Censorship of Wikipedia has occurred by national authorities, most notably in China, Iran, Syria, Pakistan,[1][2] Thailand, Tunisia, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.
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Chinese Wikipedia was launched on May 2001.[3] Wikipedia received positive coverage in China's state press in early 2004, but it was blocked on June 3, 2004 on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Proposals to practice self-censorship in a bid to restore the site were rejected by the Chinese Wikipedia community.[3] However, a story in the International Herald Tribune comparing entries on Chinese Wikipedia and English Wikipedia on topics such as Mao Zedong and Taiwan concluded that the Chinese entries were "watered down and sanitized" of political controversy.[4] On June 22, 2004, access to Wikipedia was restored without explanation.[3] Wikipedia was blocked again for unknown reasons in September,[5] but only for four days.[3] Wikipedia was blocked in China in October 2005. Wikipedia users Shi Zhao and Cui Wei wrote letters to technicians and authorities to try to convince them to unblock the website. Part of the letter read, "By blocking Wikipedia, we lose a chance to present China's voice to the world, allowing evil cults, Taiwan independence forces and others . . . to present a distorted image of China."[3]
In October 2006, The New York Times reported that English Wikipedia was unblocked in China, although Chinese Wikipedia remained blocked. New media researcher Andrew Lih blogged that he could not read the English-language article on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China.[6] Lih said that "there is no monolithically operating Great Firewall of China", noting that for users of various internet service providers in different locations in China–China Netcom in Beijing, China Telecom in Shanghai, and various providers in Anhui—Chinese Wikipedia was only blocked in Anhui.[7] Advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders praised Wikipedia's leaders for not self-censoring.[8]
On 16 November 2006, Reuters news agency reported the main page of Chinese Wikipedia could be displayed, except for some taboo political subjects, such as "June 4 [1989 protests]".[9] However, subsequent reports suggested that both the Chinese and English versions had been reblocked the next day on 17 November.[10] On 15 June 2007, access to apolitical articles on English Wikipedia was restored.[11] On 6 September 2006, IDG News reported that English Wikipedia was blocked again.[12] On 2 April 2008, The Register reported that the blocks on English and Chinese Wikipedias was lifted.[13][14] This was confirmed by the BBC, and came within the context of foreign journalists arriving in Beijing to report on the 2008 Summer Olympics and the International Olympic Committee's request for press freedom during the games.[15] In September 2008, Jimmy Wales had a meeting with Cai Mingzhao, Vice Director of China's State Council Information Office. While no agreements were made, Wales believes that a channel of communication has been opened between Wikipedia's community and the PRC Government.[16]
On October 4, 2011, following a decision adopted by the community, the contents of the Italian version of Wikipedia were hidden and the website was blocked by its administrators, as a protest against paragraph 29 of the "DDL intercettazioni" (Wiretapping Bill).[17] The proposed bill would empower anyone who believes themselves to have been offended by the content of a web site to enforce publication of a reply, uneditable and uncommented, on the same web site, within 48 hours and without any prior evaluation of the claim by a judge or to face a €12,000 fine.
On October 4th, 5th, and 6th all pages on the Italian version of Wikipedia redirected to a statement opposing the proposed legislation.[18] The statement is available in Italian, English, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Esperanto. On October 7th the Italian Wikipedia pages were again available, but a notice about the proposed legislation was still displayed at the top of pages.
English Wikipedia was blocked for several days in May 2010 in Pakistan during the controversy surrounding Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.[19][20]
On 11 July 2006 the Saudi government blocked access to Google and Wikipedia.[21][22]
Access to the Arabic Wikipedia was blocked in Syria between 30 April 2008 and 13 February 2009, although other language editions remained accessible.
Wikipedia's article on Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has been blocked by most Thai ISPs since October 2008, due to lèse majesté concerns.
The Wikimedia website was blocked in Tunisia between 23 November and 27 November 2006.
According to local bloggers and the Internet community in Pakistan, access to Wikipedia was restricted for several hours in March 2006.
In December 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based non-government organization, added the Wikipedia article Virgin Killer to its internet blacklist due to the cover image and the illegality of child pornography; the image had been assessed as the lowest level of legal concern: "erotic posing with no sexual activity".[23] As a result, people using many major UK ISPs were blocked from viewing the entire article by the Cleanfeed system,[23][24][25] and a large part of the UK was blocked from editing Wikipedia owing to the means of blocking in use. Following discussion, representations by the Wikimedia Foundation (who host the Wikipedia website),[26] and public complaints,[27] the IWF reversed their decision three days later, and confirmed that in future they would not block copies of the image that were hosted overseas.[28]
Access to the Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan on 10 January 2008; the block was lifted 5 March 2008. This was reportedly the second time Wikipedia had been blocked in Uzbekistan; the first case was in 2007.
On 10 November 2006, blogger Andrew Lih reported that Chinese Wikipedia appeared to have been fully unblocked.[29] Lih confirmed the full unblocking several days later and offered a partial analysis of the effects based on the rate of new account creation on Chinese Wikipedia. Prior to the unblocking, 300-400 new accounts were created on Chinese Wikipedia daily. In the four days since the unblocking, the rate of new registrations more than tripled to over 1,200 daily, jumping into the second fastest growing Wikipedia after the English version. Similarly, there were 75% more articles created in the week ending on November 13 than during the week before. Coming on the same weekend that Chinese Wikipedia passed the 100,000 article mark, Lih predicted that the second 100,000 would come quickly but that the existing body of Chinese Wikipedia users would have their hands full teaching the new users and teaching them basic Wikipedia policies and norms.[30]
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