Hello,
Thank you to everyone who participated and supported the #WeMissTurkey efforts marking the one-year anniversary of the block in Turkey of all language versions of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed to restoring access to Wikipedia in full, upholding our values and stance against censorship, and supporting the local Wikimedia community in Turkey.
As part of our ongoing efforts, we have been monitoring discussions and mentions in the media around Wikipedia in Turkey. Last Friday, May 18, the Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communications, Ahmet Arslan, made a number of incorrect comments[0] to the press in Turkey about Wikimedia and the block of Wikipedia. Minister Arslan’s position includes oversight of the BTK, the Internet Regulatory Agency that sought the block of Wikipedia.
The Foundation has replied to the Minister’s statements with an open letter sent to the Minister and shared with the media who covered the Minister's statements. The statement has also been shared with the local Wikimedia community in Turkey, and we have posted it on the Wikimedia Blog in both English[1] and Turkish[2] to address any further public confusion.
We will continue to keep you updated as we work with the local community to monitor the situation, and take appropriate actions to restore access to Wikipedia in Turkey.
Thank you, Eileen
[0] https://www.ntv.com.tr/teknoloji/bakan-ahmet-arslandan-wikipedia- aciklamasi,UaPHfIgSq0yDPoVfXo5SOw [1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/22/a-letter-to- minister-ahmet-arslan/ [2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/tr/2018/05/22/bakan-ahmet-arslan- vikipedi-dunyadaki-herkes-tarafindan-gelistirilmeye-aciktir-ve-turkiyedeki- editorler-icin-de-acik-olmalidir/
Hi Eileen,
Thanks for the follow up and for the nice letter that you wrote to the Turkish Minister. There is something I do not understand about Turkey's block and maybe you (or somebody else) could offer some insights about it.
Apparently the ban was issued because it was felt that Turkey was misrepresented in some articles. My question is, why didn't they block only the offending articles (as they did in the past with other articles) instead of the whole site?
Regards, David
On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 12:22 AM, Eileen Hershenov <ehershenov@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hello,
Thank you to everyone who participated and supported the #WeMissTurkey efforts marking the one-year anniversary of the block in Turkey of all language versions of Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation remains committed to restoring access to Wikipedia in full, upholding our values and stance against censorship, and supporting the local Wikimedia community in Turkey.
As part of our ongoing efforts, we have been monitoring discussions and mentions in the media around Wikipedia in Turkey. Last Friday, May 18, the Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communications, Ahmet Arslan, made a number of incorrect comments[0] to the press in Turkey about Wikimedia and the block of Wikipedia. Minister Arslan’s position includes oversight of the BTK, the Internet Regulatory Agency that sought the block of Wikipedia.
The Foundation has replied to the Minister’s statements with an open letter sent to the Minister and shared with the media who covered the Minister's statements. The statement has also been shared with the local Wikimedia community in Turkey, and we have posted it on the Wikimedia Blog in both English[1] and Turkish[2] to address any further public confusion.
We will continue to keep you updated as we work with the local community to monitor the situation, and take appropriate actions to restore access to Wikipedia in Turkey.
Thank you, Eileen
[0] https://www.ntv.com.tr/teknoloji/bakan-ahmet-arslandan-wikipedia- aciklamasi,UaPHfIgSq0yDPoVfXo5SOw [1] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/05/22/a-letter-to- minister-ahmet-arslan/ [2] https://blog.wikimedia.org/tr/2018/05/22/bakan-ahmet-arslan- vikipedi-dunyadaki-herkes-tarafindan-gelistirilmeye- aciktir-ve-turkiyedeki- editorler-icin-de-acik-olmalidir/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 12:55 AM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Eileen,
Thanks for the follow up and for the nice letter that you wrote to the Turkish Minister. There is something I do not understand about Turkey's block and maybe you (or somebody else) could offer some insights about it.
Apparently the ban was issued because it was felt that Turkey was misrepresented in some articles. My question is, why didn't they block only the offending articles (as they did in the past with other articles) instead of the whole site?
Regards, David
One of the effects of Wikipedia's HTTPS-only policy is that ISPs, the Turkish government, and other parties who may be monitoring traffic can't see the contents of the traffic – they can only see a connection between your machine and "wikipedia.org". The option to selectively block traffic doesn't exist because they can't see what that traffic even is.
So why not allow HTTP-only connections if it gives the Turkish government the option to block the articles it wants and letting the others through? Political implications of that aside, the result is that a user couldn't really guarantee what they were reading was Wikipedia. Which is to say, the policy of only allowing access to Wikipedia over a secure connection is how Wikipedia guarantees that you are actually reading Wikipedia and not Wikipedia plus injected propaganda or injected advertisements or what have you.
---- James Hare Associate Product Manager Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org
Thanks for the explanation, James!
On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 10:06 AM, James Hare jhare@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 12:55 AM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Eileen,
Thanks for the follow up and for the nice letter that you wrote to the Turkish Minister. There is something I do not understand about Turkey's block and maybe you (or somebody else) could offer some insights about
it.
Apparently the ban was issued because it was felt that Turkey was misrepresented in some articles. My question is, why didn't they block
only
the offending articles (as they did in the past with other articles) instead of the whole site?
Regards, David
One of the effects of Wikipedia's HTTPS-only policy is that ISPs, the Turkish government, and other parties who may be monitoring traffic can't see the contents of the traffic – they can only see a connection between your machine and "wikipedia.org". The option to selectively block traffic doesn't exist because they can't see what that traffic even is.
So why not allow HTTP-only connections if it gives the Turkish government the option to block the articles it wants and letting the others through? Political implications of that aside, the result is that a user couldn't really guarantee what they were reading was Wikipedia. Which is to say, the policy of only allowing access to Wikipedia over a secure connection is how Wikipedia guarantees that you are actually reading Wikipedia and not Wikipedia plus injected propaganda or injected advertisements or what have you.
James Hare Associate Product Manager Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I think they can see the subdomain too (i.e. en.wikipedia.org or tr.wikipedia.org) but yeah.
On Thu, 24 May 2018, 09:13 James Hare, jhare@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 12:55 AM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Eileen,
Thanks for the follow up and for the nice letter that you wrote to the Turkish Minister. There is something I do not understand about Turkey's block and maybe you (or somebody else) could offer some insights about
it.
Apparently the ban was issued because it was felt that Turkey was misrepresented in some articles. My question is, why didn't they block
only
the offending articles (as they did in the past with other articles) instead of the whole site?
Regards, David
One of the effects of Wikipedia's HTTPS-only policy is that ISPs, the Turkish government, and other parties who may be monitoring traffic can't see the contents of the traffic – they can only see a connection between your machine and "wikipedia.org". The option to selectively block traffic doesn't exist because they can't see what that traffic even is.
So why not allow HTTP-only connections if it gives the Turkish government the option to block the articles it wants and letting the others through? Political implications of that aside, the result is that a user couldn't really guarantee what they were reading was Wikipedia. Which is to say, the policy of only allowing access to Wikipedia over a secure connection is how Wikipedia guarantees that you are actually reading Wikipedia and not Wikipedia plus injected propaganda or injected advertisements or what have you.
James Hare Associate Product Manager Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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