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:How it differs

[Hubristically Yours]

How could there possibly be any free exchange, ever, in a culture where censorship in the media is a fact of life, just like fluoride in the water. It just IS --no matter how many "parallel" projects there are. This makes me sick.

While I am sickened as well, I live in America and don't believe that we have any business criticizing "oppressive governments" for the suppression of information until I can feel comfortable browsing to any website on the internet containing political ideas without worrying about a free all-expenses paid trip to beautiful Guantanamo Bay.

Look, I'm no conspiracy theorist or libertarian nut, and I realize that browsing the news at aljazeera.com probably isn't Gitmo material. But, does anyone here have trouble believing the government might be using some kind of monitoring not unlike bayesian spam filtering, where simply sharing similar browsing patterns to known terrorists (or known residents of Gitmo) lands you on the watch list?

And before you say, "Fine, they might watch you, but if you have nothing to hide there's nothing to worry about," I have to vehemently disagree. All the government needs to have UAVs dropping Hellfires on you like shit from a Chicago pigeon is some kind of connection to "terrorism." Drive a limo for Bin Laden? Have a phone call with someone who was roommate with Al Zawahiri? Go to a mosque that "gave money to terrorism?" Live next to a mosque that "gave money to terrorism?" Happen to be in the same room as a terrorist when the UAV is flying by? Hope you like the smell of RDX.

Do I really have to be the first to say it?

[leereyno]

After doing a cursory skimming of the posts in this thread so far I've discovered something amazing: no one has yet to call for the overthrow of China's totalitarian regime.

China's government denies its citizens their God given rights. It is therefore illegitimate. It is the duty of every man and woman who would be free to work towards its dissolution and the subsequent creation of a new government founded upon the principles of individual freedom and public accountability.

Lee