Anyone can exploit the content on WMF for their needs. What I mean by "it works" is that you can't fool people when you try to change Wikipedia to fit government policy. We can easily identify problematic edits. Never underestimate the diaspora of any country. Wikimedia is always bigger than any one government will ever estimate.
On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 4:30 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Jane Darnell <jane...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > If anything, the Kazakh thing just proves that the wiki model works. No > > shame in that. It's probably why the Chinese are blocking Wikipedia and > not > > embracing it. You can't hide your propaganda, even from your own people. > > > > > Jane, > > You don't seem to understand what's happening here. Kazakhstan is in the > process of replicating the Chinese "Great Firewall" for its own citizens, > using slightly different means. From a recent report in the New York > Times:[1] > > ---o0o--- > > Unlike with China, which filters data through an expensive and complex > digital infrastructure known as the Great Firewall, security experts say > Kazakhstan is trying to achieve the same effect at a lower cost. The > country is mandating that its citizens install a new "national security > certificate" on their computers and smartphones that will intercept > requests to and from foreign websites. > > That gives officials the opportunity to read encrypted traffic between > Kazakh users and foreign servers, in what security experts call a "man in > the middle attack." > > As a result, Kazakh telecom operators, and government officials, will be > privy to mobile and web traffic between Kazakh users and foreign servers, > bypassing encryption protections known as S.S.L., or Secure Sockets Layer, > and H.T.T.P.S., technology that encrypts browsing sessions and is familiar > to users by the tiny padlock icon that appears in browsers. > > ---o0o--- > > Do you understand what this means? The Kazakh government will be *able to > identify any Kazakh citizen who edits Wikipedia, and see what they did > there.* Even if you go into an Internet café in that country, you have to > give your name, and your activities will be monitored. That is a major > chilling effect. > > So you now have a situation where the government-published encyclopedia, > with its own bent on the country's history and government, is in the Kazakh > Wikipedia, appearing under the Wikipedia brand name. It was put there by > volunteers who were promised laptops and other prizes for their work > transcribing these articles. > > This was an effort that WMF board members went out of their way to praise > and reward, even though it's always been clear, since June 2011, when state > support was announced, that Wikibilim was a Kazakh government-sponsored > effort. Wikibilim's Kazakh Wikipedia project is publicly described as > "implemented under the auspices of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan."[2] > > Ting Chen, then chairman of the WMF board, even participated in a press > conference with Kazakh government representatives and functionaries. Yet > Wikibilim reportedly had a trademark licence agreement with the Wikimedia > Foundation within a month of the organisation's founding,[3] something I > believe most regular chapters have to wait a lot longer for, and was > immediately hailed as a future chapter. > > At Wikimania 2011, this was followed by Wales' "Wikipedian of the Year" > award for Wikibilim, which was widely publicised by the Kazakh government. > What could be better PR for them than an endorsement by a free-speech > figure like Jimmy Wales? > > Yet it's long been established that Wikibilim's leaders have been and are > part of the Kazakh government machine. One is now the vice-governor of a > major province in the country,[4] and the founding director of a > Brussels-based think tank that human rights organisations consider a PR > front for the regime.[5][6] Another went on to become Vice Chairman of the > company that runs the Kazakh Prime Minister's website; he is at the same > time an active editor and one of a small number of administrators in the > Kazakh Wikipedia. > > The country's opposition press has been shut down. Even when remnants of it > still existed, it was clear that opposition papers would not be considered > "reliable sources" in the Kazakh Wikipedia. > > If this proves that the "wiki model works", then it can only mean that it > "works" in the sense that dictatorships can very smartly exploit it for > their own ends--in this case, with apparent WMF connivance. (I would really > like to know who, if anyone, advised the WMF on this at the time.) > > China has its own internet encyclopedias that it controls in a similar > manner. They have no need for Wikipedia. They have two crowdsourced > internet encyclopedias that are bigger even than the English Wikipedia, and > positively dwarf the Chinese Wikipedia. > > However, there is significant government interest in Wikipedia in other > Asian countries. > > What the WMF should do is to start examining to what extent these > Wikipedias are functionally censored, using the services of linguists and > political/human rights experts. > > I have long advocated that there should be a Wikipedia Freedom Index[7] > indicating to the reader how free of censorship any Wikipedia is. Where a > Wikipedia is found to suffer from significant problems, the WMF should > place server-side banners on its pages, in the local language and English, > alerting readers to this fact and suggesting that they should also consult > other language versions of Wikipedia for a more rounded view. > > In addition, extra caution should be exercised when importing politically > sensitive data from such Wikipedias to Wikidata. > > [1] > > http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/kazakhstan-moves-to-tighten-control-of-internet-traffic/?_r=1 > [2] http://inform.kz/eng/article/2480400 > [3] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Kazakhstan&diff=next&oldid=2838257 > [4] http://www.inform.kz/eng/article/2730173 > [5] > > http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/jack-straw-criticised-for-accepting-part-time-job-paid-for-by-kazakhstan-10057426.html > [6] http://www.eurasianet.org/node/72831 > [7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Wikipedia_Freedom_Index > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
