Overview

• As Senate Commerce Committee chair, Ted Cruz sent a letter to Wikimedia CEO Maryana Iskander requesting information on how Wikipedia content is created, edited, and policed.
• He highlighted Wikipedia’s reliable sources classifications, noting CNN, MSNBC and the Southern Poverty Law Center are labeled generally reliable, while Fox News is marked generally unreliable and the Heritage Foundation is deprecated and on a spam blacklist.
• Cruz asked for explanations of how the reliable sources list is determined and how editors are removed or banned, expanding scrutiny of the site’s internal governance.
• He warned that Wikipedia shapes large language models and argued its influence on AI heightens the stakes of potential bias.
• The Wikimedia Foundation has defended its neutrality and volunteer oversight, as separate House inquiries launched in August by Reps. James Comer and Nancy Mace continue.