Wikipedia Won't Bow to Chinese Censors

truthsearch writes "Jimmy Wales has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive Wikipedia entries. He challenges other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing. Wikipedia has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia. 'We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information.'"

Comments

Re:As if the US doesnt censor internet

[RvLeshrac]

Hezbollah and Falun Gong are equally responsible for the actions of their respective members.

By that standard, they have both either:

a) Not "killed" anyone, assuming (as one must in such a situation) that references to "killed" should be read as "murdered." , or

b) Murdered large numbers of individuals, as Falun Gong practitioners regularly engage in holistic/homeopathic medicine, which kills large numbers of people all around the world... in addition to a small number of terroristic events involving branches of Falun Gong, if not directly attributed to Falun Gong en totale.

It should be stated here that I do not approve of the actions undertaken by Hezbollah, Israel, the United States of America, Falun Gong, or China in the related matters.

Re:As if the US doesnt censor internet

[ghoul]

The websites were shutdown as part of a law the US congress passed in February to target Iran , Syria and Hezbollah. I think it was called the Syria-Iran relations act. The logic used was the Al-Manar TV station website promoted al-Manar thus earning money for Hezbollah which the US government interprets as supporting terrorism (this is kind of like saying if CNN shows people in little Havan a marching and calling for Fidel Castro's overthroew we should shut down CNN.com) Once we start treating free speech as optional depending on whether it offends our friends or not we are on a very slippery slope. Next we might start shutting down holocaust websites as it hurts the feeling of neo-Nazi followers.

Re:As if the US doesnt censor internet

[RvLeshrac]

I'm simply stating facts, not making moral decisions in the matter. Murder is murder, the method is not part of the discussion.

Whether or not one is responsible for greater atrocities than he other wasn't discussed - the question was regarding whether or not Falun Gong was responsible for deaths.

Keep in mind also that Hezbollah and similar organizations, much like drug cartels, have leaders which largely distance themselves from the actual illicit activities of their groups.

In addition, the mere discussion of the violent overthrow of the US government or any statement which might imply an intent to harm the President of the United States is illegal in the US - one can expect to receive FBI or Treasury Department monitoring at the least, with jail time a real possibility even if there was no intention of carrying out such a scenario. China has the same type of laws, but the punishment is far greater. (The ambiguity is greater in China, as well... though individuals have been arrested in the US under similarly ambiguous circumstances.)