Chinese Ban on Wikipedia Prevents Research

An anonymous reader writes "China has banned access to Wikipedia for the third time, outraging students and intellectuals." From the article: "The latest blocking of the website, the third shutdown of the site in China in the past two years, has now continued for more than 10 weeks without any explanation and without any indication whether the ban is temporary or permanent ... Others said the blocking of Wikipedia has been a major blow to their research projects and even to their prospects of passing civil-service exams. 'How can I do my thesis now?' a university student asked on another Chinese website."

Comments

Back to (Tiananmen) Square One?

[eldavojohn]

I guess we wait for another Tiananmen Square to happen again. It kind of makes one wonder what exactly was accomplished in 1989 when 100,000 protesters marched in Beijing. Appearantly not much.

While the U.S. is concerned with this, maybe we should instead be concerned with that?

Either way, if you're interested in what the U.S. is concerned about, maybe you should read documents made available by the Freedom of Information Act.

What are people supposed to do if they cannot free themselves from a suppressive government? It's not worth violence to be able to read wikipedia but it's clear that non-violent protests in the past did very little.

Re:Back to (Tiananmen) Square One?

[edunbar93]

It kind of makes one wonder what exactly was accomplished in 1989 when 100,000 protesters marched in Beijing. Appearantly not much.

Oh no, there was *lots* accomplished by this protest, and the massacre that ensued.

The Chinese government proved to its citizenry that There Are Certain Things You Will Not Talk About.

The Chinese government proved to the rest of the world that it doesn't give a rat's ass what anyone else thinks about how They Run Their Country.

The American (and Canadian, and probably others too) government proved that they will walk on eggshells around the issue of free speech and human rights with China in order to get lucrative trade deals.

The Chinese government basically proved that not only can they crush dissent in *their* country, but in others too.

Re:Back to (Tiananmen) Square One?

[Stargoat]

"The Chinese seem to be okay without civil rights..." Tell that to my family, you sunvabitch. And there have been people like you before, "They don't need civil rights, they're black." Or "They shouldn't rush things like this, getting civil liberties is a process that takes time."

There can be no happiness without freedom. You have no idea what it is like to know that if the police come knocking, you need to hand over a thousand yuan or a loved one disappears. You don't know what it means to have classmates beaten so badly they leave police stations brain damaged and half dead, with no recourse. You don't know what it's like when the state owned company you worked for for 30 years decide that it is not going to pay the heat in the winter and the heating company turns it off and will not turn the heat back on for any amount of money. You have no idea what it is like to be required by law to work 80 hour weeks because the company you are at has decided that it's employees can produce more. You don't know what it's like to listen to your daughter call, worried about the riots in your city, only to be told by state run media that there are not any.

You seem to forget just how oppressive a Communist regime and a dictator can be. There is economic growth in China, and it is not trickling down. A few have become rich; most Chinese were better off sixty years ago under the KMT. All property and all rights in China are illusory.

There is no freedom in China. There is no happiness in China.

Wikipedia may not always be the best choice

[erick99]

I do enjoy using Wikipedia for day-to-day use but I would not have used it for either of my Masters Thesis' as I don't think either oral defense committee would have accepted Wiki as an authoritative source. Perhaps that is different from school to school. Still, I wonder about the student puzzling how he/she will finish a thesis. I would suggest using mostly journal articles.

Re:Wikipedia may not always be the best choice

[MoonFog]

I found Wikipedia to be an excellent starting point on several issues when I was writing my thesis, but I did not use it as the source itself. The explanations on wikipedia are often very good and will give some insight into a topic you can explore further with more indepth research papers.

If this guy's thesis depends on Wikipedia...

[winkydink]

then one has to question the quality of Chinese degrees.

Quit Whining!

[Shadow Wrought]

They may have blocked wikipedia, but they still have the uncyclopedia as a backup, so they should be good to go on their research- especially considering today's WotD;-)

Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[Roadkills-R-Us]

I don't know if China as we know it is more doomed by their absurd governmental policies, or by the fact that their uyounger generation's research seems to depend on the archived wisdom of random people on the street. I'll grant Wikipedia is getting better, but (a) to depend on it as a primary source of scholarship at this point is absurd and (b) even in China, especially at universities, there are other options.

Unless one's thesis is on the Wikipedia, anyone depending oslely on Wikipedia for research needs a reality slap.

In other news...

[hosecoat]

"'How can I do my thesis now?' a university student asked on another Chinese website."

China's response was to block the 'other Chinese website' as well.

Re:Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[eldavojohn]

Unless one's thesis is on the Wikipedia, anyone depending oslely on Wikipedia for research needs a reality slap.

I don't think it's really fair for you to say something like this unless you live in China and get along fine with the suppression of websites.

Afterall, I've found very helpful things on Wikipedia. I just wrote a Hidden Markov Model using the Viterbi Algorithm and did it from scratch in Java using WordNet and this page. Am I saying I could write a paper off of Wikipedia? No, but when that's all you have to work with, it may be more important than you think.

Re:Remember the tanks

[susano_otter]

The thing about death is, the only thing you can do about it is laugh.

It's inevitable. What are you going to do? Spend your time moping about the end in store for you? Or live your life with verve and panache?

"Was he inspired by the Rage cover"? Good stuff.

Almost as good as that Fark p-shop showing the Vietnamese general holding a Starbucks coffee mug to the head of a captured Viet Cong guerrilla. That was comedy gold.

Re:Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[pla]

I don't think it's really fair for you to say something like this unless you live in China and get along fine with the suppression of websites.

Do you live in the US?

Can you legally visit child porn sites (or if certain people have their way, ANY porn sites in the near future)?

Oh, but that breaks the law, you no doubt protest... Well, guess who writes the law? The government. And China has one of those as well, to write their laws.

But perhaps you'd prefer a more "fair" comparison? Okay...

Can you go download Grokster? Visit I2Hub? LokiTorrent? Run the original Napster client (successfully)?

All societies have taboos, and all societies believe that those taboos protect either all of society or the target of the taboo. Sometimes that holds true, and sometimes it does not.

In the US, we believe in practically ANYTHING justified by "for the kids". We believe corporate profit and domestic security trump personal freedoms. We believe we have quite a lot of rights that the courts regularly laugh out of court.

China believes certain religious, political, and economic philosophies constitute a grave danger to their society. And actually, they have that correct, in that at least on the political and economic front, those banned ideas will eventually destroy their existing government. But if you replace "democracy" with "theocracy", "Falun Gong" with "Radical Islam", and "capitalism" with "socialism", can Americans really claim themselves as so much more enlightened?

Re:Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[warkda rrior]

[...] if you replace [...] "Falun Gong" with "Radical Islam" [...] can Americans really claim themselves as so much more enlightened?

This parallel kills your whole argument.

Falun Gong has not killed anyone and, as far as I know, does not promote killing people who do follow Falun Gong. On the other hand, Radical Islam has killed people and continuously promotes killing the "infidels" who do not believe in Radical Islam.

Apples... oranges...

Re:Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[syukton]

UMass student admits "Little Red Book" Hoax:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510754

In addition to forgetting, you also evidently didn't do any due diligence on the linked material.

Re:Doomed. Doomed, I tell you!

[misleb]

Is any of it due to government cencorship?
No.

Of course it is. The government censors child pornography. You can't view it, you can't dispplay it, you can't trade it. What else would you call this besides censorship?

Please be careful distinguishing government intervention and bulk censorship (as opposed to personal responsibility) .

So if it isn't done "bulk," it isn't censorship? What about broadcast TV, isn't that censored? Don't the networks have to pass their material by censors before they can put it on the air? Should we change their job title because you are uncomfortable with the fact that the US government employs censorship to some degree? You might argue that the networks hire their own censors, but what rules do you think the censors go by... the FCC, right?

with perfectly sane laws quite endorsed by the society

From what I understand, "bulk" censorship is quite endorsed by the majority of the Chinese population. Just as censorship of child pornography is quite endorsed by the majority of the US population.

Is it legal to commit murder? No
Is it legal to threaten with murder? No
Is it legal to think about murder? Yes

Cencorship begins only when that last question has to be answered with a "no".

Hardly. Even the Chinese are allowed to think about the things that are censored. They might be oppressed, but they don't quite have thought police yet.

-matthew