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China Unblocks Wikipedia
ZZeta writes "Even though the information on the site is still scarce, Editor & Publisher is already publishing the scoop: Apparently, Wikipedia has been unblocked in China. From the article: 'Wikipedia reported on its site that it had received word from multiple users in the country on Chinese-forums.com that the site had been restored.'"
I'm off to edit the "gang of four" article with some "facts". Let's see how fast they can censor it again.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
China's internet tube to Wikipedia was clogged up under North Korea. Their recent nuclear test loosened up the clog, and now people in China can use the tube again.
Probably last until people in China start reading how their central government was made a fool by North Korea. Can't have that.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Quick, before they block it again!
But I wonder if people in China who choose to visit certain articles might get tagged and investigated (like people in the United States do under the Patriot Act for checking out certain books from the library).
Censorship works best when people don't realize they are being restricted. So how do we know they are viewing the real wikipedia and not a government controlled and filtered proxy? Considering all the sites and people out there pointing to wikipedia, it's only logical to put up something to keep people from asking questions and trying to see what they are missing.
I can't wait to read Wikipedia... I hope the US stops blocking it soon!
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
We have our kent state, lynchings, etc. in the US.
Perhaps they can start talking about tienamen square maturely instead of pretending it didn't happen.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Sounds like economic pragmatism. Without being perfect, wiki is a major knowledge (and therefore wealth) database.
A quick test of certain articles indicates the government has moved to more fine grained blocking. The page of some events 17 years ago did not load, but trying to load it did not temporarily block the ip(which is what happens if it just stalls on banned words). So I guess they have decided that cencoring all of wikipedia is overkill..
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tienamen_square
t ests_of_1989 is blocked
The protests of 1989 resulted in the killing of Chinese protestors in the streets to the west of the square and adjacent areas. Some sources (Graham Earnshaw and Columbia Journal Review) claim that none died on the square itself. However, Chinese expatriates who left the country after the killings said that the numbers ended up being in the thousands. This was a combination of the hundreds killed on the spot and the "miniature" purge that followed.
But http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_pro
Interesting... More than I expected to be avaliable...
Did the Chinese government just realize they can hire a million-strong standing army of Wikipedia editors? Why censor when you can edit to taste?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Not sure about a few entries. Did Chairman Mao really start off as a showgirl in the Peking Opera and is Japan really twice the size of China?
Do Chinese users have a Chinese language Wikipedia, or do they use the English one?
Obligatory... especially in Soviet China where Wikipedia unblocks you.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I can't imagine the Chinese even remotely allowing it's citizens to view articles about the Dalai Lama for example, or anything that seems pro-Taiwan.
English, Tiananmen Square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_square/ (Wikipedia.org) Chineese,http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E5 %AE%89%E9%97%A8%E5%B9%BF%E5%9C%BA (zh.Wikipedia.org )
Scroll down to events or where it would be (navigate by pictures, its the one by the flag) on the chinese site, the chinese site is missing a link to this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989/ (wikipedia.org) among others
and i dought that they will ever take a hose to their firewall.(of doom!!!) well,I guess mod me down
-Prometheus
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. - Issac Asimov
I've been in China for 3 and a half years now and this is good news indeed, but there is still a long way to go. Considering how many times Google has been blocked and unblocked since I've been here, I wouldn't be surprised to find Wikipedia blocked again soon. I still have to play the proxy server game to surf a lot of the sites I want to see, and they have gotten very good at outsmarting proxy servers for certain content they absolutely don't want people to see. Maybe someone can enlighten me how they would be able to block a site even if it's going through an anonymous proxy server in, say Korea. I'm sure they have the brightest of the brightest hard at work on it. Of course, no proxy server ever works for more than a few days before it gets added to the "list". In fact, I'm probably on more than a few lists, myself. Lists only matter if they need evidence for something, and as I'm not inciting anything, I'm not particularly worried. I count my blessings that I have as much freedom to do what I want here as I do. In fact, I feel far more free to express myself here than I did back in the States, with its citizen watchdogs doing their best at every turn to censor me.
I haven't heavily studied T Square, but a lot of reporters say that it didn't happen anything like what western media likes to make out, perhaps you should go read up some more on it.
Of course, one AC does not all of China make, but if a lot of people in China feel this way, broad examination of China's history isn't likely to happen any time soon. The gist of AC's message seems to be:
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The good news: The Wikipedia block in China is partially lifted
The bad news: The Chinese version is still not generally accessible, and the Western media reporting has been poor
Editor & Publisher magazine put out an article October 11 saying:
Well not quite correct. Reports started coming in on October 10 from different parts of the PRC, saying that the English Wikipedia was now accessible. A friend using an open Wifi in Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.From a Beijing China Netcom's residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked (zh.wikipedia.org).
There is no monolithically run Great Firewall of China, even though it is a cute and useful moniker.
The "GFW system" depends on a distributed system of checks and filters that depends on the particular ISP, the type of connection being used, and the geographic locale. A commercial connection in Hubei is different than a residential DSL in Guangdong is different than an academic network in Shantou. Something blocked in one area of the country may be totally fine in another. A keyword that is filtered in one place could be allowed in another.
So for folks in China's tech circles, it's pretty frustrating seeing blanket "China blocks" or "China unblocks" declaration without specifics or accurate reports.
Filtering also happens on different levels between the domestic network and the greater Internet, so even though Wikipedia is generally accessible in English, it's still subject to:
- URL-level filtering - host header or keyword in URL rejected
- Text-stream level filtering - offending keyword in Web page
More info as it arrives, and the "unblock" may still be making its way around the country. But let's not forget that for now the most important part of Wikipedia for PRC users - the Chinese version - is still not generally accessible.like people in the United States do under the Patriot Act for checking out certain books from the library
Right. I'll worry about that right after my library figures out how to actually keep track of the books I have out.
Do you have any idea of the amount of resources it would take to create an interconnected system capable of tracking what books people have out? It would be ridiculous. Given previous government efforts on things of that scale (a few of which I've worked on), I suspect it would probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars, take decades, and be totally obsolete by the time it was actually taken live.
That they can perhaps subpoena your library records if they are interested in you -- which I believe is possible -- is entirely different from some system that would get you "tagged and investigated," as you imply.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
In reading your comment I realize why I didn't feel right about writing that post. I guess I let ideals get the best of me. Thanks for a refreshing dose of humility.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Don't forget that government IP addresses were blocked after visitors from them made many changes to make government officials look better. Most likely those people are still doing it, just not from the same IP addresses. It's not nearly as bad as blocking Wikipedia, but it's something to keep in mind.
Is parent serious? The USSR exists just like the Roman Empire exists--You can go where it used to be. The CIS consists of trade and defense agreements between sovereign nations, none of which are recognized by anyone as the USSR (all of this is quite clear in the cited article). The CIS is no more one country than the NAFTA signatories are one country.
Not by me. As an ornery old freethinker, I don't give a flying f*ck what the majority thinks: what's good and bad are not defined by any majority vote in my ethics.
Of course, the majority defines what's legal. This highlights the interesting difference between what's legal and what's right.
Consider that before the Renaissance (which you blow off as "very few rich aristocrats in 14th and 15th century Europe") Europe, and "white people," were pretty backwards. My ancestors were part of the the Gupta Empire, then the Ottoman Empire, and many others. In general, these empires were technologically and culuturally "superior" to European empires. That is to say, relatively speaking, we enjoyed a higher level of comfort, less starvation, less disease, and more free time to just think.
After the Renaissance, Europe re-discovered art and science and began an explosion of ideas that, basically, let it conquer the world. These weren't rich aristocrats. These were geniuses. The likes of Michaelangelo and Galileo. You have to ask yourself, if those values were so stupid and so useless, how did they manage to lord over the world (and maybe, still do)?
My conclusion is: their system works. Copy it. Of course, that's what I get out of it. Does this mean there isn't a better set of values and a better system? No -- there may very well be a set of ideals that are far better... i.e. leading to better quality of life. China would be wise to not ignore these values wholesale, and as a matter of fact, they're not. It's why they've privatized their markets. It has made them much, much wealthier. Can political freedoms be better for them, as well? History, if it's any guide, seems to indicate a definite yes.
Lastly, you may think: well, it may have worked well for Europe but who's to say it will work a different culture? Because the Chinese are not aliens. They are human beings, where even cultural whims, are led by evolution and nature. I mean, are the Europeans so special that they would find a system that only works for them? Capitalism in moderation, rule by the people, scientific inquiry, and basic freedoms (press, religion, speech; naturally, with limitations) are the best tools we have and for all intents and purposes nothing has ever shown to work better.
My own mother country is waking up and realizing that these are not "inventions" as much as they are discoveries, and they can be put to use now for a better livelihood while working on something "better".
Boycott Sony
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Your post is superficially insightful. Your underlying assumption appears to be that there is no absolute 'right' or 'wrong' way to organise a society, and therefore we cannot say that liberal democracy is 'better' than China's current approach (which I would describe as 'fascist' in the classical sense - a topic for another post, perhaps - and undoubtedly totalitarian).
However, this type of relativism is not particularly helpful. For one thing, what do you say to Nazi Germany? Or Stalinist Russia? Or Pol Pot's Cambodia? Were these societies merely 'different' from liberal democracy, and therefore above criticism? Is it impossible to make a valid assessment of which is 'better'? Was the western world merely 'different' when we had the Spanish Inquisition and witch burnings?
I put it to you that rather than our high opinion of liberal democracy being a process of coming to "reflexively believe that these ideological precepts are somehow universally good", the reason that those ideological precents are supported and upheld is because they ARE good in some sense, or at least, better than the alternatives. I put it to you that if you could take an individual, strip away ethnicity, nationalism, religion, and upbringing, and allow a rational choice between a liberal democratic system and a totalitarian system, the vast, vast majority of sane humans would choose the former. "Good" may mean many things - in this context, perhaps measures of happiness, prosperity, and freedom of action are appropriate; if you prefer a collective perspective, then perhaps measures of per-capita productivity, artistic or scientific achievements would be a better test for you to apply; finally, you might also apply a 'moral' or religious test if that is part of your belief system.
Your theory also fails to explain why we have such a violently negative reaction to certain activities that we, as a society, undertake. If your principle that 'you love what you do' was right, why would there be such an uproar about Iraq, for instance? Or the modification of some of those "ideological precepts" in the 'war on terror'. These reactions also suggest that the basis for regarding liberal democracy as desirable and superior is more than mere historical rote learning.
Conversely, your theory fails to explain the continuing development of liberal democracies throughout the 20th century. If it was merely the success of various revolutions several hundred years ago, why did the 20th century (and indeed the 19th and 18th) feature a continued liberalisation of our society? How do you explain the sexual, cultural and racial revolutions, for instance? These are the product of a living and developing social system, not the result of an outline traced in the sand 500 years ago.
Relativism is an important tool in understanding the world. But if you let it get too out of control you will come to believe that black is white, and they are both grey. China's system of government is anti-humanist, corrupt, inefficient, brutal, militaristic, autocratic, and by almost any definition (other than the Chinese, which you seem to prefer) evil. It IS worse than our system on all but the most twisted 'better' to 'worse' scale, for the individual and for the society as a whole.
Read Pynchon.