charles matthews wrote: :-) It is always safe to assume that I say the same things all the time and that there will never be any compromises on freedom of speech and neutrality. We will never co-operate with censorship. --Jimbo

Phil Boswell wrote: The argument that I put forward in my talk in Tunis at the World Summit on the Information Society can be summarized as follows: 1. Wikipedia is neither critical nor supportive of the Chinese government. We are not a site for dissidents nor for government supporters. We are neutral. NPOV is non-negotiable. It is impossible to portray Wikipedia as anti-Chinese government unless the Chinese government wants to argue that neutral information is anti-Chinese government, and I don't think that's what they intend to say at all. 2. It isn't *just* that Chinese people cannot read any of Wikipedia, most of which is not about political or sensitive topics at all. It is that Chinese people are unable to *express* their views and culture in the Chinese Wikipedia or English Wikipedia or anywhere else, so long as Wikipedia is blocked. Since, I am told, the Chinese wikipedians tend to have more of a "mainland" view of things, as compared to Chinese living in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the ironic effect of the Chinese censorship is to censor the mainland perspective on world affairs. It is fine to criticize the Chinese government for censorship of criticism. But my argument was not about that at all, since we are not critics of the Chinese government. My argument was that censoring Wikipedia in China is ironically censoring *the rest of the world* from hearing the voice of the Chinese people. --Jimbo