Hi everyone,
My name is Amanda Keton, the new General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. While Katherine is inflight traveling back from a busy week of community meetings in Chile, I wanted to share the exciting news that today, we have started to receive reports that the block of Wikipedia in Turkey is being lifted, data which is also indicated by our internal traffic reports. After more than two and a half years, access to Wikipedia has been restored in Turkey - and on a timely occasion, as we celebrate Wikipedia’s 19th birthday today!
Please join me in welcoming back our friends and colleagues from Turkey. While many have remained active during the block, restoring access to Wikipedia will allow thousands more to return in the days and weeks ahead. It is our shared responsibility and honor to help make them feel welcome again and make sure they know how much we missed them. I am confident that our community will successfully welcome them back with open arms. I know we have community members around the world who have been eagerly looking forward to the block being lifted and brainstorming activities to celebrate, and I welcome them to share their ideas as we move forward.
Our case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is also still pending, and remains important even in light of the unblock as a way to continue advocating for strong protections for free expression online. We will continue to post updates about the next steps in our case before the ECHR on the Wikimedia Foundation website. We have also published a statement to reflect that access has now been restored in Turkey. [1]
Thank you all for your efforts, kind words, and encouraging thoughts as we worked to restore access to Wikipedia in Turkey. I want to thank our Turkish community, in particular, for their patience, resolution, and continued participation in the movement during the more than two and a half years Wikipedia was inaccessible. This was a prolonged global effort, on behalf of free knowledge everywhere.
Of course, there are other blocks around the world still in place, and our efforts in addressing this type of censorship of knowledge is far from over. That said, I hope all of you will celebrate this momentous accomplishment for free knowledge today and join me in welcoming back the people of Turkey to our projects, movement, and community.
With gratitude,
Amanda
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2020/01/16/access-to-wikipedia-restored...