Wikimedia censorship in mainland China

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The censorship of Wikimedia in mainland China means that the government of the People's Republic of China and network operators in mainland China have used technical means since June 2004^[1] to prevent netizens in mainland China from accessing some or all project websites under the Wikimedia Foundation. One of the most affected projects is the Chinese Wikipedia. There was no warning from any department before these blockings occurred and no explanation for the reasons after the occurrence. Every block has delayed the growth of Wikimedia project users to a considerable extent and attracted the attention of netizens and the media. The outside world believes this is caused by the Chinese government's censorship and blocking of sensitive content in Wikimedia Foundation projects.^[2][3]

Blockade history

2004–2008: Several blockades and reversals

On June 3, 2004,^[4] Wikipedia was blocked in some cities in mainland China (such as Beijing), but Wiktionary was still available. On June 11, other Wikimedia projects were blocked. On June 17, the IP address block appeared to have been lifted, but it was still impossible to access the website usually. On June 18, all Wikipedia except the Chinese version was unblocked, and the status of the Chinese version was unknown. On June 20, Beijing's access to Chinese Wikipedia still seemed abnormal. The blockade was lifted on June 21. On September 23,^[5] Wikipedia was partially blocked, and some users experienced unstable browsing problems while browsing Wikipedia.^{[citation needed]}

On October 19, 2005, all Wikimedia projects were blocked for unknown reasons. At 17:00 (UTC+8), users found that they could not usually access all Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. To understand the extent of the impact, the Chinese Wikipedia placed a notice at the top of the homepage on the evening of 19, asking Wikipedia from the Chinese mainland to report the access status on a particular page, according to user feedback, the block is spread across the Chinese continent.^{[citation needed]}

On November 9, 2006, many users reported that the Chinese Wikipedia had been unblocked, which was the first time the Chinese mainland could re-access it since the blockade lasted for over a year on October 19, 2005.^[6][7]

On June 15, 2007, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia project sites in all languages except Chinese Wikipedia were unblocked. Still, some users pointed out that the resumption of access was due to a change in the IP address of the Korean wiki server farm. Meanwhile, Wikimedia server farms in the United States remain inaccessible.

In April 2008, all language versions except Chinese Wikipedia were unblocked.^[8][9]

2010–2013: Blocking of Chinese-language Wikimedia projects and encrypted connections

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On November 28, 2010, the Chinese version of Wikisurvey Ming (HTTP) was blocked by the HTTP connection reset, but the encrypted version (HTTPS) can still be viewed commonly. In early 2012, Chinese Wikinews was blocked by HTTP connection reset and DNS contamination, which has yet to be lifted.

At the end of May 2013, the encrypted version (HTTPS) of Wikipedia in various languages became inaccessible in mainland China, while the Ming version (HTTP) pages of Wikipedia, which do not contain sensitive words, were unaffected.

On December 19, 2013, due to the adjustment of the CNAME record of the domain name of Wikipedia in each language, users in mainland China can directly access the encrypted version (HTTPS) of Wikipedia in each language and the Ming version (HTTP) pages without sensitive words.

2015–2019: Blocking of Chinese Wikipedia

On the afternoon of May 19, 2015, Chinese Wikipedia became inaccessible in mainland China due to an HTTP connection reset and DNS contamination^[10] of "zh.wikipedia.org". Users can get around this by modifying the local host's file or changing the DNS server and accessing the encrypted version of Wikipedia (HTTPS). Still, the Wikimedia Foundation cannot change the IP address of Wikipedia.^[11] The block did not affect Wikimedia's other projects (except Chinese Wikinews, which DNS contaminated) and foreign language Wikipedia. In mid-June that year, the Wikimedia Foundation implemented mandatory encryption (HTTPS) for its projects. It used HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) technology, so users using a newer version of the browser who successfully entered the pages of the Wikimedia Foundation projects could access the Chinese Wikipedia. Later in the same year, the Cantonese (desktop version only, mobile version was blocked at the same time as other language versions on April 23, 2019), Wu (same as Cantonese), and Uyghur versions of Wikipedia were soon blocked using the same means as the Chinese Wikipedia.^{[citation needed]}

In December 2015, after Wikimedia switched to mandatory encryption throughout the site, rendering keyword filtering ineffective, all language versions of Wikipedia were briefly made inaccessible in mainland China via the blocking of its IP address.^[12] The block was lifted shortly after, and most items were again directly accessible.

On December 28, 2017, the desktop version of the Japanese Wikipedia was blocked in mainland China, followed by the mobile version in early 2018, both by HTTP connection reset and DNS contamination.^{[citation needed]}

On August 24, 2018, the

Since September 29, 2018, the English version of the Ming English Wikipedia (page archive backup, stored in the Internet Archive) has been blocked by HTTP connection reset.^[citation needed]

After 2019: Wikipedia blocked in all languages

Since April 23, 2019, the entire Wikipedia site (*.wikipedia.org) has been completely blocked in mainland China,^[13][14][15] and its home page and all language versions cannot be accessed commonly. The blocking method is DNS pollution, among which the Chinese, Japanese, and Uyghur Wikipedia also has HTTP connection reset and SNI blocking. The HTTP connection reset block of the English Wikipedia in Ming has yet to be lifted.

On April 24, 2019, the entire Wikipedia site was blocked by SNI blocking mode based on being contaminated by DNS the previous day.^[16][17] On May 14, the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed that the Chinese government had blocked all Wikipedia sites since April.^[18][19] On May 17, the Wikimedia Foundation issued a statement urging the Chinese government to unblock Wikipedia.^[20]

On May 8, 2019, other major Wikimedia projects (such as Wikimedia Commons,^[21]meta-wiki,^[22] Wiktionary, etc.) were temporarily inaccessible due to DNS contamination, which lasted until the early morning of May 10 before returning to normal. This is most likely because the CNAME records of Wikimedia projects were changed to a contaminated Wikipedia domain name (*.wikipedia.org).^{[citation needed]}

Since June 10, 2019, the mobile version of Wiki Commons has been blocked, and the DNS parsing query found that the parsing result was abnormal. After verification, it was contaminated by DNS,^[23][24] and the desktop version of Wiki Commons has not been blocked for the time being (it was later blocked in December of the same year).^[25]

Since July 2019, the English version of Wikinews and the Chinese version of Wikiquote have been blocked. After verification, the English Wikinews were contaminated by DNS, while DNS tainted the Chinese Wikiquote and the SNI-based HTTPS connection reset.^[26][27] In October, the blockade was further escalated. The mobile version of the Chinese Wikiquote was also blocked, and currently, only the mobile version of the English Wikinews can be used commonly (later blocked in December of the same year).^{[citation needed]}

Since November 2019, the mobile version of the Chinese Wiki Academy has been blocked. The DNS parsing query found that the parsing result was abnormal.^[28][29] After verifying that DNS contaminated it, the desktop version of the Chinese Wiki Academy was temporarily not blocked (later blocked in December of the same year).^{[citation needed]}

Since December 2019, the IPv4 address (198.35.26.96)^[30] of the SAN Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation server has been blocked, which makes other parts of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects (such as Japanese Wikinews) inaccessible in mainland China.

During the two sessions in China in May 2020, the IPv4 addresses of the Wikimedia Foundation's servers in Singapore (103.102.166.224) and Ashburn (208.80.154.224)^[31][32] were officially blocked. IPv4 access to all Wikimedia Foundation projects in mainland China is almost completely blocked. In addition, the IPv4 addresses of the Wikimedia Foundation's media server upload.wikimedia.org in San Francisco and Ashburn (198.35.26.112 and 208.80.154.240) were stopped for an unspecified period.^[33][34] As a result, the Wikimedia Foundation's media servers are not directly accessible in mainland China.^[35]

On October 24, 2020, a man was arrested by police in Zhoushan City in East China's Zhejiang province. Authorities said he used the wall-turning software "Blue Light" to search for information on Wikipedia and was visited by police to "check the water meter." This is the first case in mainland China where someone has been explicitly punished for browsing Wikipedia. The official website of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee announced that from the first half of 2019 to October 2020, the man repeatedly used the "Blue Light" wall software to "illegally access Wikipedia to obtain information". The official announcement also listed the man's name and address.^[36]

At the end of October 2022, after the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, some of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects could be accessed commonly, and then they were restored in early November.^{[citation needed]}

Reaction of all parties

In July 2004, Jimmy Wales, the founder of the Wikipedia Project, said in an interview:^[37]

To block Wikipedia would be a great irony to the censors because we are not subject to any of the censorship they claim; Censoring Wikipedia is an admission that it is precisely neutral factual information that frightens it. We are not a propaganda machine; we are not online gambling; we are not pornography. We are an encyclopedia.

After Wikimedia was blocked for the third time in October 2005, Wales summarized the arguments he made in his speech at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis:^[38]

Wikipedia neither criticizes nor supports the Chinese government. Wikipedia is not a site for political dissidents or government supporters. We are neutral. Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy is unwavering. Wikipedia can't be described as anti-Chinese government - unless the Chinese government wants to say that unbiased information is anti-Chinese government - and I don't think that's what they're trying to say.

Second, it's not just that Chinese people can't access Wikipedia (much of it is also entirely unrelated to political or sensitive topics); As it stands now, as long as Wikipedia remains blocked, Chinese people are unable to express their views and culture, whether on the Chinese Wikipedia, the English Wikipedia, or any other language. It has been reflected that Chinese Wikipedia in mainland China tend to have more of a "mainland perspective" than Chinese people in Taiwan or Hong Kong, so the Chinese government's censorship practices are, unfortunately, censoring the mainland perspective of world affairs.

The Chinese government's censorship of outside criticism can indeed be criticized. But my argument has nothing to do with that because we are not critics of the Chinese government. The idea I just made is that blocking Wikipedia in China has the opposite unintended effect: blocking the rest of the world outside China, leaving them blind to Chinese voices and opinions.

In August 2013, at the Wikimedia International Conference in Hong Kong, Wales said that Wikipedia would give up doing business in China rather than accept any form of Internet censorship from the Chinese side.^{[citation needed]}

On December 2, 2015, Wales announced at the Leadership Energy Summit Asia 2015 conference in Kuala Lumpur that he would fly to Beijing in two weeks to lobby the Chinese government to unblock the Chinese Wikipedia.^[39] Later, at the second World Internet Conference held by the Cyberspace Administration of China in Wuzhen, he said：

I believe as a result of this, the idea that any one government can control the flow of information of what people know in their territory will become completely antiquated and no longer possible.

^[40]

However, the interpreter at the meeting translated his words as, "also, the government can do a good analysis of the communication between people in their respective fields."^[41]

On July 19, 2018, Wales attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Digital Innovation Forum (DIF) in Taiwan and introduced his new website Wikitribune. Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the media that he would continue communicating with the Chinese government and look forward to lifting the block on Wikipedia in mainland China as soon as possible. Wales reiterated that he would not give up long-held principles to enter the Chinese market and cited the example of a Taiwanese Wikipedia volunteer's exchange with Chinese users. Wales believes such interaction can bring progress, and more dialogue and contact between people on both sides can resolve differences, improve mutual understanding, and ultimately find a way to resolve the conflict.^[42]

Other

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Mr Oei, a Hong Kong newspaper columnist, said the blocks could force Wikimedia users in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan to edit with their lifestyles and habits of thought and ultimately distance them from users in mainland China. And this cultural split, caused by the Chinese government, could once again split the Chinese wiki project into traditional and simplified Chinese. In the long run, it may affect the future generation to do an excellent job in cross-Straits exchanges and make integrating the three places more difficult.

References