Authorities in Myanmar blocks all languages of Wikipedia, says internet freedom watchdog = Qiuwen - Wikimedia-l

20 Feb 2021


      BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group, 
says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities.
NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar 
starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is 
"part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the 
military junta."
Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet, 
suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and 
French, Wikidata, and wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may 
intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all 
language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The 
picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four different 
internet service providers in Myanmar.
It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects 
using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by 
blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All 
Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by 
censors to implement a block.
Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable 
increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs 
on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto 
Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a 
message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP 
block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol, 
allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set 
up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag 
is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of 
Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access.
Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world. 
The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February 
\1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook 
and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs 
reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks 
says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the 
internet shut down during the nights.
This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries 
that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked 
Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019. 
In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the 
Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had 
delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member" 
of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the 
block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the 
Iranian and Turkish authorities had done.
The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia 
Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also 
yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two 
weeks before the military coup.
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Qiuwen is a news service operated by the Wikimedians of Mainland China user group[2]. 
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[1]: https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409
[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China