Re: [Wikimedia-l] Authorities in Myanmar blocks all languages of Wikipedia, says internet freedom watchdog = Qiuwen

2021-02-19 Thread Alexander N Krassotkin 
On Russian Wikinews:

Устроившая переворот в Мьянме хунта заблокировала Википедию
https://ru.wikinews.org/?curid=8842919

We also await official comment from the Wikimedia Foundation.

sasha.

On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 11:09 PM 《求闻》编译组／Qiuwen WMCug
 wrote:
>
> BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group,
> says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities.
>
> NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar
> starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is
> "part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the
> military junta."
>
> Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet,
> suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and
> French, Wikidata, and wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may
> intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all
> language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The
> picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four 
> different
> internet service providers in Myanmar.
>
> It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects
> using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by
> blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All
> Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by
> censors to implement a block.
>
> Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable
> increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs
> on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto
> Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a
> message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP
> block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol,
> allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set
> up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag
> is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of
> Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access.
>
> Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world.
> The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February
> \1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook
> and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs
> reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks
> says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the
> internet shut down during the nights.
>
> This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries
> that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked
> Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019.
> In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the
> Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had
> delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member"
> of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the
> block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the
> Iranian and Turkish authorities had done.
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia
> Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also
> yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two
> weeks before the military coup.
>
> 
> Qiuwen is a news service operated by the Wikimedians of Mainland China user 
> group[2].
> Follow us for the latest Wikimedia news in greater China.
> CC BY-SA 4.0
>
> Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/Qiuwen
>
> [1]: https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409
> [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China
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[Wikimedia-l] Authorities in Myanmar blocks all languages of Wikipedia, says internet freedom watchdog = Qiuwen

2021-02-19 Thread 《求闻》编译组／Qiuwen WMCug 
BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group, 
says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities. 

NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar 
starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is 
"part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the 
military junta." 

Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet, 
suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and 
French, Wikidata, and wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may 
intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all 
language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The 
picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four different 
internet service providers in Myanmar.

It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects 
using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by 
blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All 
Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by 
censors to implement a block.

Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable 
increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs 
on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto 
Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a 
message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP 
block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol, 
allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set 
up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag 
is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of 
Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access. 

Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world. 
The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February 
\1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook 
and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs 
reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks 
says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the 
internet shut down during the nights. 

This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries 
that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked 
Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019. 
In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the 
Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had 
delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member" 
of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the 
block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the 
Iranian and Turkish authorities had done.

The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia 
Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also 
yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two 
weeks before the military coup.


Qiuwen is a news service operated by the Wikimedians of Mainland China user 
group[2]. 
Follow us for the latest Wikimedia news in greater China.
CC BY-SA 4.0

Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/Qiuwen

[1]: https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409
[2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China
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[Wikimedia-l] Movement Strategy update - Summaries from January and February conversations

2021-02-19 Thread Kaarel Vaidla 
Hi everyone,

The movement strategy transition team is happy to share summaries from
follow-up discussions that took place in January and February.

The aim of the discussions was to come up with objectives for implementing
each initiative or cluster of initiatives that communities had previously
prioritized. The needed steps as well as challenges and anticipated
resources were also discussed to varying degrees.

We kindly ask you to review the summaries
[1]
by March 15, particularly for initiatives that are a priority for you and
your community, and to help finalize the draft plan. This is also where we
invite you to indicate your interest to be part of working groups that will
be convened for each initiative to take the work forward. More information
below.

Quick recap

In November

[2] and December

[3], the Movement Strategy team hosted global conversations to identify
priority areas for collaboration in 2021. Distributed governance, resources
for underrepresented communities, improved user experience, addressing
content gaps, and facilitating skill development in the movement were among
the top priorities.

Our promise had been to host at least one follow-up discussion for each
initiative. Thanks to your participation and support from community members
and affiliates from around the world, this was successfully achieved.151
people participated in large discussions for the Interim Global Council and
90 for hubs. An average of 60 people participated in each of the other
follow-up discussions that took place from January 22 to February 7.

Commitment to equity in decision-making

Distributed leadership, global governance, and inclusive decision-making
were key threads in the movement strategy recommendations. This has been
reiterated in local and global discussions since and the Wikimedia
Foundation is committed to supporting the realization of this vision and
the establishment of a Global Council - by the way of an interim council
that will draft the Movement Charter. The exact structure and set up of
this Interim Global Council will continue to be shaped by communities in
virtual and on-wiki discussions

.[4]

Next steps

Until March 15, we invite community members, affiliates, and strategy
enthusiasts from the whole movement to help finalize the first ever
implementation plan for movement strategy:

   -

   How can the stated objectives become realistic and inclusive steps for
   implementation?
   -

   Did the discussions miss anything?


You can continue to indicate on meta, under respective initiative sub-pages

[5], if you would like to take part in the next steps of developing the
initiatives and in their implementation. In upcoming months we are planning
to convene working groups with contributing community, affiliate, and
Wikimedia Foundation staff members to be tasked with scoping their
respective initiative and taking the work forward. We will keep everyone
who has indicated their interest on meta in loop and  will share more
specific information regarding ways to participate in our future updates.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Support Team with your questions,
comments, or ideas at strategy2030{{at}}wikimedia.org

On behalf of the Support Team,

Kaarel

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Follow-up_events

[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report

[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/December

[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations/Report/January
[5]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Discuss
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021: Join us for Day 2

2021-02-19 Thread টিটো দত্ত Tito Dutta 
Hello,
We just concluded day one of Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021. Some of the
participants, presenters attended the session during odd hours. Thanks for
the support, and participation.
Tomorrow (20 February) is day two and we have interesting sessions as well.
* Special morning session: We have a special morning session: 10:30 to
11:00 am IST / 5:00 am to 5:30 UTC /10:30 am. Wikimedia Foundation
Executive director Katherine Maher will share remarks about the future of
the movement, movement strategy, and support for emerging communities. She
will be joined by Amanda Keton, General Counsel, and a member of the
Wikimedia Foundation’s Transition Team for open Q
* Main session: Our Main Session starts at 2:00 pm IST and we have sessions
in the Technical and Wikimedia Strategy track. Please see all programs of
day 2:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Program#Day_2_(Saturday,_20_February),
All the sessions will be recorded.

Hope to see a similarly enthusiastic response. You may see the "Quick
registration" option:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Registration#Instant_registration

ইতি,
টিটো দত্ত
(মাতৃভাষা থাক জীবন জুড়ে)
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