p2pnet - rss feed: China frees Wikipedia, but …
p2pnet.net News:- "Quite a pleasure for me to found that Wikipedia is unblocked," says Robert on the Danwei blog.
"You can search it with words like ‘democracy’ without problem. But still if you try ‘falungong’…… well……you met the GFW again."
Reports came in at the beginning of the year that China censors had Great Walled Wikipedia but now, "Wikipedia’s English version seems to have been unblocked by China’s Internet Nanny," says Danwei.
However, says the story, "Youtube’s upload function seems to be throttled, as of this morning in Beijing".
Meanwhile, "What are your comments on attempts to gag Wikipedia in China?" - Wiki’s Jimmy Wales was asked by MoneyControl.com yesterday.
"We don’t know what they took offense to," he replied. "We really don’t intend to compromise the way Google did. We also feel that the block is an error. I am trying to set up high-level meetings in China to state our case and explain why we should be unblocked. We have no idea what the result of that would be. But we are somewhat hopeful. Wikipedia is not a haven for dissidents but an encyclopedia. About 99.9 per cent of Wikipedia has topics that are not of interest to the Chinese Government. There is no political component. We are hopeful that they can see the point.
"Censorship is unfortunate.
"It does not achieve much any good especially on the Internet. Even in China, many people know how to get around the firewall. When people are censoring, they are not just preventing outside information from coming into the country, but also preventing local people from having a voice in the world. So the Chinese people would like to contribute to Wikipedia to give the Chinese point of view for the entire world to see. And China needs to be better understood by the rest of the world."
Someone had better tell Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, all of whom have been named as US mega-corporations which actively help censor Chinese writers and other freedom of speech activists.
(Thanks, Jimmy)
Also See:
blog - Wikipedia unblocked, but is Nanny throttling Youtube uploads?, October 12, 2006
Great Walled Wikipedia - China blocks Wikipedia, January 11, 2006
MoneyControl.com - Censorship is unfortunate: Jimmy Wales, October 11, 2006
actively help censor - Claim back the web, July 20, 2006
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