2019:Thriving in Safety/Censorship of Wikipedia Around the World

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Thriving in Safety/Censorship of Wikipedia Around the World

Description

Behind the salvaguard of network sovereignty we are seing a new wave of censorship of Wikipedia and free knowledge around the world, with blockades of Wikipedia in Turkey (2017), Venezuela and China (2019), among others countries.

How to make Wikimedians aware of this issue and provide them proper tools to swiftly address the situation, given the specific circumstances of their countries? What can we learn from the ecosystem of organizations dedicated to monitoring censorship around the web to support the community that have been censored?

Denouncing the censorship could lead to problems for volunteers in the ground. How to have a more anonymous culture in our movement in places where being a Wikimedian can represent a personal danger?

Finally, being the end goal to have a free access to Wikipedia, what is being doing to easy the access to read and edit Wikipedia through VPNs and the TOR network.

Relationship to the theme

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

10. Reduced inequalities

17. Peace, Justice and Strongs Intitutions

Online censorship constitutes a violation of our digital rights, the government that commits this type of transgressions creates barriers that prevent equity on the Internet. On the other hand, the greater the opacity of the government (absence of strong institutions and justice), the more web censorship without punishment is likely to be committed.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

The attendees will learn the know-how of volunteers that have dealt with the block of Wikipedia, their experiences and contexts.

The attendees leave the session with a sense of greater community around the issue of web censorship and how others organizations are monitoring this around the globe.

Suggestions will be collected to strengthen the response capacity within the community, as well as recommendations for the working groups of advocacy and capacity building.

Session leader(s)

Oscar . (talk) 00:03, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Workshop to identify and try to solve problem
• Roundtable discussion forum

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room (Please be aware that the main room available will be a 30 person board room. We can try and arrange for other rooms, but cannot guarantee success):

Round-table or small classroom with a projector and screen.

• Audience: no more than 50 participants.
  

• Recording: no