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Censorship of Wikipedia

Censorship of Wikipedia by governments has occurred widely in countries including (but not limited to) China, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Some instances are examples of widespread Internet censorship in general that includes Wikipedia content. Others are indicative of measures to prevent the viewing of specific content deemed offensive. The duration of different blocks has varied from hours to years.

For censorship policies within Wikipedia, see WP:Wikipedia is not censored.

When Wikipedia ran on the HTTP protocol, governments were able to block specific articles. However, in 2011 Wikipedia began also running on HTTPS, and in 2015 switched over to solely HTTPS.[1] Since then, the only censorship options have been to block one of the entire Wikipedias for a particular language or prosecute editors. The switch has resulted in some countries dropping their bans and others expanding their bans to the entire site.

Single-article disputes[edit]

Types of disputes[edit]

Individual articles can be disputed or blocked by a country for allegedly violating a range of laws from revealing the location of a secret military installation (see France below), defamation or misinformation laws (see Germany below), or a judgment that an image in an article was pornographic (see UK below).

Censorship in North Korea

Criticism of Wikipedia § Sexual content

Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia

Ideological bias on Wikipedia

Internet censorship § Wikipedia

List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia

(translated by The Washington Post Beijing Bureau)

Full Text: Cui Objects to Wikipedia Shutdown

(translated by The Washington Post Beijing Bureau)

Full Text: Shi's Defense of Wikipedia