China PARTIALLY unblocks Wikipedia
The good news: The Wikipedia block in China is partially lifted
The bad news: The Chinese version is still not generally accessible, and the Western media reporting has been poor
Editor & Publisher magazine put out an article October 11 saying:
Well not quite correct. Reports started coming in on October 10 from different parts of the PRC, saying that the English Wikipedia was now accessible. A friend using an open Wifi in Beijing emailed me saying he could suddenly start using Wikipedia again. Some folks in Hubei said it was still blocked. Shanghai and Guangdong users said parts were accessible.
From a Beijing China Netcom’s residential DSL connection, the English language and other foreign language versions are now accessible, but the Chinese version is still blocked (zh.wikipedia.org).
It’s important to know there is no monolithically operating Great Firewall of China, even though it is a cute and useful moniker.
The “GFW system” depends on a distributed system of checks and filters that depends on the particular ISP, the type of connection being used, and the geographic locale. A commercial connection in Hubei is different than a residential DSL in Guangdong is different than an academic network in Shantou. Something blocked in one area of the country may be totally fine in another. A keyword that is filtered in one place could be allowed in another.
So for folks in China’s tech circles, it’s pretty frustrating seeing blanket “China blocks” or “China unblocks” declaration without specifics or accurate reports.
Filtering also happens on different levels between the domestic network and the greater Internet, so even though Wikipedia is generally accessible in English, it’s still subject to:
- URL-level filtering - host header or keyword in URL rejected
- Text-stream level filtering - offending keyword in Web page
More info as it arrives, but let’s not forget that for now the most important part of Wikipedia for PRC users - the Chinese version - is still not generally accessible.
UPDATE: After posting this entry, several folks contacted me with some results:
- China Telecom DSL, Shanghai - en:OK, zh:OK
- CETC-CHINACOMM COMMUNICATIONS Co.,Ltd., Beijing- en:OK, zh:OK
- Various ISPs, Anhui - en:OK, zh:BLOCKED
October 12th, 2006 13:30
Hi Andrew, I happen to keep a close eye on this issue and you can check this link to see feedbacks from almost all Chinese regions. This site is an online community of Chinese IT people. According to it, most regions are now accessible to both en and zh wiki, while sensitive words searching in zh version is still not available.
http://www.cnbeta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=16522
October 13th, 2006 08:14
I’m still getting a “连接被重置” when accessing http://zh.wikipedia.org/ through Shanghai residential ADSL.
October 13th, 2006 23:27
Well, it’s no longer blocked here in Xinjiang! Hooray. (Both the English and Chinese sites are available, at least for the moment.)
October 16th, 2006 00:48
[…] I’ve gotten completely behind on Wikimedia news over the last week, and I’ve not had time to read Andrew Lih’s blog posts about the partial unblock of Wikipedia in China, nor time to listen to the first episode of the newly launched Wikipedia Weekly which apparently includes a discussion about the unblocking. Wikipedia has an article on this, as will this week’s Wikipedia Signpost. […]
October 16th, 2006 01:29
[…] On October 10, 2006, Wikipedia access started opening up in China, having been blocked almost one year. The English language version (en.wp) is widely accessible while the Chinese version (zh.wp) still has spotty access. I’ve written before about how some news reports have not reported this well. […]
November 6th, 2006 18:04
[…] Yes, it’s crazy that it took almost a month before I finially heard about this. Check out Andrew Lih’s blog on the topic. […]