[Foundation-l] and what if...

[Judson Dunn]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:23 PM, Michael Peel <email at mikepeel.net> wrote:
> IMO, the best approach would be to have a channel (a phone number, an
> email address, etc...) where governments can contact the WMF to
> request that certain pages are blocked in certain countries. These
> entries can then be publicly listed, so that people know that they
> are censored, and when a censored page is requested a notice should
> be displayed instead saying that the page is censored.
>

Under no circumstances is this acceptable. The Foundation's mission is
to collect knowledge and content and distribute it globally and
effectively. Self censorship is anathema to our goals, motivations,
and culture. Wikipedia is about spreading knowledge and information
around the world, in every language. This is a dangerous, brave
proposition, and one we cannot become complacent in.

Make no mistake, the free dissemination of all human knowledge to
every person on the planet is a fight. The forces that would spread
ignorance as a means of control, and separation are always fighting
back. The idea that we should acquiesce in that fight, and censor our
own information from people that are searching for that knowledge is
disgusting, and would cause a substantial backlash against the
Foundation.

> I don't like the idea of censoring at all, but it seems to be
> required in today's world. We can't do much about that.

No, it's not required, and there is an endless number of things we can
do about it. That defeatist anti-democratic view may be prevalent in
some parts of the world, but there are people willing to stand up
against harmful government action in opposition of the will of the
people.

Judson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion