China has expanded its country-wide Wikipedia ban to include all non-Chinese languages versions of the website.
The full Wikipedia ban comes on the cusp of the Tiananmen Square protests' 30-year anniversary, when Chinese authorities killed thousands of students protesting. It's not uncommon for China's government to add heightened censorship ahead of major political anniversaries or milestones, reports the South China Morning Post.
Wikipedia's Chinese-language site has been banned in the country since 2015, but the proliferation of easy-to-use translation tools likely contributed to the language-wide ban, per the Morning Post. Additionally, blocking the Chinese-language version of the site doesn't stop users from seeing images of the Tiananmen protests that are available on Wikipedia pages in other languages.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The ban, which reportedly went into effect in late April, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone familiar with China's internet censorship history, since the one-party country has given LinkedIn, Twitter and Snapchat some variation of the censorship treatment over the last several years. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, said in a statement that it didn't receive any advance warning about the ban, reports Time.
-
The week’s best photosIn Pictures A monstrous parade, a hungry tortoise, and more
-
The Week Unwrapped: Should we be eating less fat – or more?Podcast Plus who will benefit from the surprise Dutch election result? And how can art improve our health?
-
AI models may be developing a ‘survival drive’Under the radar Chatbots are refusing to shut down
-
Trump ends Asia trip with Xi meeting, nuke threatSpeed Read Trump had spent the last six days in Asia
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
