[Wikipedia-l] China WP access (was: What would Richard Stallman say?)

[Andrew Lih]

> From:       Gareth Owen <wiki () gwowen ! freeserve ! co ! uk>
>>"Hr. Daniel Mikkelsen" <daniel at copyleft.no> writes:
>> It's entirely conceivable that a large country (say France) would
make it
>> illegal to access Wikipedia for its citizens

> A large country has.  China's great firewall blocks much of wikipedia.
> We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the Chinese government.
> We *could* amend it so that its acceptable to the French government.
 
> Personally, I'm not in favour of that.

I don't want to let this stand without comment.  What is your source for
the fact that China "blocks much of wikipedia"?

It is actually quite well know that (astonishingly) China does NOT block
Wikipedia now, and a quick check with zh.wikipedia.org denizens confirms
this. Folks are accessing Wikipedia from Beijing, Guangdong, Shenzhen
and smaller cities/universities inside China.

I'm not a PRC apologist by any means, but let's go with what the facts
bear out.

Andrew Lih
Journalism and Media Studies Centre
University of Hong Kong