How the Chinese Wikipedia Differs from the English

bulled writes "News.com is running a story on differences found in Wikipedia's Chinese site content, as compared to content on the same subjects from the English site. The article goes into a discussion about how the 'sanitized' information is so prevalent in Chinese education that it is seen as the 'truth'." From the article: "[Some] say the object should be to spread reliable information as widely as possible, and that, in any case, self-censorship is pointless because the government still frequently blocks access to Wikipedia for most Chinese Internet users. 'There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,' said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the encyclopedia. 'To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to make it well known among Chinese, to get people to understand the principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked by the government.'"

Comments

Re:Entry for USA

[CRCulver]

They are lies told by their proletariat in order to keep their position in their society and to convince their workers that they are paid the best in the World.

Marxism hasn't been the publicly asserted guiding philosophy for China since Tiananmen. The rhetoric of Mao Zedong is almost totally forgotten among the younger generations. See Meisner's Mao's China and After (Free Press, 3rd ed. 1999) for the rather dramatic shift in perspective from the 1980s. Now it's just generic authoritarianism and a good dose of Han nationalism. Get with the times.

Re:Most Chinese wikipedia users are not from mainl

[D H NG]

The Chinese Wikipedia has options to switch between traditional and simplified version of the article, done automatically. ~~~~

my brother in China

[CAIMLAS]

My brothre is in China, currently, and we've talked about this. Our concensus is that the Chinese Wikipedia censors pretty much anything pertaining to freedom, democracy, and the political history of the West - specifically, the US.

Re:We have our own socially effected censorship

[jez9999]

Try putting any of these on english Wikipedia, and see how long they last.

Here ya go.

Yeah, none of these are opinions, they're stated objectively; that's what Wikipedia's about, isn't it? Surely the difference is that the Chinese Wikipedia (or other information sources) are censoring *objective* facts?