “woke” actors, especially those in government, have taken the site more leftward.

“Hi @ElonMusk. Wikipedia co-founder here. May I ask you to determine what branches of the U.S. government—if any!—have employees paid to edit, monitor, update, lobby, etc., Wikipedia? Such operations should be defunded, if any. If there are *none*, we’d like to know. Agree?” Sanger recently wrote on X.

Musk, who has also long been a critic of Wikipedia, seemed receptive to Sanger’s request.

“Good idea,” Musk replied.

In a follow-up tweet to President Trump that’s drawn over  35MM views, Sanger asked Trump to write an executive order barring federal workers and government funds from being used to edit or pay for editing on Wikipedia.

In DOGE’s quest to streamline the government to rid it of waste, fraud, and abuse, the idea that government workers having access to Wikipedia, or any unnecessary online site, is inefficient and counterproductive to the work employees are being paid to do. After all, this access is generally not permitted in private industries.

Let’s see if Democrats complain about this and claim it is violating employees’ rights.