[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

[Ciphers Wikip]

>Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose
> censorship in KSA.
> This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is
> implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution,
> even if it is not directly involved in censorship.

I guess I can see your point there, Yan.
But please let me ask you this question :
What do you think is the best way to teach people what the word "freedom"
means?

-- Ciphers
Note : I have been following this list for a while, but this is the first
time I feel like posting something here. Apologize in advance if  my
comments are not in the scope of this list, and I wish posting using my
wiki username won`t bother anyone.

Message: 7
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:56:35 +0530
From: Yann Forget <yannfo at gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [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
Message-ID:
        <CAKcJoPkc2n2xxORSciK2n9eeHT2Tr36yFNLcKcF_i7K5-pu1vQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

2012/10/16 Theo10011 <de10011 at gmail.com>:
> 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

Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose
censorship in KSA.
This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is
implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution,
even if it is not directly involved in censorship.

Yann

> 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
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