Submissions:2019/Government Bans of Wikimedia Projects

This submission has been accepted for WikiConference North America 2019.

Etherpad

Title:

Government Bans of Wikimedia Projects

Theme:

Other

Type of session:

Presentation

Abstract:

Internet censorship by governments is a real threat to free knowledge. Freedom of speech is not a given for the whole world, and some Wikimedia projects are currently having hard times. Access to Wikipedia is banned in Turkey for the last two years. All Wikimedia projects are also banned in China, and some projects were previously censored in numerous countries.

In this session we will be covering the government bans and censorship of Wikimedia projects in different countries and how local censorship affects all projects.

Topics:

1. Where, why, and how Wikipedia projects are censored in different countries
2. The timeline of the ban of Wikipedia in Turkey
3. Reactions of the community, readers, academics, and press
4. How did this ban affect the projects
5. VPNs and mirrors: How users are still accessing to banned content

Academic Peer Review option:

No

Author name:

Anonymous

E-mail address:

Anonymous

Wikimedia username:

Anonymous

Affiliated organization(s):

Estimated time:

30 minutes

Preferred room size:

Special requests:

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?:

If your submission is not accepted, would you be open to presenting your topic in another part of the program? (e.g. lightning talk or unconference session)

Yes