Comments:Chinese Wikipedia unblocked by government

Back to article

This page is for commentary on the news. If you wish to point out a problem in the article (e.g. factual error, etc), please use its regular collaboration page instead. Comments on this page do not need to adhere to the Neutral Point of View policy. You should sign your comments by adding ~~~~ to the end of your message. Please remain on topic. Though there are very few rules governing what can be said here, civil discussion and polite sparring make our comments pages a fun and friendly place. Please think of this when posting.

Quick hints for new commentators:

• Use colons to indent a response to someone else's remarks
• Always sign your comments by putting --~~~~ at the end
• You can edit a section by using the edit link to the right of the section heading

Click here to add a new comment · Add onto existing comments

My opinion is the opposite of the one quoted at the end of the article: I believe China is moving steadily (albeit very slowly) towards a less restricted Media, and I reckon unblocking the Chinese Wikipedia might be one part of that. I would not have thought that it would happen so soon to be honest though, so maybe the worries that it will be blocked again later have some grounds.

What surprised me very much when I was in China during the time the Olympic torch relay was going on, was how much coverage was given to what was portrayed as biased coverage to western media - because in covering this there is the obvious recognition that there are different opinions/reporting than e.g. Xinhuas. That's far more open than simply showing the state sanctioned version, and just ignoring the foreign media.

I guess it can be argued to which extent they [central government] might have been forced to do so because of the ever greater mobility of news/information, but I believe that it was a step they wanted to go before loosening access to foreign media; i.e. we better make clear what our citizens are to think of other foreign media/demonize the foreign media, before we let people see and read it more. Otherwise they're going to start believing stuff that we're censoring/spinning here for a reason. (And of course at least some European media groups helped right along by actually doing shoddy and downright erroneous reporting [pictures of Nepalese protesters being subtitled as Tibetans anyone?]).

Oh, and perhaps to make it clear: I certainly do not endorse the rationale and actions of the Chinese central government; however I do think that the overall development is, or at least has a good chance of being more positive than it is portayed by some. That's why I felt like writing my thoughts on the topic here.

Regards Sean Heron (talk) 20:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

extent of opening

English language wikipedia opened while I was in China. Despite the opening, some articles remained blocked. Searching for "the three Ts", Tiananmen Taiwan and Tibet, would all give 404 errors and you wouldn't be able to access any of wikipedia for a few minutes. I wonder what articles are still blocked. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.218.11.16 (talk) 00:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Holy shit, that guy's opinion on the article is longer than the fucking article.

tl;dr cliff notes plz

I had a conversation with someone from Shanghai no more than 3 days ago. I send them a link to a certain Wikipedia article, and it was accessible from Shanghai. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.200.214.143 (talk) 06:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)