2011/10/4 emijrp emijrp@gmail.com
Hi all;
The events regarding Italian Wikipedia blanking[1][2] of all its content are a serious precedent IMHO. They can make a lot of noise using other procedures, like a big blinking site notice, but giving no choice to read the content is against the main goal of Wikipedia.[3]
Italian Wikipedia has about 500,000 page views per hour,[4] and readers are getting worried about how long is this going to last. A global encyclopedia managed in these ways is not trustworthy. This is worst in public image than any gender, global south or image filtering media flame war.
Furthermore, this only make me more concerned about the missing updated, secure and trustworthy mirrors of Wikipedia content.
Fortunately, you still can read the mobile version, but it is "limited".[5] (Please, spread the word about this)
1: In 1995 the famous Russian TV journalist [[Vladislav Listyev]] was murdered. A day after the murder most Russian TV channels were blanked for a whole day in protest against the rampaging lawlessness and violence. As far as i know, most people who watched TV in Russian - in Russia, as well as in Israel, Germany and elsewhere - identified with the protest.
2: A few weeks ago the Israeli court required the Channel 10, a Hebrew TV channel, to apologize to the millionaire [[Sheldon Adelson]] after broadcasting a journalistic investigation that showed him in negative light. The channel tried to claim that the investigation was well-based, but broadcast an apology nevertheless. A few minutes after the apology the news presenter Guy Zohar told the viewers that he quits his position in Channel 10 in response to the events; in addition, the news bulletin ended with blank credits list. The whole thing took about 30 seconds and received wide attention iring the few days after that.
3: Is this Italian law proposal as bad as a murder of a journalist? As bad as a court-forced TV apology? Maybe it is and maybe it is not. I know too little about this affair to state an opinion here; I am just giving a couple of cross-cultural points of comparison.
-- Amir