[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

[Keegan Peterzell]

When Wikipedias black out, we remove knowledge from the world to protest
censorship.  We censor ourselves, why are we meta-complaining about what
others do with the knowledge we provide.

Our mission, as Wikimedians, is to provide the sum of all human knowledge
to the world for free.  Knowledge should not be monetized, knowledge should
not be politicized.  In the short game, meaning a good part of our
life-times, free knowledge will not defeat knowledge or money.  All we can
do is offer it as a chance to learn.

Mobile partnerships to provide either Zero or mobile versions of the
websites are providing a generation that completely missed the personal
computer, et alone the Encyclopedias we hold so dear, to access Wikipedia
and other projects.  We cannot be in the position to determine the
censorship levels of what we provide, that is politics.  We are above that.
 All we can do is make these opportunities available and trust that
knowledge is free, and it will spread.

Demanding accountability is good, it is transparency.  Pushing the envelope
that is past the umbrella of our mission is political, and a complete red
herring to what these partnerships mean.

-- 
~Keegan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan