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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.'"
Considering China's regulations I don't think it'd be possible for Mr. Wales to accomplish censoring all of Wikipedia from what's on the list from China's Article 19 of censorship policy. This that China requires to be censored:
- violating the basic principles as they are confirmed in the Constitution;
- jeopardizing the security of the nation, divulging state secrets, subverting of the national regime or jeopardizing the integrity of the nation's unity;
- harming the honor or the interests of the nation;
- inciting hatred against peoples, racism against peoples, or disrupting the solidarity of peoples;
- disrupting national policies on religion, propagating evil cults and feudal superstitions;
- spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or disrupting social stability;
- spreading obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, terror, or abetting the commission of a crime;
- insulting or defaming third parties, infringing on the legal rights and interests of third parties;
- inciting illegal assemblies, associations, marches, demonstrations, or gatherings that disturb social order;
- conducting activities in the name of an illegal civil organization; and
- any other content prohibited by law or rules.
That last one (#11) is my favorite. Kind of open ended, eh? Frankly, it'd be absurd to ask anyone to censor dynamically changing information such as a Wiki with those kinds of rules.In other news all Chinese residents will see a new homepage for Wikipedia. Just another reason why Tor should stay up and the recent news about it being used as a child pornography shield is terrible.
*All information in this post was gathered via irony.
My work here is dung.
They simply believe that access to some information is better than access to no information. It's as if you had a choice between eating crap for the rest of your life, or eating nothing. Some people would choose to eat crap and maybe live a while, while others might choose to eat nothing and starve to death.
The companies named are businesses which by definition are in it for profit. Wikipedia, as a foundation has the luxury of standing for a good cause without having to explain it to its shareholders.
Why would China ban Wikipedia... When they can just edit it?
Those folk in China are really experiencing the gift of freedom of information right now, aren't they? We're so uptight about upholding an ideal that they get *nothing*.
I'd sure call that freedom of information!
I'm willing to stand up and cheer reservedly for Wikipedia if this continues.
My only concern is that, once Wikipedia makes its stand, the Chinese government decides that, well, yes, in the interest of freedom of the Internet, it will let Wikipedia continue to operate - and then start "correcting" Wikipedia's entries to the point of anything that disagrees with "official" truth is useless.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Wikipedia is non-profit, where the others (Google, Yahoo, etc) are profit seeking organizations (at least, they're listed on market exchanges).
So while wikipedia can take the high ground and just not exist in China, for-profit companies have to justify this to their shareholders. If you were invested in Google and heard they decided not to expand into the large & growing market of China... well you can see how one could begin to question if the company's leadership had the shareholder's interests in mind.
While I don't like the fact that places like Google and Yahoo allow censorship, I do understand the reasoning. Censorship by default is hard to do on the internet. There is always information popping up in new places, and it takes time to find, review and finally censor it. So by providing the Chinese ppl w/ access to a good search tool, they can use their ingenuity to find the information they want. It also would be unfair for them not to have access to simple, non-controversial material that they benefit from, and which they would have a difficult time finding w/o a good search engine.
However, Wikipedia is more than a tool for finding information. It IS information, and one of it's highest goals needs to be accuracy. (let's not debate accuracy vs. Wiki's here tho)
If they were to censor information that is valid... well it would be incredibly wrong. You can't have just a 'little' bit of censorship of information in an encyclopedia, it violates the whole spirit of the thing.
With over 1 billion people, if every chinese did their part, there's no way the rest of the world could keep up with their entries into Wikipedia.
I never expected to live in a world where librarians and encyclopedists are the guardians of civil liberties.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
It's much easier for Wikipedia to take the high moral road when they are donation driven as opposed to a public profit driven company. Perhaps it is even necessary to keep their image clean. China is one of the fastest (is it the fastest?) growing economies in the world. It has a staggering population of would-be customers. For them to take the high road and refuse to do business there would probably not go over well with investors--especially when their competition is entering the market there.
First against the wall when the revolution comes.
It's easy to be heroic when you have nothing to lose. It's like instead of rescuing the princess from a fire-breathing dragon, Jimmy is rescuing her from a field mouse.
I mean, yes, it's the right thing to do to rescue princesses, but lets not be throwing the word 'heroic' around for no good reason.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
I wonder if a bit of encyclopedia competition in the Chinese market would make Jimmy agree with Google's compromise... If Google ducked out of China completely, and M$ and Yahoo! did not, then billions of Chinese people would be lost by Google to their less-idealistic (or moral) competitors.
Lets see how much he'd like a Chinapedia...
They need to google "False Dilemma"
Belief is the currency of delusion.
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
Yeah, I think the second sentence pretty much gives him the answer to the question in the first.
What if I'm invested in Google and I hear that they decided not to expand into cultivating opium poppies in Afghanistan? How much money am I losing by their decision not to produce heroin? Can I sue?
There is no requirement that a public corporation must do anything it can to maximize its profit. I cringe every time I see this argument used here.
In the article, he says he doesn't know why China would block Wikipedia, given their position on neutrality.
t ests_of_1989a ng=zh-CN&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=T iananmen+Square&spell=1e =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
I'm not if he's being intentionally dense, or if he honestly belives that the Chinese government is interested in neutrality.
If so, I'd ask Mr. Wales to compare the following three links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_pro
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&ie=UTF-8&inl
http://www.google.com/search?q=Tiananmen+Square&i
Just a thought...
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
For all this talk of shareholders shying away from a company refusing business opportunities, and therefore it's "easy" for a non-profit to take the higher moral ground ...
Donaters shy away from a non-profit that DOESN'T take the higher moral ground.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
The US government has censored Hezbollah websites by forcing the provider to shutdown the website. For the Chinese governement Falun Gong is a religious fundamentalist organization so they want to shut them down. However its human rights violation when China does it but "supporting our friends" when the US does it. Talk about double standards.
**Life is too short to be serious**
(disclaimer - I am singling out the Microsoft/Google approach to China, it is in no way intended to represent the overall efforts of American businesses in China, especially the loathsome actions of Cisco and Yahoo.)
The problem here is that Wikipedia's approach accomplishes nothing - although neither does it compromise the organization's stated principles. Microsoft and Google's approach of censoring on request has still created a raging torrent of information within, into, and out of China, one that the Chinese government can only barely police. Wikipedia's outdated reactionary protest model will not coax China to change anything, after all, China has the resources to churn out competing products with ease. Microsoft and Google are showing China the rest of the world, and giving Chinese dissidents great, albeit limited, tools for proactively attacking totalitarianism.
It's easy to be heroic when you have nothing to lose. It's like instead of rescuing the princess from a fire-breathing dragon, Jimmy is rescuing her from a field mouse.
While in the other valley, Tommy tells the dragon where the knight is hiding out, and tells the princess he had no choice, it was the only way to be able to access the dragons's hoard... er I mean to slowly convince the dragon of the error of his ways...
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
I was in China 2 months ago and was able to search for Tianamen Square and access google.com (US Version) without any problems. Anyone in China that can attest that the censorship policies actually work?
The root of the problem is the entire concept of what the purpose of a publicly held corporations is. I don't know a whole lot about what the principles behind the "official" purpose of incorporation are, but I thought that the trade off was that in exchange for certain benefits to the corporation, somehow there was a benefit to society beyond the shareholders. But today, a corporation having good returns and staying in the green, developing worthwhile products or services, it's not enough. Wall Street demands that corporations achieve obscene profits at all costs, over all other objectives. This is simply wrong. Profits are certainly important, but part of the equation should include the perpetuation of a quality product that people want, and the health and welfare of the employees, who should be rewarded with a comfortable living for their dedication and loyalty. Maybe this has never really been true.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
is, amusingly, this.
RE: Business vs. ??? --
Let's stop this rather useless split -- in the end we're talking about some address on the Web. Although the sources of funding can be different, they are ultimately irrelevant; each site will make their own decision about what policies they will take with regard to censorship. The bottom line is that Wikipedia has chosen not to provide a "Chinese government compatible" version of their encyclopedia. That is their (the Wikipedia Foundation) prerogative. I personally support this position as well. Why? simple really: fighting the common denominator forces that would have Wikipedia stripped of all useful content (or nearly all). Chinese say "make this stuff appease us" Country X says: "while you are at it put that stuff back in about the flat Earth" Religious group Y says: "re-edit Wikipedia to denounce Evolution as part of the devil's conspiracy", and so on. Wikipedia has made a decision to fight the forces of non-education. If this is part of some "American policy of forcing their way of life into other parts of the world", stop thinking that way: 1) you DON'T have to use Wikipedia. 2) If you don't like what Wikipedia says about X or Y then contribute edits. Don't be surprised if there are those in the world who don't agree with you. Such is life.
RE: Some vs. No information:
I can understand those who would like to see a more "compromising" position on in the China vs. Wikipedia issue, but there really is no practical way this would work. Since anyone could edit (and they [Wikipedia] are NOT about to change that policy, thank goodness) eventually even "approved" content would "slip" into disapproval status. It would be a nightmare to manage this. Not to mention the likely moral dilemma of having to lie to millions of Chinese citizens (there may be a billion plus Chinese, but only a few million have Internet access). Some may say that editing article in Wikipedia to conform to Chinese censorship rules is not "lying" to the Chinese people, simply creative editing. You are all free to think that way, I don't and I will call you on it. In the end there is no truly happy middle here: the pressures are always going to be on expanding the information presented to the Chinese people. Wikipedia would simply be cut off again.
RE: Country X's views trampling on the "needs"/"wants"/"desires"/"morals"/"ethics" of country or group Y via Wikipedia:
To those who take this position: speak for yourself, only please. Let those around you decide for themselves if they find Wikipedia useful or not or an "encroachment" of some form or not. If you don't like Wikipedia, don't use it. For those of use who use Wikipedia we have no obligation to see things "your way". If you don't like an entry in Wikipedia, make an edit. If it gets reversed, sorry, others may disagree, leave a comment on the page discussion, be vocal. But the ludicrous idea the Wikipedia should be stripped down into version that please the senses of N different groups is unthinkable. In the end there will be entries you won't like, but there will be many entries that you DO like. The important thing is that Wikipedia is there collecting this information in the first place.
Firstly, if you see a $100 on the ground and don't pick it up, isn't that basically the same as losing $100?
Secondly, I didn't make any assertions about Google's behavior.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
He's responsable to his users & the truth. Seems to be doing a good job.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Bottom line, it's not in Google's shareholder's interests to take a pro-freedom stance that excludes their products from the largest economy in the world. Rather, it's most definitely in their (the shareholders) interests for Google to make concessions to the Chinese government to be able to do business there. This is neither good nor bad (though some, including myself, would argue it's "not good"), but a product of being a company owned by stockholders. The great thing, especially in this case, is that if you disagree with such corporate policy, you can refuse to use their products and utilize those of a company whose actions are more in tune with your beliefs.
Wikipedia, obviously, by its nature is not beholden to these interests.
While I'm happy to see such a stance taken by Wikipedia -- it's better than Google's "do no evil, unless it's the lesser of two of them" stance, and Cisco's "anything for a buck" stance, for sure -- I'm a little conflicted on a couple of points:
First, that their stance of "freedom of information," rather than of individual liberty. Accept the latter, and the former can only follow. Accept the former without the latter, you live in a paradox where an individual can be expected/obligated/forced to make disclosures of information about something or another; he has no freedom to keep that information (or its benefits) to himself if he so wishes, (This is also my problem with "Free Software," Richard Stallmin [misspelling intentional. Think "Stalin."] and the GPL, but that's another discussion for another time) or a person is forced to keep his mouth shut if what he wishes to share (or not) doesn't fit the political agenda or dogma of the day.
Second, given the tug-of-war that most articles of a political nature on Wikipedia face, that is, with leftists and rightists engaged in a constant back-and-forth to spin them to suit their agendas, most articles are effectively controlled by a tyranny of the majority, or at the very least, a tyranny of the last person to change it -- rather than articles having a basis in fact. On such articles, I would argue that Wikipedia is only playing lip service to "freedom of information", much less to "freedom."
If Wikipedia has a stance to take, it _should_ be a belief in individual liberty and freedom to do whatever he chooses to better himself (without placing any obligation on others, of course) -- including learning the accurate, honest, objective truth as it's known about any subject available to him so that he can make his own best decisions about them.
It makes no difference if the information's free, but people aren't.
ERZ
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Not vague recollections of events that may have happened. Your response makes it clear you don't have an example. If you did, you wouldn't have hesistated from ramming it down our throats in a stupid attempt to equivocate.
It really irritates me how people in america impose their values on people in other countries. Believe it or not, our system may not be best for China. Just as there is no best parenting style there is no best method of government. I have been to China and they all seemed really happy living in the society THEY have created for THEMSELVES. Do you really think that China would be happier in a society WE create for them?
This isn't an issue of people in America imposing their beliefs on China. If the Chinese government had their way, Wikipedia would allow itself to be censored -- essentially China wants to impose their values on Wikipedia. Naturally Jimmy Wales didn't comply, and why should he? It's his site, in his country, founded on his values. China can take it or leave it, and they've chosen to leave it.