BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group,
says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities.
NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar
starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is
"part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the
military junta."
Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet,
suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and
French, Wikidata, and
wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may
intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all
language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The
picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four different
internet service providers in Myanmar.
It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects
using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by
blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All
Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by
censors to implement a block.
Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable
increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs
on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto
Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a
message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP
block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol,
allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set
up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag
is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of
Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access.
Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world.
The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February
\1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook
and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs
reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks
says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the
internet shut down during the nights.
This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries
that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked
Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019.
In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the
Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had
delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member"
of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the
block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the
Iranian and Turkish authorities had done.
The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia
Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also
yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two
weeks before the military coup.
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[1]:
https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409
[2]:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China