Trump-Appointed Attorney Accuses Wikipedia of Allowing Foreign Actors to ‘Spread Propaganda’

Ed Martin, the interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, has accused Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that controls Wikipedia, of “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public.”

In a letter leaked by the Free Press, Martin claims that the online encyclopedia is allowing “information manipulation,” such as “the rewriting of key historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.”

In addition, the letter highlighted that Wikipedia is a popular source of training data for large language models (LLMs), but added that this means the platform has “the potential to launder information on behalf of foreign actors.” Wikipedia has struggled in the past to maintain performance amid the sheer volume of AI bots scraping data from the platform.

Martin was appointed to his current position in January, shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The lawyer has also sent letters to medical journals in recent months, accusing them of partisan political bias on some issues. 

The attorney asked Wikipedia to explain what steps it is taking to stop foreign influence on the platform, giving a deadline of May 15, 2025, to submit an official reply. Citing the Foundation’s tax-exempt status, Martin said it must conform to a “reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability in its operations and publications.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen right-leaning figures attack Wikipedia over the past year. Elon Musk reshared a post in late 2024 urging users to “Stop donating to Wokepedia,” highlighting the Wikimedia Foundation’s spending on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

Meanwhile, The Washington Post, one of the first outlets to publish the letter, noted how several conservative think tanks, such as the Manhattan Institute and Media Research Center, have accused Wikipedia of left-leaning bias in the past year.

Some of Wikipedia’s editorial team have already been quick to reply to allegations. Molly White, a journalist and Wikipedia editor, said the letter was an example of the Trump administration “weaponizing laws to try to silence high-quality independent information,” in a statement shared with The Post. 

Regardless of the veracity of the lawyer’s claims, we have seen notable examples emerge of foreign powers attempting to manipulate online data used to train AIs. For example, a Russian network of websites has been observed publishing huge volumes of articles containing false information about events in Ukraine, in the hopes of the data getting picked up by mainstream large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini.

About Will McCurdy

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I’m a reporter covering weekend news. Before joining PCMag in 2024, I picked up bylines in BBC News, The Guardian, The Times of London, The Daily Beast, Vice, Slate, Fast Company, The Evening Standard, The i, TechRadar, and Decrypt Media.

I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.

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