On 11/22/05, Walter van Kalken <walter(a)vankalken.net> wrote:
I will send it again as I have a feeling I am being
ignored
As I was told that we shouldn't do anything so the Chinese wikipedia
would get unblocked I am curious ...... is it still blocked? If so I
feel we should change tactics.
A letter was sent by Wikipedian Shizhao in Beijing to the relevant ISP
to request the site to be unblocked.
You might also find this recent post from Jimbo interesting.
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