I submitted the proposal to be able to eliminate certain parts of the articles in certain countries, where the local governments find those parts illegal: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62231 But it got rejected, and I am not sure I am clear why.
The problem is that there are countries that lack the freedom of speech (most of the countries), and some of them get very aggressive about banning materials that most reasonable people wouldn't find objectionable. The very recent example, provided in the bug report above, is banning of any references of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in Russia. While this case may seem not as important, but I don't see why users outside Russia should be affected by such decision, when they may not even support any decisions or values of the said government. Yet, everybody's version of wikipedia page is affected, and materials are hidden.
My suggestion, if implemented, would allow to hide certain parts of the articles in the country (or area) of jurisdiction of the corresponding court, while allowing users not living there to still see the original version.
If such governments get their way in banning materials globally, this will effectively make wikipedia biased, and reflecting various POVs of various courts, which has never been intended by wikipedia.
Yuri
On 03/04/2014 10:50 PM, Yuri wrote:
But it got rejected, and I am not sure I am clear why.
I haven't opined on the specific bug, but I would also have rejected it. The reason why is simple: it goes exactly opposite everything the projects stand for.
Our mission isn't "collect all of the knowledge but only show some of it to some people, depending on the whims of random governments (or some people's interpretations of those whims)".
We might not be able to prevent some entities from censoring us; but we certainly should not do it for them.
-- Marc
I think that if you stop to think about it another way, you'll find that this would do the opposite of what you intend, to wit: allowing "various courts" to impose editorial control.
Imagine Circletine, once a popular childhood beverage but now the issue of some controversy regarding its tendency to cause tooth loss. Although banned from sale in Europe and the United States, an aggressive marketing campaign has made it the best-selling soft drink in the nation of Elbonia. Equally aggressive lobbying in the Elbonian parliament has resulted it in being a crime to disparage Circletine in any way, or even to mention the controversy in print.
And so we have our article:
'''Circletine''' is a <bannedin country="elbonia">controversial</bannedin> milk flavoring product made from malt extract, curds, and whey, <bannedin country="elbonia">once</bannedin> extremely popular worldwide
<bannedin country="elbonia">Although it enjoyed several decades of success as an inexpensive beverage marketed mostly for children, concerns over an increased risk of tooth loss led to its withdrawal from sale in most western countries.</bannedin>
(I think you can see where this is going.)
Censorship is awful, but partial censorship is worse than simply saying "I'm not allowed to talk about it. Ask your government why."
Austin
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Yuri yuri@rawbw.com wrote:
I submitted the proposal to be able to eliminate certain parts of the articles in certain countries, where the local governments find those parts illegal: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62231 But it got rejected, and I am not sure I am clear why.
The problem is that there are countries that lack the freedom of speech (most of the countries), and some of them get very aggressive about banning materials that most reasonable people wouldn't find objectionable. The very recent example, provided in the bug report above, is banning of any references of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in Russia. While this case may seem not as important, but I don't see why users outside Russia should be affected by such decision, when they may not even support any decisions or values of the said government. Yet, everybody's version of wikipedia page is affected, and materials are hidden.
My suggestion, if implemented, would allow to hide certain parts of the articles in the country (or area) of jurisdiction of the corresponding court, while allowing users not living there to still see the original version.
If such governments get their way in banning materials globally, this will effectively make wikipedia biased, and reflecting various POVs of various courts, which has never been intended by wikipedia.
Yuri
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Exactly this.
If the government of any given country wants to redirect certain articles, or all of Wikipedia, to a page saying "This content blocked by the Ministry of Knowledge", people will know they're being censored. If instead they reach a "sanitized" version of the article reflecting the government's preferred spin, we're putting that government's spin in our voice. That's not at all acceptable.
Let them censor, let them make it obvious, and let them deal with the fallout. But we should absolutely not help them in any way whatsoever.
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:30 PM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
I think that if you stop to think about it another way, you'll find that this would do the opposite of what you intend, to wit: allowing "various courts" to impose editorial control.
Imagine Circletine, once a popular childhood beverage but now the issue of some controversy regarding its tendency to cause tooth loss. Although banned from sale in Europe and the United States, an aggressive marketing campaign has made it the best-selling soft drink in the nation of Elbonia. Equally aggressive lobbying in the Elbonian parliament has resulted it in being a crime to disparage Circletine in any way, or even to mention the controversy in print.
And so we have our article:
'''Circletine''' is a <bannedin country="elbonia">controversial</bannedin> milk flavoring product made from malt extract, curds, and whey, <bannedin country="elbonia">once</bannedin> extremely popular worldwide
<bannedin country="elbonia">Although it enjoyed several decades of success as an inexpensive beverage marketed mostly for children, concerns over an increased risk of tooth loss led to its withdrawal from sale in most western countries.</bannedin>
(I think you can see where this is going.)
Censorship is awful, but partial censorship is worse than simply saying "I'm not allowed to talk about it. Ask your government why."
Austin
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Yuri yuri@rawbw.com wrote:
I submitted the proposal to be able to eliminate certain parts of the articles in certain countries, where the local governments find those
parts
illegal: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62231 But it got rejected, and I am not sure I am clear why.
The problem is that there are countries that lack the freedom of speech (most of the countries), and some of them get very aggressive about
banning
materials that most reasonable people wouldn't find objectionable. The
very
recent example, provided in the bug report above, is banning of any references of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in Russia. While this case may seem not as important, but I don't see why users outside Russia
should
be affected by such decision, when they may not even support any
decisions
or values of the said government. Yet, everybody's version of wikipedia
page
is affected, and materials are hidden.
My suggestion, if implemented, would allow to hide certain parts of the articles in the country (or area) of jurisdiction of the corresponding court, while allowing users not living there to still see the original version.
If such governments get their way in banning materials globally, this
will
effectively make wikipedia biased, and reflecting various POVs of various courts, which has never been intended by wikipedia.
Yuri
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Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn’t (shouldn’t) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed differently from a culture to another but that’s a cultural question not related to censorship.
Moreover it would be a censorship practice close to the Ministry of Truth in 1984 where the newspapers are re-printed afterwards to modify the past History.
~ Seb35
Le mercredi 5 mars 2014 05:37:25 (CET), Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com a écrit :
Exactly this.
If the government of any given country wants to redirect certain articles, or all of Wikipedia, to a page saying "This content blocked by the Ministry of Knowledge", people will know they're being censored. If instead they reach a "sanitized" version of the article reflecting the government's preferred spin, we're putting that government's spin in our voice. That's not at all acceptable.
Let them censor, let them make it obvious, and let them deal with the fallout. But we should absolutely not help them in any way whatsoever.
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:30 PM, Austin Hair adhair@gmail.com wrote:
I think that if you stop to think about it another way, you'll find that this would do the opposite of what you intend, to wit: allowing "various courts" to impose editorial control.
Imagine Circletine, once a popular childhood beverage but now the issue of some controversy regarding its tendency to cause tooth loss. Although banned from sale in Europe and the United States, an aggressive marketing campaign has made it the best-selling soft drink in the nation of Elbonia. Equally aggressive lobbying in the Elbonian parliament has resulted it in being a crime to disparage Circletine in any way, or even to mention the controversy in print.
And so we have our article:
'''Circletine''' is a <bannedin country="elbonia">controversial</bannedin> milk flavoring product made from malt extract, curds, and whey, <bannedin country="elbonia">once</bannedin> extremely popular worldwide
<bannedin country="elbonia">Although it enjoyed several decades of success as an inexpensive beverage marketed mostly for children, concerns over an increased risk of tooth loss led to its withdrawal from sale in most western countries.</bannedin>
(I think you can see where this is going.)
Censorship is awful, but partial censorship is worse than simply saying "I'm not allowed to talk about it. Ask your government why."
Austin
On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Yuri yuri@rawbw.com wrote:
I submitted the proposal to be able to eliminate certain parts of the articles in certain countries, where the local governments find those
parts
illegal: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62231 But it got rejected, and I am not sure I am clear why.
The problem is that there are countries that lack the freedom of
speech
(most of the countries), and some of them get very aggressive about
banning
materials that most reasonable people wouldn't find objectionable. The
very
recent example, provided in the bug report above, is banning of any references of Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in Russia. While this
case
may seem not as important, but I don't see why users outside Russia
should
be affected by such decision, when they may not even support any
decisions
or values of the said government. Yet, everybody's version of
wikipedia page
is affected, and materials are hidden.
My suggestion, if implemented, would allow to hide certain parts of
the
articles in the country (or area) of jurisdiction of the corresponding court, while allowing users not living there to still see the original version.
If such governments get their way in banning materials globally, this
will
effectively make wikipedia biased, and reflecting various POVs of
various
courts, which has never been intended by wikipedia.
Yuri
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On 03/10/2014 11:30, Seb35 wrote:
Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn’t (shouldn’t) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed differently from a culture to another but that’s a cultural question not related to censorship.
Moreover it would be a censorship practice close to the Ministry of Truth in 1984 where the newspapers are re-printed afterwards to modify the past History.
This is exactly the point: when local governments attempt to twist the truth, they are currently able to do this for all readers, regardless of the location. This feature would allow to explicitly twist the truth in specific areas where this twisting is legally required, while preserving the real version for everyone else. In a way, it will also keep the registry of altered information, while now there is no such way and alterations are just swallowed.
Yuri
Le lundi 10 mars 2014 21:03:20 (CET), Yuri yuri@rawbw.com a écrit :
On 03/10/2014 11:30, Seb35 wrote:
Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn’t (shouldn’t) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed differently from a culture to another but that’s a cultural question not related to censorship.
Moreover it would be a censorship practice close to the Ministry of Truth in 1984 where the newspapers are re-printed afterwards to modify the past History.
This is exactly the point: when local governments attempt to twist the truth, they are currently able to do this for all readers, regardless of the location. This feature would allow to explicitly twist the truth in specific areas where this twisting is legally required, while preserving the real version for everyone else. In a way, it will also keep the registry of altered information, while now there is no such way and alterations are just swallowed.
I’m not convinced by this method (quite difficult technically as said on the bug) because of the abuse ti could lead: if a government doesn’t like a version of an article (example given by Austin Hair), it would be too easy to find a random volunteer in the country to hide the unwanted parts. As a real example in the DCRI affair last year, if such a feature would have existed I guess the affair would have received a smaller attention from the international movement and the "censorship" would have worked better.
I understand your intention with this system, but I find it’s not a good response to the problem; I find a better response is to encourage and help the free speech associations, like what was done during SOPA/PIPA.
~ Seb35
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Seb35 seb35wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Le lundi 10 mars 2014 21:03:20 (CET), Yuri yuri@rawbw.com a écrit :
On 03/10/2014 11:30, Seb35 wrote:
Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn't (shouldn't) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed differently from a culture to another but that's a cultural question not related to censorship.
<snip>
I understand your intention with this system, but I find it's not a good response to the problem; I find a better response is to encourage and help the free speech associations, like what was done during SOPA/PIPA.
I absolutely agree with your sentiment, as I'm sure most do, but I'm willing to challenge the English Wikipedia SOPA/PIPA blackout as a good example. The community took its content hostage (IMO :) ) in order to prove a point to the US Congress, despite the English Wikipedia serving the world. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. I spoke about it at Wikimania 2012 in a panel discussion and I still don't think that reaction was appropriate.
Knowledge is, as you said, not dependent on government. I don't think the WMF (spoken as a volunteer) or Wikimedians should support community responses to censorship with censorship ourselves. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. Sorry, Yuri, I understand it's best intentions, but education is the magic bullet.
It was intended not just to challenge the US government, but to be an example for elsewhere,and it has been that.
On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:40 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Seb35 seb35wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:
Le lundi 10 mars 2014 21:03:20 (CET), Yuri yuri@rawbw.com a écrit :
On 03/10/2014 11:30, Seb35 wrote:
Another point of view is that the knowledge doesn't (shouldn't) depend in any way of the local government -- possibly it can be viewed
differently
from a culture to another but that's a cultural question not related to censorship.
<snip>
I understand your intention with this system, but I find it's not a good response to the problem; I find a better response is to encourage and
help
the free speech associations, like what was done during SOPA/PIPA.
I absolutely agree with your sentiment, as I'm sure most do, but I'm willing to challenge the English Wikipedia SOPA/PIPA blackout as a good example. The community took its content hostage (IMO :) ) in order to prove a point to the US Congress, despite the English Wikipedia serving the world. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. I spoke about it at Wikimania 2012 in a panel discussion and I still don't think that reaction was appropriate.
Knowledge is, as you said, not dependent on government. I don't think the WMF (spoken as a volunteer) or Wikimedians should support community responses to censorship with censorship ourselves. We've had two years to learn since SOPA/PIPA with other communities. Sorry, Yuri, I understand it's best intentions, but education is the magic bullet.
-- ~Keegan
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