>Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose > censorship in KSA. > This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is > implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution, > even if it is not directly involved in censorship.
I guess I can see your point there, Yan. But please let me ask you this question : What do you think is the best way to teach people what the word "freedom" means? -- Ciphers Note : I have been following this list for a while, but this is the first time I feel like posting something here. Apologize in advance if my comments are not in the scope of this list, and I wish posting using my wiki username won`t bother anyone. Message: 7 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:56:35 +0530 From: Yann Forget <[email protected]> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) partner to provide access to Wikipedia free of mobile data charges in the Middle East Message-ID: <cakcjopkc2n2xxorscik2n9eeht2tr36yfnlckcf_i7k5-pu...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 2012/10/16 Theo10011 <[email protected]>: > On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Yann Forget <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello, >> >> This announcement is worrying, to say the least. >> In other words, the Wikimedia Foundation is doing a partnership with >> one of the most retrograde government, which is also a regular censor >> on Internet content. >> How could you justify that? > > Hi Yann > > It's not a partnership with the government, it's with a telecom company to Well, this telecom company is the arm of the government to impose censorship in KSA. This is a poor excuse. In creating such a partnership, WMF is implicitely supporting the censorship by providing a moral caution, even if it is not directly involved in censorship. Yann > allow its subscriber in KSA (MENA region), free and easy access to > Wikipedia. KSA is a big part of the middle-east region, the political > reasons aside this helps the public get better access to Wikipedia. There > is no reason why we should not increase availability for the general public. > > I'm not sure about the stance against this either, if a government is > trying to censor and restrict access, we should do what? not help provide > access to their citizens, not increase availability? how would that help > the situation? This is a way of working with the current situation and > perhaps around it, its about providing free access to people in the region, > which is probably the best thing to do at the time. > > Regards > Theo > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
