China Reinstates Wikipedia Ban

Rob T Firefly writes "The International Herald Tribute reports that the lifting of China's Wikipedia ban earlier this week was short-lived. Wikipedia is once again inaccessible from behind the Great Firewall, along with all other Wikimedia projects. Additionally, the URL of Chinese Wikipedia is once again a banned search term. No reason has yet been given for any of it." From the article: "It wasn't immediately clear if Wikipedia was inaccessible due to technical glitches or because government censors had blocked the site again. The Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Information Industry did not immediately respond when contacted for comment Friday. Beijing blocked access to the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia in October last year, apparently out of concern about entries touching on the country's sensitive spots -- Tibet, Taiwan and other topics."

Comments

Excellent tactic

[Akvum]

Let the ban lapse so all the free thinkers and government detractors can post on a popular site, then ban it one week later... sounds like they wanted an easy way to find out who to arrest next!

Re:Reflects the Politics in Beijing

[Vellmont]

When policy changes it's because one side has momentarily gained the upper hand, or believed they had, and ordered the change.

I really have no understanding of how policy is set in China, but I might be able to believe that if Wikipedia was accessible for a month or two, but a major blocking policy like this changing over a few days seems a bit insane. Is there really no one in charge over there that makes decisions that last more than a few days? How the hell can you run a country like that?

Since the change from block->no-block->block was all so abrupt I'd say it's more likely that this was just either a technical glitch in the firewall, or a deliberate attempt at trying to perpetuate the belief inside China that there IS no official censorship and it's all just "trouble contacting some sites".

Re:Tick Tock

[megaditto]

You are wrong (I think).

Rich, well-fed people do not drive revolutions. On the other hand, if you are hungry, cannot get a job, live on the street, cannot cloth your kids... in short, if you have nothing to lose, then all the freedom and democracy in the world will not abate your unrest.

So the fact that China becomes prosperous is a very good news for the Dear Leaders. And very bad for our military.

Re:Tick Tock

[Vellmont]

Rich, well-fed people do not drive revolutions.

Huh. I could have sworn most of the founding fathers in the US were wealthy land owners. I suppose you could argue that they weren't the ones DRIVING the revolution, merely the ones leading it. But I've also never heard about the American revolution being started because the majority of people were hungry or un-employed. From what I've been told it was that people were pissed off that England was imposing draconian controls on trade, freedom of expression, etc.

Technical Glitches

[ProfessionalCookie]

It wasn't immediately clear if Wikipedia was inaccessible due to technical glitches

My guess is that it was accessible due to technical glitches.

Re:Tick Tock

[DragonWriter]

Huh. I could have sworn most of the founding fathers in the US were wealthy land owners.

The "American Revolution" was a regional separatist movement, which has a bit of a different dynamic than other "revolutions". Still, there is a bit of a point there: both types of revolts are often driven by the at least moderately well-off who see themselves as positioned to be even more well-off if the revolution succeeds, but rely on the plight of the badly off who are easily driven to resent either the physically distant (in the case of regional separatist movements) or socially distant (in other revolutions) ruling class for foot soldiers, though in revolutions other than regional separatist movements, the plight of the poor versus the apparent position of the rich generally has to be very bad, because there is otherwise generally less of a distinct clash of identity between the people revolting and those they are revolting against (though clear differences race, religion, or similar identity between the ruled and the rulers can facilitate in creating a clash that can drive rebellion with less of a visible economic divide.)