[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East

[Theo10011]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Yann Forget <yannfo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> This announcement is worrying, to say the least.
> In other words, the Wikimedia Foundation is doing a partnership with
> one of the most retrograde government, which is also a regular censor
> on Internet content.
> How could you justify that?


Hi Yann

It's not a partnership with the government, it's with a telecom company to
allow its subscriber in KSA (MENA region), free and easy access to
Wikipedia. KSA is a big part of the middle-east region, the political
reasons aside this helps the public get better access to Wikipedia. There
is no reason why we should not increase availability for the general public.

I'm not sure about the stance against this either, if a government is
trying to censor and restrict access, we should do what? not help provide
access to their citizens, not increase availability? how would that help
the situation? This is a way of working with the current situation and
perhaps around it, its about providing free access to people in the region,
which is probably the best thing to do at the time.

Regards
Theo