China Allows Access to English Wikipedia

LinuxLefty writes "Reuters is reporting that Chinese authorities have lifted the ban on the English version of Wikipedia. The Chinese version of the site is still blocked, as are English-language versions of politically sensitive topics such as Tibet and Tiananmen Square. 'The move comes after International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors told Beijing organisers that the Internet must be open for the duration of the 2008 Olympics and that blocking it "would reflect very poorly" on the host country. China's government, keen to avoid sparking social discontent, keeps a tight watch over the media and often blocks or censors popular Web sites and forums where dissent may brew.'"

Boycott the Olympics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be so happy if some protest group succeeds in stealing or putting out the torch. Giving the Chinese the Olympics is the worst awarding mistake since 1980.

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[SerpentMage]

The issue here is not that China was given the Olympics. But the issue here is that China is squandering their opportunity to show that they have come along...

No, instead what we see is a totalitarian state that pretends to be capitalistic... Yeah whatever... Though they never fooled me once, hence why I refuse to invest in any Chinese corporation.

True story.

[VShael]

I shared a hospital room with a Chinese kid once, about 10 years ago. He had got sick while travelling in Europe. It came up in conversation that he thought China was fantastic in every way, and when I asked him about the massacre at Tienamen Square, he said "What massacre?"
That was the first time I really understood just how amazing the Chinese governments control of information is.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[MrKevvy]

re: "Giving the Chinese the Olympics is the worst awarding mistake since 1980."

Which was the worst awarding mistake since 1936. What is it with up-and-coming tyrannies getting the Olympics anyways?

And?

[beefsprocket]

I was in Beijing and Guangjou as a Westerner visiting those cities laster January (2007). I made a point of checking wikipedia and had no trouble viewing pages like the English Tiananamen square page. I'm not sure what the big deal is.

From what I hear censorship is more or less being policed socially with less and less DNS interference. Instead of blocking a domain, the police or party representative goes to the internet cafe where activity is taking place (that's easy to trace to an IP etc.) and just asks who has been visiting inappropriate pages.

Maybe I was spoiled as a Westerner with better internet. I dunno, $7USD a night for a hostel in both cities doesn't seem like they'd make a special exception.

I think there's a lot of hype and FUD surrounding the issue, and while it is indisputably an issue, the magnitude and severity is relatively overplayed I think.

Then again, maybe I was being tracked the whole time I was there by invisible Chinese spooks who intercepted and allowed my DNS requests on the fly and tracked my piddly 80211g over a few thousand miles in one day...

Re:China Olympics

[no-body]

Wasn't in the Greek origin of the Olympics that it could not happen if there was war going on? So, the warriors had to stop fighting so the contests could happen.

I miss that kind of integrity....

Re:China Olympics

[LingNoi]

. The olympics is the one time every four years when athletes of all nations can come together. That serves more for global peace and understanding than petty quarreling, protests, and boycotts. Note, if there was serious shit going on I'll be the at the front of the protest line.

"It doesn't separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That's why the Olympic Flame should never die." -Adolf Hitler

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[shutdown -p now]

Olympic Games were not originally supposed to be a "Free World"-only event, and the criteria for hosting the games do not include any specific form of government.

Whether it is good or not is another matter.

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[SL Baur]

This was marked as a "Troll", but it's correct. Some day in the future, this Olympics will be regarded the same as the 1936 Olympics. Sometimes the truth hurts.

I was in Beijing the week before the Olympic Committee went there. You slashdot members grep my posting history, I've posted here what I saw at that time.

I won't be watching these Olympics on TV.

(The best part of my trip to Beijing was seeing the airplane on the tarmac ready to take me back home to Tokyo and Freedom).

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[SL Baur]

The issue *is* with Beijing being given the Olympics. Beijing is a dirty, polluted city - far, far worse than the infamous LA smog. They had armies of people clearing the landscape of litter when I was there (a week before the Olympic Committee came).

I recall the ridiculous discussions about having the Marathon held in the LA area when the Olympics were held there in 1984 due to air pollution issues. Bah. Beijing is worse and LA has gotten better.

Freedom is NOT coming to China

[WindBourne]

The average person in china has no more freedoms now than what they had 40 years ago EXCEPT that they are allowed to trade in the open. The chinese gov. is not opening up. Nor do they have ANY intention of doing so. The whole reason why they adapted capitalism had do with efficiencies. It had nothing to do with freedom. Freedoms will not start until the gov. starts holding itself accountable to the ppl. I have seen minimal accountablility coming from there. Xiaoyu was executed, but only because his actions caused a drop in exports to the west. He was held accountable ONLY because it hurt the underlying trade. But he had been doing a number of actions for a long time and the party was turning a blind eye to it, yet, they knew all about the bribes.

Freedom may come to china, but only if the citizens push it. Sadly, that will mean more 6-4's. But sometimes that is needed.

Re:True story.

[ShanghaiBill]

when I asked him about the massacre at Tienamen Square, he said "What massacre?"

Depending on who you believe, between 30 and 300 people died during the Tiananmen Square incident. About a million were killed during the Cultural Revolution. The "Great Leap Forward" killed more than 30 million. People in the West think Tiananmen was a big deal because they saw it on TV, but they are ignorant of earlier events that killed a million times as many people. This past summer, there were riots over land rights in several Chinese provinces that probably killed more people than died at Tiananmen. How many people in the West know (or care) about that? In the context of Chinese history, the Tiananmen Square incident was a blip.

Some feeling as a Chinese

[electronixtar]

Well, from a Chinese perspective of view like me, Chinese themself sometimes benifit from blocking. So, let's image the U.S. government oneday blocks some enemy website. What methods could you ever think of doing to bypass that? Now in China nearly everyone of experianced Internet users knows at least 3 ways of bypassing GFW, that's a good skill, I think. Yes, my government is not perfect, they are doing insant things, but it makes people to be critical & skillful. On contract, I heard that Germany government & media is lying & blocking the major Chinese website sina.com.cn during the Tibet riot, and some German even Convinced that shit. I guess they have no idea how to bypass a Content-filter system. Hmm, everything has two sides. Wise people always learn from that.

Re:Boycott the Olympics

[SL Baur]

You don't understand the history of China. I didn't (intend to) imply that it would be the "west" doing the evaluation. Regime change in China is always over the dead bloody body of the predecessor.

Re:It's not happening.

[MopedJesus]

You know, if 1.3 billion Chinese can't take control of their country away from government run amok, what chance do a few hundred million Americans stand?

Re:True story.

[iminplaya]

No Western government, no matter how hard it tried, could hide that many deaths.

How many indigenous Americans died as all those folks from the Old country moved west?

Re:Information wants to be free!

[rtb61]

There seems to be a real gap in your under standing of the broader values of humanity. For most people in free and democratic societies it is difficult to enjoy life when others are suffering around you. When they are starving, abused, oppressed and denied basic human values, it is and should be difficult to ignore.

There is also the self protection route, we know full well the arse holes that exploit people in some other country would have absolutely no qualms about exporting that exploitation to where ever they can. So quite simply it is safer to tackle the problem and endeavour to eliminate the autocratic scum, before they become a local problem, the last century was a major lesson in that regard.

Those mentally defective individuals who derive pleasure from controlling other peoples lives, lording it over the, making them suffer, do not take other countries boundaries at all seriously, ah yeah being emperor of the world whilst it is a joke for us, it is a seriously sick desire for them.

That silly stuff about the Chinese being incapable of running a free and democratic country, now that is nasty racist stuff, and would that be anything like the Germans (Ex-Nazis) being unable to have a democratic country or the Russians (ex-soviets) to have a democratic country or the rest of Europe (ex-monarchists), or dare I say it, the Taiwanese and the Tibetans from being able to run their own free and democratic societies.

That is nearly as bad as the lie, about there being a difference between western and eastern democracies, which in reality was all about hiding corrupt autocratic governments. So, no, you do not wait for your country to be perfect (it will never happen) before you start spreading freedom, democracy and knowledge around and, ensuring that is does grow and flourish in your neighbours. You never know, your own government might fuck up and become a bunch of sick neocon fascists, and those people you helped will be in a position to return the favour.

Re:It's not happening.

[electrictroy]

>>>"Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to some poor Romans as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power through popularity."

Gee.

That sounds extremely familiar. Of course the American Founders were well-versed with Roman politics, and they had designed the constitution specifically so politicians could NOT give away free food to the poor, in order to buy votes. (Too bad it didn't work.) Now we have a government run by the person who can promise the most free stuff, thereby going ever deeper towards gov't bankruptcy (the same thing that ultimately brought down the Roman government).