Why is Wikipedia blocked?

Question

I'm in China, and why is Wikipedia Blocked? If so, how can I get around the censership?

Answer 1

We don't know the exact reasons, but China censors a lot of sites, and Wikipedia has been one of them for some months now.

You may be able to access Wikipedia using a proxy, such as anonymouse.org or TOR. Using the URL https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/wiki/ might still work (I'm not sure though). If you just want to read the content and not edit, you might find it easier to use a mirror of Wikipedia. In English, answers.com have a fairly up to date copy of the content. I'm not sure which sites have a good mirror of the Chinese version. I know Baidu (baike.baidu.com) have a partial mirror, but the Wikipedia community seems quite opposed to their methods (self-censorship, moderation of edits, and copying from Wikipedia without attribution). There used to be a good one at http://wikipedia.cnblog.org/ but the owner was forced to take it down.

Here's a copy of the article about Wikipedia being blocked - http://www.answers.com/topic/blocking-of-wikipedia-in-mainland-china

There's a recent interview with Jimmy Wales (the founder of Wikipedia) on the block at http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=18513&hed=Wikipedia+Founder+Baffled+by+China+Ban See Google News for the latest reports on this - http://news.google.com/news?q=china+wikipedia

Answer 2

Wikipedia was blocked in China a long time ago.
Because this free resource contains everything and some of the contents may be so sensitive to the Government. However, you still have a lot of choices other than Wikipedia in China.
(Even personally I think Wikipedia is a very good web source.)

And however, Wikipedia Is Not Blocked By Chinese Gov, It was block by Chinese ISPs(internet service provides---China Telecom, China Unicom,etc)
If you want, you can download some kind of softwares to "destroy" the block. If you are a Chinese,You may receive info about them in your 163 or sina mail box from time to time.

I don't think send a e-mail to wikipedia.org will solve the problem, because all the e-mails are filtered before they can be sent or received in China.
And in many cases, use an alternative server seems usless as well.

Good Luck.

Answer 3

Inappropriate editions by readers are usually removed quickly, and repeat offenders can be blocked from editing....

But,

You might have been accidentally BLOCKED.
You may contact the blocking admin, especially if you believe that the block was due to a mistake or misunderstanding.
You can wait until the block expires.
If the blocking admin is unwilling to remove the block, you can appeal it. However, in most cases the block will expire before your appeal is addressed.
If you're editing from a school, the school administration may be able to help.
School administrators are frequently able to deal with inappropriate use of Wikipedia through enforcement of existing school policies. Once this is done, the block will expire or can be removed upon request from the school administration.
You believe you've been blocked unfairly.

If you have contacted the blocking admin and haven't been able to work things out, you may appeal the block.

Appeal the block at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Appealing_a_block

or write an e-mail to:
[e-mail]


.

Answer 4

You can't. Wikipedia is censored by wikipedia. The only way to get around it would be to use a proxy server from the United States. They do this so that the Chinese government doesn't get angry at them for the things said in the articles, things refering to China, it's government, communism, religion, and whatever the Chinese government might want to censor from its people.

Answer 5

Your geographical location has got nothing to do with the blocking of sites.. Your network administrator might be using a Proxy Server through which he can block certain sites of his interest.. n, he might have blocked Wikipedia for some damn reason.. This problem need not be considered as a severe one...

Solution:
You can by-pass this Proxy Wall by following certain networking rules.. But, making it much simpler to you, you can use the proxy server of some other server (Through certain websites)... I shall give you a website link, see if it works...

http://www.browseatwork.com

All you got to do is that, go to the specified site and enter the website address( here, its www.wikipedia.com ) that u want to visit in the query box that is provided, n then, click "BrowseAtWork"... Its absolutely safe and u can even performed secured operations (for instance, logging in and logging out of your account in certain sites)...

If u face the problem further, then googling for "nph proxy" might does the job for u... you can find similar websites to the one I specified above.. But, the site I provided is a safe bet... Have a nice time!

Answer 6

Of course it's blocked in China! Your leadership doesn't want its citizens to know how badly the rest of the world views how China treats its people and censors everything.

You want to get around the censorship? Move out of China.

Answer 7

There are 2 costs at the moment operating their way with the help of america domicile of Representatives and Senate which will be risky to the internet as an complete. The costs recommend a standard replace interior the way the internet works, making it straightforward for the U. S. authorities to censor tips about the internet. The costs cover behind retaining copyright holders rights, yet is worded in one of those fashion that the means to censor copyrighted content cloth would nicely be abused through the U. S. authorities. in view that we received't trust the U. S. authorities to be responsible with such ability, the costs ought to no longer be surpassed.

Answer 8

If you're having problems with websites being blocked, make sure it's not just your computer's settings. You shouldn't automatically assume that it's the government!

If you're still having problems, you can try a proxy website and try it that way. Not entirely certain if that'll work, but it always got me around the blocking software on my high school's computers!

Answer 9

Wow! That's horrible!

I wish I had a good answer for you.

Why don't you come here to the States? Things are far from perfect here, but we will let you read Wikipedia (and just about everything else!) to your heart's content!

I just tried Eneida's suggestion, and it came up for me!

Answer 10

you can't, the chinese guv tightened censorship in the past years, i understand that now Reuters and other news agencies can't transmit into china
all this has been done whit the help of the democracy loving americans: google, yahoo, microsoft were more than happy to censor their search engines for words like democracy, Tienanmen square...