Will not comply with China's censorship diktat, insists Jimmy Wales
A censored Wikipedia in China? Jimbo would rather not have the site active in the country than complying with any form of Censorship of the online encyclopedia
A censored Wikipedia in China? Jimmy Wales would rather not have the site active in the country than complying with any form of censorship of the online encyclopedia beyond The Great Firewall.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Wikipedia co-founder Wales emphasised that the access to knowledge and education is a basic human right. He said that the company will always refuse to comply with requests from the Chinese Government, known to be iron-fisted, over censorship issues.
Uncensored Wikipedia or no Wikipedia at all
The Chinese government’s will to censor information filtering into the country is pretty well known. Users in China do not have access to many social networking services like Facebook and Twitter within the country. Post the crackdown during the lead-up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the encrypted version of Wikipedia is unavailable to Chinese users. They have to make do with the unencrypted version of the website.
This crackdown has resulted in certain sensitive topics being blocked and keywords filtered while trying to access the website. “We don’t approve of filtering, but there is nothing we can do to stop it,” Wales said. Many have urged Wikipedia to switch on encrypted browsing by default for the website, thereby making the site open to all access or none at all. Wales has said that while Wikipedia is open to the possibility, it looks difficult for this to happen in China owing to technical reasons.
More from News AnalysisWales has asserted that Wikipedia will never comply with the real-name registration system, using which the Chinese Government asks Internet access providers to collect data that links users’ online names to real identities. He has assured that Wikipedia’s line of communications towards the Chinese Government were open and the company does not expect to be blocked in the country overnight.
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