Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca.
Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings. Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations.
Yet, an editor “AlexEng” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.”
Alex wrote: “This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz.” That itself is an odd statement. It is mentioned as one of the key conduits of alleged influence peddling money. Alex added that “keeping it around” ran the risk of the page becoming “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.” It is that last comment that I found most concerning as part of this decision.
Any Wikipedia page could be a magnet for conspiracy theories, including the page on Hunter Biden himself. The fact is that this is a real company with real dealings that are the subject of a real criminal investigation. Indeed, various Republican members have already pledged to conduct investigations into this and other companies if they secure either house of Congress after the midterm elections.
So Wikipedia killed it just as a United States Attorney is drilling down on financial dealings of Hunter Biden, including money received from foreign sources through Rosemont Seneca.
The bias in the reference to the “conspiracy theories” is glaring. While some clearly misstate the facts of the Hunter Biden dealings (on both sides of the controversy), the central role of the company in these dealings is no conspiracy theory. I have long criticized Hunter Biden and his uncle for engaging in raw influence peddling — a practice long associated with the Biden family.
I have also been highly critical of how media and social media companies killed the Hunter Biden story. Much like Wikipedia’s explanation this week, they claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was merely conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation before the election. We are now approaching the midterm elections and suddenly Wikipedia is killing the page on this key company.
Republican senators claim that Hunter Biden was a partner in Rosemont Seneca with Chris Heinz, the stepson of future Secretary of State John Kerry, and their friend, Devon Archer. Archer was recently sent to prison for fraud in a matter that did not involve Hunter Biden.
In 2013, Rosemont Seneca entered into a business partnership with a Chinese investment fund called Bohai Capital. There are references in these transactions to Bohai Harvest RST. “RST” stood for “Rosemont Seneca Thornton,” a consortium of Rosemont Seneca and the Thornton Group, a Massachusetts-based firm.
Hunter Biden’s counsel insists that he did not have an equity interest in RST. However, Rosemont Seneca and RST feature greatly in the controversial transactions with foreign figures. Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reports that
“Prosecutors have focused in particular, those people said, on the payments from Burisma, which first flowed to a company called Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC before going on to Mr. Biden. Between 2014 and 2019, Hunter Biden held a Burisma board seat for which he was paid around $50,000 a month.”
The company has been tied to a series of payments to Hunter Biden from car purchases to cash transfers that are under investigation. Wikipedia does not (and should not) take sides in such allegations. Rather, it can serve as a conduit for those searching the company as part of a major and ongoing controversy.
Yet, “Alex” does not consider any of that “notable” and dismisses references to the company in a federal investigation as mere “conspiracy theories.”
Wikipedia was founded on lofty and even revolutionary goals of empowering the world with free access to sources of knowledge. The key minds behind Wikipedia saw the danger of bias creeping into this work and emphasized the need for strict neutrality.
Larry Sanger declared “Wikipedia has an important policy: roughly stated, you should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly.”
Likewise, Jimmy Wales insisted “A general-purpose encyclopedia is a collection of synthesized knowledge presented from a neutral point of view. To whatever extent possible, encyclopedic writing should steer clear of taking any particular stance other than the stance of the neutral point of view.”
I have long been a fan of Wikipedia and its noble purpose. For that reason, I am saddened by this move which seems to reject the essential pledge of the company. Wikipedia’s editors have been increasingly accused of bias in such decisions. However, this move is particularly raw and inexplicable. Wikipedia will lose the trust of many if it goes down the path of companies like Twitter in allowing staff to use its platform for their own political agendas.
Wikipedia or WikiMedia should immediately reverse the decision of Alex on the Rosemont Seneca page.
As I recall, there were originally three principals in the Rosemont Seneca Partnership ( which was the ‘ Mothership ‘ for several joint ventures ) – John Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, Devon Archer, and Hunter Biden. I think Christopher Heinz bowed out around the time that Hunter climbed aboard Burisma; and Devon Archer was found guilty and fined for some shenanigans related to the partnership not too long ago.( You really can’t make this stuff up ! ) The problem with Wikipedia has been the ability for individuals to amend the ‘ facts ‘ as originally written . . so that current events are subject to being radically altered by ‘ interested ‘ parties.
If you think there’s an error or omission on a WP page, then fix it!
“I have long been a fan of Wikipedia and its noble purpose. For that reason, I am saddened by this move which seems to reject the essential pledge of the company. ”
I seldom take issue with Professor Turley because he has a logical framework for what he says most of the time, even when I find disagreement. Presently, I criticize the Professor for what appears to be enlightenment that came far later than one would expect from a highly educated person and a fan of Wikipedia. It makes me worry about how long it takes for the real news to reach Professor Turley. I give him credit despite that, for even with what appears to be a delay in understanding, he has held firm to his commitment to the First Amendment.
I urge the Professor not to put down his Washington Post and NYT’s but to add news written by real investigators that document their work and have been mostly correct for the past number of years while those two news organizations have mostly been wrong.
Conservative/ libertarian people on the right of this blog have posted some of these sites, and I hope the Professor uses those sites to catch up where he has fallen behind.
S. Meyer, it seems that more and more lately the good Professor is coming over from the dark side. We should praise his move. Better late than never before any more damage is done.
Thinkit, I agree wholeheartedly and have for decades. He and Alan Dershowitz stand for freedom of speech even though they are on the opposite side of the aisle. Both deserve our immense respect and thanks.
A long while ago I noticed that there was a definite left slant to all their offerings. I stopped sending them money at that point and noe I only use them for direct, unalterable data, never for their “historic” opinions about ANYTHING.
Isn’t this a contribution in-kind to the Democratic Party by Wikipedia. Wikipedia takes down any reference to the Hunter laptop but leaves up the reference to the Steele Dossier. They say that Russia wanted Trump to win. How did Putin think that his endorsement would help Trump? He endorsed Trump in attempt to hurt his election. He was actually helping Hillary by endorsing Trump. The sucker fish on the left tried to make it look like Trump was going hand in hand with Putin but the people skipping hand in hand with Putin were the Democrats. A sucker fish just can’t help it’s self. It just has to keep on sucking.
“Wikipedia takes down any reference to the Hunter laptop”
You’re either a purposeful liar or a troll who is too lazy to even bother looking up the WP page about the laptop before making an outlandishly false claim.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy
This really comes as no surprise. Wikipedia became a haven for left-wingers years ago. It’s so bad that Larry Sanger, who founded it, said it was broken beyond repair as far back as 2007 and left it. I used to be a contributor but was banned because somebody didn’t like something I contributed. Wikipedia is basically worthless as a source of information.
Whenever Wikipedia comes up I avoid it if possible by going to actual scholarly ( or historical ) sites that will give me unbiased information. I noticed awhile ago that Wiki was biased and it has only gotten worse. Elon, here is your next target!
The co-founder of Wikipedia said it was built with the intention of it being a neutral educational site. When it was dirtied by the left and became a left-wing source of misinformation, he walked away. He talks about Wikipedia censoring ideas from the right and the use of PR firms to help promote the leftist narrative. He has also talked about the mechanics of how the left altered what Wikipedia says. One can only conclude that another left-wing rag joins the Washington Post.
Anonymous the Stupid argued that Wikipedia didn’t censor anything or anyone and was a neutral platform. That is the level of his honesty.
“Elon, here is your next target!”
Wikipedia is not a publicly-traded for-profit company. Just what are you proposing Musk do?
Moron, I was just making a point that we (the collective Elon Musks of the world) need to shut this garbage down through non-use, or in other words “go woke, go broke”. But hey Anonymous, you just keep tilting at windmills.
So when you said Elon, here is your next target!, you didn’t really mean Elon, you meant yourself?
Hullbobby was clear – he meant the marketplace.
This sort of thing is why I never allowed my students (college or high school) to use Wikipedia as a source.
WP is quite up front about its limitations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great
On the other hand, it can be a good starting point in finding reliable references and for identifying search terms to help one find references elsewhere.
It’s a flawed but useful resource.
Anonymous – the last study I saw on the accuracy of Wikipedia showed you had about a 50% chance of getting accurate information.
I invite you to share that study, as I’m curious how they mathematized the contents of WP to come up with an estimate of that sort. I do not assume that your reference-less claim is reliable, just as I do not assume that any claim posted to WP is reliable.
I do not turn to WP for reliable info. I **do** use WP to help me find reliable references elsewhere and to help me refine search terms. I also sometimes pitch in as a WP editor to improve the information there.
Anonymous – here is one from Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a
Thanks Paul, but that article doesn’t say anything close to “you had about a 50% chance of getting accurate information.”
In fact, that article — which only analyzed 42 science entries — concluded “Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries. … among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.”
I had a medical student working with me in clinic one day, who used Wikipedia on her cell phone to research a disease for a patient we were about to see. I told her “no, not in my clinic. Wikipedia is not a resource for a future medical doctor”. She then reached for a medical textbook from bag. Turns out lazy medical students use Wiki for medical papers. Some are stupid enough to list it in their references.
Wiki is terribly subjective esp in the medical sciences, e.g. COVID
PCS, you are so right about Wiki.
It may be a quick starting point which requires corroboration.
________________________________________________
“… our intelligence must be taken with a grain of salt…”
– Graham’s Magazine, Volume 47, 1855
Why would the Trump cult be upset by wikipedia reports or what they write about, their mind is made up, and the facts and the truth is not going to change their minds.
Hey Fishloser, any comment on the actual topic at hand?
Believing that Wikipedia is a source of truth is like believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
If you actually view Wikipedia as a source of accurate, truthful information, you’re an ignoramus.
With the caveat that they are still a good source for military insignia and unit association images and links. You know, the stuff that can’t be altered by opinion etc.
And your thoughts on Hunter Biden and his pappy dealing with this now deleted company? Can you explain this arbitrary decision?
It starts with Twitter, but we need to go after every last bleedin’ one of the big tech companies, and should have started ten years ago. Their level of baseless immunity and privilege makes Disney World look like an indentured servant by comparison. It isn’t 1995 anymore, and though the creators of the web had the best of intentions at NeXT, they naively assumed everyone else would, too.
Biden’s vacant aspect suggests that maybe he has no recollection of any meetings with Hunter’s business partners or discussions of Hunter’s business. Hence, he wouldn’t have been lying, because that’s the intentional telling of an untruth.
A huge market share of internet information comes from page one of Google, YouTube and Wikipedia.
I have recently noticed bias in Wikipedia, especially on subjects that are familiar to me.
Seeking information about who owns and operates Wikipedia and Wikimedia is like swimming upstream. They are not a bunch of poor hippies. Wikimedia is flush with cash with donors such as George Soros funded Tides Foundation.
It would be good to have a few old fashioned reference books in one’s library such as a dictionary, thesaurus and writing form books that are a few years old just to compare definitions to the online options and more than a grain of salt when seeking and verifying information.
This should concern everyone regardless of political affiliation.
“I have recently noticed bias in Wikipedia, especially on subjects that are familiar to me.”
Become an editor and improve it!
“Seeking information about who owns and operates Wikipedia and Wikimedia is like swimming upstream.”
No, it isn’t. Wikipedia clearly states things like “the Wikimedia Foundation owns the site,” and “The Wikimedia Foundation or WMF—based in San Francisco—is the organization that owns the domain wikipedia.org.” The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit and therefore does not have “owners.” It does have a board of trustees. As for who “operates” it, there are a bunch of employees, and there are also lots of volunteers. Info about the Board and staff here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/
Just what information are you claiming is hard to find?
“They are not a bunch of poor hippies.”
LOL. Do you want them to be “poor hippies”? Can you name any large organization run by “poor hippies”?
The entry was deleted, lest it become “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.”
I’d have a lot more respect for Wiki if they’d just be honest: “We are not an encyclopedia. We are a vehicle for propaganda.”
Removing the Rosemont Seneca entry is inconsistent with their stated ideals, but not at all inexplicable in light of their corruption over the last few years.
Like our esteemed Professor Turley, I used Wikipedia all the time. I appreciated the site so much, that I made annual donations to keep it running. I feared the loss of such a marvelous resource and felt personally responsible to keep it going.
Then I read how the site had been hijacked by the left and veered far from neutrality. As GEB points out below, this criticism came from Wikipedia’s own founder, Larry Sanger. Sanger has been denouncing the bias for some time. This is not a recent development.
Last year, I stopped making donations to Wikipedia. Get woke, go broke.
wikipedia is a propaganda rag at this point, all you need to do is read Trump collusion page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation_(2017%E2%80%932019)
it may have had lofty goals in the beginning, but anything the least bit political (and progressives think everything is political) can not be trusted.
This is not a new development in Wikipedia. Mr Sanger (co-founder of Wikipedia) just recently castigated the site for it’s left wing bias and it has been obvious for an extended period of time that Wikipedia is no an longer unbiased recorder of facts. Are we going to have to go back to verbal histories passed down through generations to remember the real truth. This is like the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt suddenly removing names and passages of previous pharaohs who suddenly became inconvenient or unpopular. The passage in the movie “The 10 Commandments” where Pharaoh Sethi commands that the name of Moses be stricken from all records is an apt rendition of sanitizing unpleasant facts. Fiction yes but well encapsulates what we see more and more in present day news, history and literature. Interesting how this all seems to be getting worse at a time of unparalleled communications. It’s always been there but the magnitude anymore is breathtaking.
Narratives are more important than facts.
Right about that.
No surprise.
Lefties will say and do most anything to hide an inconvenient truth.
As I have often said, lefties lie to us, they lie to each other, and they lie to themselves.
Monument says:
“As I have often said, lefties lie to us, they lie to each other, and they lie to themselves.”
Turley never called a Leftie a “carnival snake charmer,” that is, a liar, only Trump. Explain that.
They can do no less and still adhere to their fanaticism, they are as heedless as any Islamic jihadi fanatic and proving to be just as lethal.
Makes you wonder what ELSE they are hiding from us….
Wen Bars says:
“Makes you wonder what ELSE they are hiding from us….”
That makes two of us.
The truth, whatever it is, will eventually out, regardless of the efforts taken by those who wish ti keep it hidden
Yes, probably true, but “eventually” is not soon enough for many things. E.g., the Left kept the Laptop from Hell story hidden just long enough to get this village idiot elected President and leader of the Free World.
Whig says:
“The truth, whatever it is, will eventually out, regardless of the efforts taken by those who wish ti keep it hidden.”
Amen to that.
Whig, nice paraphrasing to The Merchant of Venice 🙂
Thanks, but more like Luke 8:17 I thought.
Res Ipsa loquitur—-true enough