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.

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.

The Chinese Wikipedia added a notice that the Chinese government had blocked it to the welcome message on its homepage (October 2005).

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.

The Great Wall of the Internet has been blocked for nearly a year, and China has unblocked Wikipedia again.

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

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

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.

In June 2013, when the Chinese Wikipedia was blocked, a notice was added to the welcome message on its homepage. (June 12, 2013)

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: The blocking of Wikipedia for certain languages, the blocking method is upgraded

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. 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.

On the afternoon of December 4, 2015, all language versions of Wikipedia were inaccessible in mainland China, and the following day, the block was extended to all sites of the Wikimedia Foundation. The reason is that port 443 of IP address 198.35.26.96, owned by the Wikimedia Foundation (often used for TLS encryption), is blocked, or the TLS handshake process is interfered with. Until the Wikimedia Foundation changes the DNS Settings for mainland China, users can circumvent the blocked IP address by changing the host file themselves. It has been suggested that Wikimedia plans to switch to mandatory encryption throughout the site, rendering keyword filtering ineffective. So, the government has begun to consider blocking the Wikimedia project completely by blocking IP addresses.[12] The blockade was lifted at 14:00 on December 6, 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.

On August 24, 2018, the Great Firewall adopted SNI detection to block Chinese, Japanese, and Uyghur Wikipedia domain names, which made it invalid to bypass the network blockade by modifying the host's file or changing the DNS. However, some netizens found that the first access to the Wikipedia home page and then opening the Chinese Wikipedia can be bypassed, the reason may be because the zh subdomain name and Wikipedia global home page and other languages use the same certificate, so the correct handshake information after access has been cached by the browser so that it can access the Chinese Wikipedia in the short term.

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.

After 2019: Wikipedia is completely blocked in all languages, and the scope of the blockade continues to expand

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).

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).

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).

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.

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.

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

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

  1. ↑ Pan, Philip P. (2006-02-20). "Reference Tool On Web Finds Fans, Censors". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  2. ↑ "六四屠杀30周年前夕 维基百科各语言版遭中国全站封杀" [On the Eve of the 30th Anniversary of the June 4th Massacre, Wikipedia’s All Language Versions Are Blocked in China]. 美国之音 (in Chinese). 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  3. ↑ "維基百科在大陸遭全面封殺 疑六四30周年前網絡大清洗" [Wikipedia was completely blocked in the mainland, suspected of a mass cleansing of the Internet before the 30th anniversary of June 4th]. Radio Free Asia (in Chinese (Hong Kong)). 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  4. ↑ Pan, Philip P. (2006-02-20). "Reference Tool On Web Finds Fans, Censors". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  5. ↑ "Authorities block access to online encyclopaedia". IFEX. 2005-10-21. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  6. ↑ Cohen, Noam (2006-10-16). "Chinese Government Relaxes Its Total Ban on Wikipedia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  7. ↑ "Wikipedia unblocked in China after year-long ban". 2006-11-16.
  8. ↑ Metz, Cade. "Chinese net censors unblock BBC, Wikipedia". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  9. ↑ "维基百科简体中文网站浏览仍然受限" [Access to Wikipedia's simplified Chinese site is still limited]. 2007-06-24. Archived from the original on 2007-06-24. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  10. ↑ "奇客资讯网". www.solidot.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  11. ↑ "Help:如何访问维基媒体旗下项目 - Meta" [Help:How to access Wikimedia-owned projects]. meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  12. ↑ "China has blocked Wikipedia again". www.pixelstech.net. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  13. ↑ "Wikipedia Currently Down in China". 2019-04-23.
  14. ↑ "Wikipedia blocked in China in all languages". BBC News. 2019-05-14. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  15. ↑ "China Blocks All Versions of Wikipedia Ahead of Massacre Anniversary". Radio Free Asia. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  16. ↑ "please add wikipedia.org · Issue #1528 · gfwlist/gfwlist". GitHub. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  17. ↑ iyouport.org; Foundation, Open Culture; Singh, Sukhbir; Filastò, Arturo; Xynou2019-05-04, Maria (2019-05-04). "中国封锁了所有语言版本的维基百科" [China blocks Wikipedia in all languages]. ooni.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ↑ "Wikipedia blocked in China in all languages". BBC News. 2019-05-14. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  19. ↑ "Wikipedia Is Now Banned in China in All Languages". Time. 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  20. ↑ Foundation, Wikimedia (2019-05-17). "Wikimedia Foundation urges Chinese authorities to lift block of Wikipedia in China". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  21. ↑ "commons.wikimedia.org 在中国 100% 被封锁 | GreatFire.org" [commons.wikimedia.org is 100% blocked in China]. zh.greatfire.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  22. ↑ "meta.wikimedia.org 在中国 100% 被封锁 | GreatFire.org" [meta.wikimedia.org is 100% blocked in China]. zh.greatfire.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  23. ↑ "commons.m.wikimedia.org 在中国 100% 被封锁 | GreatFire.org" [commons.m.wikimedia.org is 50% blocked in China]. zh.greatfire.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  24. ↑ "在中国 100% 被封锁 | GreatFire.org" [commons.m.wikimedia.org in China]. zh.greatfire.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  25. ↑ "Censorship of commons.wikimedia.org in China".
  26. ↑ "zh.wikiquote.org 在中国 100% 被封锁" [zh.wikiquote.org is 100% blocked in China].
  27. ↑ "zh.wikiquote.org 在中国的审查情况" [Censorship of zh.wikiquote.org in China].
  28. ↑ "zh.m.wikiversity.org 在中国 100% 被封锁" [zh.m.wikiversity.org is 100% blocked in China].
  29. ↑ "zh.m.wikiversity.org 在中国 100% 被封锁" [zh.m.wikiversity.org is 100% blocked in China].
  30. ↑ "198.35.26.96 在中国 100% 被封锁" [Website 198.35.26.96 is 100% blocked in China].
  31. ↑ "103.102.166.224 在中国 50% 被封锁" [Website 103.102.166.224 50% blocked in China].
  32. ↑ "208.80.154.224 在中国 100% 被封锁" [Website 208.80.154.224 is 100% blocked in China].
  33. ↑ "208.80.154.240 在中国的审查情况" [Censorship of the website 208.80.154.240 in China].
  34. ↑ "98.35.26.112 在中国 100% 被封锁" [Website 98.35.26.112 is 100% blocked in China].
  35. ↑ "upload.wikimedia.org 在中国 100% 被封锁" [The website upload.wikimedia.org is 100% blocked in China].
  36. ↑ "张韬擅自建立、使用非法定信道进行国际联网" [Zhang Tao establishes and uses non-legal channels for international networking without authorization]. 2020-10-24.
  37. ↑ "Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds - Slashdot". slashdot.org. 2004-07-28. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  38. ↑ "Wikimedia projects censorships - Meta". meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  39. ↑ "Wikipedia boss to lobby China to unblock website". 2015-11-02.
  40. ↑ "维基创始人：向鲁炜介绍了运作模式 不知为何在内地被禁" [Founder of Wikipedia: Introduced the operation mode to Lu Wei, but it was banned in the mainland for some reason]. 2015-12-18. Archived from the original on 2016-03-22. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  41. ↑ "互联网文化与传播论坛 互联网时代文化传承与创新" [Internet Culture and Communication Forum Cultural inheritance and innovation in the Internet age]. 2015-12-17. Archived from the original on 2017-09-08. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  42. ↑ "維基百科創辦人：不會為進入中國市場而妥協 | 科技" [Wikipedia founder: Will not compromise for entry into the Chinese market]. 中央社 CNA (in Chinese). 19 July 2018. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
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