Wikipedia Won't Bow to Chinese Censors

truthsearch writes "Jimmy Wales has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive Wikipedia entries. He challenges other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing. Wikipedia has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia. 'We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information.'"

Good.

[r0bVious]

There ARE some things are more important than money.

Re:Why?

[cyfer2000]

There are many pages protected in Chinese wikipedia.

So I went to a seminar on doing business in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone asked about patent law. Apparently, the Chinese only recognizes patents that have been filed in China. And it's first to file. And they only recognize patents from other contries for universally known entities like Mickey Mouse, although Mickey Mouse gets pirated like crazy.

Re:Bravo... if it holds up.

[cyfer2000]

The reality is after Beijing government ban zh.wikipedia.org, the zh.wikipedia.org has become a playground of anti-Beijing activists. NPOV has been damaged greatly since then. The Beijing government definitely shoot his own foot on this move.

Re:As if the US doesnt censor internet

[jfengel]

Can you give a citation for that (the US censoring Hezbollah sites)? I'm not disbelieving; I just hadn't heard it.

As far as I'm aware the US doesn't usually force sites to shut down unless they're participating in something actively illegal (child porn, gambling). It's not uncommon for them to take down organizations by charging them with a crime, and that results in the removal of a web site, but I'm not aware of them merely ordering an ISP to remove a web site without also pressing charges against the organization or individual putting it up.

So if you can cite me some examples it would be appreciated.

Re:Business or Foundation

[jfengel]

A lawsuit isn't the only way that shareholders have to express displeasure with corporate management. The easier and often more effective route is to simply sell the shares, depressing the price.

While I can't cite an example of a shareholder suing management for fiscal malpractice for doing something ethical, there are examples of companies whose share prices are depressed because of the effects of them behaving ethically.

One example I can cite off the top of my head is Ben and Jerry's, who couldn't find a competent CEO because of their ethical decision to pay nobody more than seven times the price of their lowest-paid employee. In the end they had to abandon their ethical principles to hire competent management, and their stock price went up because of it.

#2 hit for "democracy" on google.cn

[n0mad6]

is, amusingly, this [wikipedia.org].

Re:Quis cusodiet ipsos custodes?

[jcenters]

Perhaps you should read up on the first encyclopedist [wikipedia.org].

Re:Defiance Versus Inability

[Nuskrad]

Just another reason why Tor should stay up

The Wikimedia foundation blocks Tor nodes, at least from editing (for understandable, if not agreeable reasons).

Re:Hasn't Google already justified it?

[Al Dimond]

I believe that if you try to access google.com from China you'll get the same thing you'd get in the US. It's just that if you don't circumvent the firewall you'll see a lot of stuff censored. If you try to access google.cn from the US you get the same thing you would in China. A common tool used to circumvent the firewall is a proxy connection, with which Google won't know the access is coming from China anyway.

As far as I know the reason Google set up google.cn was because for most people in China access to google.com was really bad because of the firewall. By starting google.cn and playing by the Chinese government's rules they could operate a much more reliable (but self-censored) site and build their brand in the rapidly-growing Chinese market. google.com is still available in China to the same extent it was before, just google.cn is another option that will usually work "better" due to less government interference. I'm not saying it was necessarily the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective, there's plenty of arguments both ways... but it certainly was the right thing to do as a long-term investment in Google's future.

Re:Business or Foundation

[kingsean]

http://www.compassionatwork.com/art_malden_mills.h tml [compassionatwork.com]

$15 Million for a 1400 person textile factory which was primarily for people who (1) weren't working for a quarter after the place burned down and (2) needed an increase in health benefits. There are probably plenty of examples, except that they do not get much press concerning their accolades; human destructionism sells so much better.

Re:Quis cusodiet ipsos custodes?

[gstoddart]

I never expected to live in a world where librarians and encyclopedists are the guardians of civil liberties.

Maybe you didn't expect it, but over the last few years I've seen more evidence that the Librarians are doing more to protect civil liberties than many other groups.

Some quck examples coming from a google search for "librarian civil liberty"

http://www.alternet.org/rights/36953/ [alternet.org]

http://www.kbcafe.com/politics/?guid=2006012807280 0 [kbcafe.com]

http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/ecp/2003/epolic y07-11.html [pacificresearch.org]

http://www.socialistworker.org/2003-1/437/437_04_L ibrarians.shtml [socialistworker.org]

There have been numerous stories on Slashdot over the years showing examples of this. There seem to be quite a few people in that profession who fight very hard to prevent the erosion of rights.

Hats off to them.

Cheers

Re:He asked for examples

[voice_of_all_reason]

If Hezbollah TV wasn't banned, how was this guy: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/08/25/fbi-arre sts-cable-guy-for_n_27993.html) arrested for selling it to his customers?

Re:Business or Foundation

[Reaperducer]

I challenge you to provide an example where a corporation made an ethical choice that wasn't required

How about the billions and billions of dollars that most major corporations give to charities each year? Yes, many get tax breaks from the donations, but many do not. I know a company that donated a $20 million radio station to a local non-profit and didn't get a dime back.

that is incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

most of them can not vote. And israel also maintains and enforces on the books racial and religious marriage rules, about identical to the racial laws that existed in the US pror to the *civil war*. And hezbollah came into existence precisely because of the near two decade ocupation of parts of lebanon by israel, and their constant murders, thefts and other war crimes on the civilian populations there, so a resistance underground movement was formed and they reacted to an invasion by daring to fight back.

Israel has the shakiest of moral or ethical high grounds anymore. The nation was formed by an invasion of european jews-not semitics-*europeans*- who immediately set out massacring arab populations and it continues to this day. All the past israeli leaders participated in mass executions and terrorist bombimgs. That state constinues to keep people under threat of death in dismal bantustans, absolutely no different from the south african apartheid bantustans.

If I lived someplace, my nation, and a group of foreign nations decided to just seize my land an import millions of them there, where they proceeded to wage continual and violent war-well...guess I'd fight the bastards too. The "balfour" decision was an obvious international theft and form of genocide inflicted on peoples militarily weaker. If the europeans want a jewish state, they should have seized lands from those nations who aided in the persecution of jews in ww2, primarily germany, italy and vichy france. israel should exist over there someplace, europeans have no racial or ethnic claim to the lands in palestine. Believing otherise is belieiving in some fairy tale. True semitic jewish people who existed in those lands are still there! Those millions of european and american jews had NO RIGHT to invade, nor do they have any moral right to keep killing arabs there.

You can tell all the lies you want, but history has shown us with 100% certainty what I have stated is pure data, fact. Israel has no moral or legal authority over those lands, except by through the use of violence, or "might makes right". And many orthodox jewish people will state exactly the same thing, and routinely condemen the secular and dictatorial mafia gang run israeli government for the crimes they commit, said gang that then cries crocodile tears whenever anyone dares criticise them and they start throwing out that "anti semite" insult, when most of them are NOT semitic peoples.

In short, most of the planet earth sees through the israeli scam state, there are only a few nations left that even give them support, and numbers who profess support inside those nations-the US and UK primarily, are dropping rapidly. The israelis have used and abused the planet for a long time now, a very long time. THEY need to change or move back to european lands, or at least quit with the moral high ground claims. A good start, how about they extradite out all the crooks who slipped away out of the US and russia and australia and brazil and new zealand and the UK and are now hiding in plain sight inside israel? If they are so morally superior, why are they shelteriong high level white collar thieves, gang leaders, drug runners, money launderers, child molesters, high tech arms transerers to china, and etc? Funny how they get to stay there untouched, isn't it?

Anyway, fewer and fewer people care, eventually...well...I certainly wouldn't live there, that would be rather stupid.

Hezbollah-associated Web sites moved or shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.adl.org/main_Terrorism/hezbollah_websit es_us.htm [adl.org]

... The Al-Manar and Al-Nour Web sites were designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities by the U.S. Treasury in March 2006 - it is illegal for U.S. companies or individuals to do business with, or supply services to, these entities. The U.S. previously designated Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity in December 2004, stating that the "television station is an arm of Hezbollah terrorist network." Other Hezbollah sites, such as its official online newsletters, are not specifically designated and continue to use U.S.-based services legally. In 2005, at least ten Hezbollah-associated Web sites either moved [adl.org] from or were shut down by Web-hosting companies in the U.S. and Canada.