Wikipedia coverage of Donald Trump has been a subject of controversy, largely on the English-language version, since 2015 after he launched his ultimately successful 2016 United States presidential campaign. Trump's Wikipedia article and related pages have sparked debate between Wikipedia editors, and have also often been vandalized. Both of these actions have resulted in increased media attention and subsequently some protection against editing to prevent further vandalism to the article.
The English Wikipedia article for Donald Trump was created in 2004. [2] After Trump announced his United States presidential campaign in June 2015, his article began receiving an increase in edits. In 2015, Trump's article received thousands of edits more than the previous year, and received more edits in January 2016 than other candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. [3] In total, Trump's article received over 10,000 edits from its creation to January 2016. [4] By September of that year, Trump's article had become the 28th most edited for a person on the site. [5] The next month, The Washington Post reported that Trump's page was edited more times in an election cycle than other Republican nominees since 2004. [6] In December, the Wikimedia Foundation noted that Trump's article was the second-most edited on the site in 2016, with 8,933 edits, behind the article for deaths in 2016, which had 18,230 edits. [7] In May 2019, the Trump page had a total of over 28,000 edits. Simultaneously, the page had a total of 156 million views, the most for a biography since Wikipedia began tracking viewership data in December 2007. [2]
During the 2016 United States presidential election, features of Trump's article were frequently debated. The infobox for Trump's article, for instance, featured an image of Trump staring at the camera with lips slightly turned down at the corners. In November 2015, editors debated an alternative image of Trump smiling at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event, with accusations of pro-Trump bias towards editors who supported the new image. Ultimately, editors chose a third image lacking expression. [1] In early 2016, several other images were debated, although editors often pointed out drawbacks with each image, such as an unusual expression, a perceived "turkey neck", and objects within the foreground. [6]
Trump's presidency caused significant gridlock on his article. In one such instance, editors debated the inclusion of the 2018 Russia–United States summit, with administrators ultimately supporting its inclusion. In the lead section of the article, some editors took issue with the sentence, "Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist", believing that "racially charged" was ambiguous and potentially euphemistic. [2]
Following Trump's loss to Ted Cruz in the Iowa Republican presidential caucus in February 2016, the domain Loser.com was changed to redirect to Trump's article. [8] Brian Connelly, who registered the domain in 1995, changed the domain following Trump's proposed travel ban against Muslim majority countries. Although the domain rarely redirected to figures for political purposes, Connelly felt that the "definition of a loser" was "a man who attacks Muslims" and "pushes fear and doubt". [9] By May 2016, Loser.com no longer redirected to the article. [10] When Trump lost the 2020 presidential election in November, the domain once again redirected to Trump's article, [11] but no longer does as of September 2024.[ citation needed ]
In July 2015, vandals erased Trump's page, receiving media attention. [12] In one such instance, an editor replaced the contents of the page with "Lets[ sic ] be fair, nobody cares about him." [13] In March 2016, an IP address used by the Correctional Service of Canada edited the article to state Trump was homosexual, and later homosexual and transgender. [14] Other edits made include replacing mentions of Trump's name with Drumpf, deleting the page and replacing it with profanities, and editing Trump's birthplace to be hell. [6] In spite of this, editors have been able to keep the page stable, preventing a hoax claiming Trump had died of a heart attack from appearing on the page. [15]
On November 22, 2018, the infobox image for Trump was replaced with a penis. The image was returned by Siri when pulling up information on Trump, such as his age. [16] In response, Apple changed Siri to refer to WolframAlpha rather than Wikipedia. [17] The article was fully protected, meaning that only administrators could edit it, [2] from its previous extended confirmed protection status, requiring editors to have a specified number of edits and time on the site. In the days that followed, attackers used hacked user accounts, including of an administrator, to replace the image. [18] The vandalism occurred several days after the Wikimedia Foundation overhauled its security for administrators; two-factor authentication was made mandatory for some administrators, although the latter still did not prevent the attacks. In response, the Wikimedia Foundation changed its rules to prevent administrators from unblocking themselves. Termed the "nuclear option", the move attracted significant controversy. [19]
In March 2016, a user created the article "Donald J Drumpf", referring to a fictitious character created by comedian John Oliver in a segment on the late-night talk show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver . President Trump's ancestral surname happens to be "Drumpf". [20] An article for Trump's impeachment was created in November 2016 on the word of two academics, who predicted Trump would be impeached upon taking office; the article was deleted hours later. [21] Trump would later be impeached twice and acquitted both times. [22]
A multitude of Trump-related articles were created throughout Trump's presidency. [2] [23] Following the 2017 Riyadh summit, internet users turned images released of the event featuring Trump touching an illuminated globe into an Internet meme; an article for the meme was created a day later. [24] On January 6, 2021, Wikipedia editor Jason Moore created the article for the January 6 United States Capitol attack titled "January 2021 Donald Trump rally". [25] As the attack unfolded, hundreds of editors worked towards expanding the article. [26] There were also several disputes among editors as to what terminology should be used to describe the attack; another editor retitled the article to "2021 storming of the United States Capitol". [25] [27]
In August 2023, editors engaged in a contentious debate on whether or not an article for Trump's mug shot should exist. The article's proponents argued that the mug shot was a historical photograph, which some opponents questioned. Other opponents suggested merging the article to an article for the prosecution of election racketeering in Georgia, [28] where Trump had his mug shot taken. [29]
In May 2024, after Trump was found guilty of 34 felony charges in New York, editors held a discussion on whether the words "convicted felon" should be included in his article's first sentence. [30]
Anything and everything Trump. His name comes up in articles you wouldn't imagine—including the article Fuck. LOL.
—Betty Wills, a Wikipedia editor, when asked "which topics tended to be the most challenging when it comes to battling falsities and half-truths" [31]
On October 7, 2016, Trump released a video alleging that Bill Clinton had abused women and that Hillary Clinton had bullied her husband's victims; [32] six days later, a vandal replaced the contents of the Clintons' articles with a pornographic image and explicit message, making similar allegations and encouraging readers to vote for Trump. [33] Beginning in November, the article for the heights of presidents and presidential candidates stirred controversy when editors disagreed on Trump's height; while most agreed that Trump was at least six feet tall, his exact height was disputed for the next two years. While some editors believed Trump is 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm) based on a driver's license, others contested he was 6 feet 3 inches (191 cm) based on a White House doctor. [34] Shortly before Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017, editors changed the article for the president of the United States repeatedly, with the article ultimately declaring Trump president at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time. [35]
During the July 2019 rally at Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale claimed that 20,000 attendees were at the rally, but the Williams Arena seats only 8,000 people. Parscale later clarified that the number included people outside of the venue and people at Pitt–Greenville Airport. In spite of this, a user changed the seating capacity in the infobox of Williams Arena's page from 8,000 people to 20,000. [36] Following Trump's first impeachment in December, an editor edited the article for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)—in which Trump cameos in as the owner of the Plaza Hotel—to state that Trump was the first cast member of the film to be impeached. [37] Another editor edited the article for the United States Senate to claim that "[The Senate] died on January 31, 2020", when the Senate voted to acquit Trump. [38]
In June 2017, students at Northwestern University and University of Minnesota, Twin Cities presented a research paper on article-as-concepts. The article for Trump's family was used as an example of the drawbacks of Wikipedia articles-as-concepts. On Chinese Wikipedia, the article for Trump's family did not exist, leaving the only source of family information as the article for Trump himself. In comparison, English Wikipedia covers the family in far greater detail. [39]
In June 2017, a Wikimedia Commons user claimed that the White House's official portrait of Trump was not the work of the United States government, but rather a photographer known as Doug Coulter, and thus did not qualify for public domain status. [40]
The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
Paula Corbin Jones is an American civil servant. A former Arkansas state employee, Jones sued United States President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994. In the initial lawsuit, Jones cited Clinton for sexual harassment at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 8, 1991. Following a series of civil suits and appeals through the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals from May 1994 to January 1996, Clinton v. Jones eventually reached the United States Supreme Court on May 27, 1997. The case was later settled on November 13, 1998.
Peter Franz Schweizer is an American political consultant and writer. He is the president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), senior editor-at-large of far-right media organization Breitbart News, and a former fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
The Catalan Wikipedia is the Catalan-language edition of the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia. It was created on 16 March 2001, just a few minutes after the first non-English Wikipedia, the German edition. With more than 761,000 articles, it is currently the 20th-largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles, and the fifth-largest Wikipedia in a Romance language. In April 2016, the project had 582 active editors who made at least five edits in that month.
Aaron Klein is an American-Israeli conservative political commentator, journalist, strategist, bestselling author, and senior advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as campaign manager for several of Netanyahu's election campaigns and chief strategist for Netanyahu's 2020 election campaign that resulted in a rotating unity government with Netanyahu at the helm and his 2022 campaign in which Netanyahu won a full-term. Klein was Netanyahu's full-time strategic advisor in government from 2020 to 2021, during the period Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel's 36th government and he serves as a strategic advisor to Netanyahu during Israel's 37th government.
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users, process, and rules. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias. Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines. Conflicts of interest arising from corporate campaigns to influence content have also been highlighted. Further concerns include the vandalism and partisanship facilitated by anonymous editing, clique behavior, social stratification between a guardian class and newer users, excessive rule-making, edit warring, and uneven policy application.
John Harwood is an American journalist who worked as White House Correspondent for CNN from February 2021 until September 2022. Harwood was formerly an editor-at-large for CNBC. He was the chief Washington Correspondent for CNBC and a contributor for The New York Times. He wrote a weekly column entitled "The Caucus" that appeared on Monday about Washington politics and policy. Before joining the Times, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump, president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, has attracted considerable media attention during his career as a celebrity personality, businessman, and politician. He has been portrayed and appeared in popular culture since the 1980s, including several cameo appearances in film and television.
Breitbart News Network is an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Its content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories. Posts originating from the Breitbart News Facebook page are among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.
On Wikipedia, vandalism is editing the project in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner. Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification that is intentionally humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, offensive, libelous or degrading in any way.
Frederick Trump was a German-American businessman. He was the patriarch of the Trump family and the paternal grandfather of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States.
"Donald Trump" is a segment of the HBO news satire television series Last Week Tonight with John Oliver that is devoted to Donald Trump, who later became the president of the United States. It first aired on February 28, 2016, as part of the third episode of Last Week Tonight's third season, when Trump was the frontrunner for the Republican Party nomination for the presidency. During the 22-minute segment, comedian John Oliver discusses Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and his career in business. Oliver outlines Trump's campaign rhetoric, varying political positions, and failed business ventures. The comedian also criticizes Trump for making offensive and false statements, and says the Trump family name was changed at one point from the ancestral name Drumpf.
r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.
Loser.com is a domain name that has existed as a URL redirect to several different web pages during most of its existence.
The Case for Impeachment is a non-fiction book by American University Distinguished Professor of History Allan Lichtman arguing for the impeachment of Donald Trump. It was published on April 18, 2017, by Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. Lichtman predicted to The Washington Post that after ascending to the presidency, Trump would later be impeached from office. He developed this thesis into a set of multiple arguments for Trump's predicted impeachment.
From 2017 through 2021, Donald Trump was the 45th president of the United States; he is the only American president to have no political or military service prior to his presidency, as well as the first to be charged and convicted with a felony after leaving office. He is regarded by historians as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.
Arabella Advisors is a Washington, D.C.-based for-profit consulting company that advises left-leaning donors and nonprofits about where to give money and serves as the hub of a politically liberal "dark money" network. It was founded by former Clinton administration appointee Eric Kessler. The Arabella network spent nearly $1.2 billion in 2020 and raised $1.6 billion that same year. In 2022, Arabella raised $1.3 billion and spent $900 million.
Coverage of American politics in Wikipedia is a subject that has received substantial attention from the media. Since its founding in 2001, Wikipedia has provided coverage of five United States presidential elections, and six mid-term elections at the federal level, as well as numerous "off-year" state elections and special elections.
Volunteer editors of Wikipedia delete articles from the online encyclopedia regularly, following processes that have been formulated by the site's community over time. The most common route is the outright deletion of articles that clearly violate the rules of the website. Other mechanisms include an intermediate collaborative process that bypasses a complete discussion, and a whole debate at the dedicated forum called Articles for deletion (AfD). As a technical action, deletion can only be done by a subset of editors assigned particular specialized privileges by the community, called administrators. An omission that has been carried out can be contested by appeal to the deleting administrator or on another discussion board called Deletion review (DRV).
