Controversies about Chinese Wikipedia

The Chinese Wikipedia[a] is the Chinese version of Wikipedia created on May 11, 2001.[1] Members of the Chinese diaspora edit on the site,[2] including those from the People's Republic of China (PRC), where Wikipedia has been banned since 2015.[3] The diversity of Chinese Wikipedia's userbase does not exist without controversies, some of which received media attention and even Wikimedia Foundation's intervention.

Events

2010 administrative abuse

In April 2010, Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported the large-scale censorship related to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, and Hong Kong-related content, on the site, involving an administrator named "Shizhao"[b].[4] The report also mentioned the failed recall of the administrator due to vote stacking by pro-communist users.[4]

State-sponsored administrators

Despite being banned in the PRC, and as VPNs are normally not allowed to edit Wikipedia, PRC-associated Wikipedia administrators have permitted IP block exemption for some PRC-based users, who are recruited to change the content on Wikipedia in support of the Chinese Communist narrative and/or the election of pro-communist administrators to control the site.[5][6]

The resultant pro-communist Wikipedia community, known as the Wikimedians of Mainland China (WMC), was never recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation, as they had refused to sign legal documents to guarantee the privacy of other users.[5]

Intimidation of Taiwanese and Hong Kong users

Pro-communist Chinese users made death threats towards Taiwanese users. One Taiwanese editor said that the origin of those threats was not limited to pro-communist Chinese users, but a "larger structural coordinated strategy the [PRC] government has to manipulate these platforms" beside Wikipedia, including Twitter and Facebook.[7]

Pro-communist Chinese users threatened to report Hong Kong users to Hong Kong Police's national security bureau over the disputed article "2019–2020 Hong Kong protests".[8] A Hong Kong-based user, who remained anonymous for safety, noted:[9]

“ Pro-Beijing people often remove content that is sympathetic to protests, such as tear gas being fired and images of barricades. They also add their own content. ”

The anonymous editor also stated:[9]

Pro-democracy editors tend to add content to shift the balance or the tone of the article, but in my experience, the pro-Beijing editors are a lot more aggressive in churning out disinformation. It's now unfixable without external interference. Someone is trying to rewrite history.

Bans on state-sponsored administrators

At 16:13 GMT, September 13, 2021[c], the Wikimedia Foundation globally banned seven Wikipedia users and removed administrator rights from twelve PRC-associated users. Maggie Dennis, the foundation's vice present of community resilience and sustainability, said that there had been a year-long investigation into "infiltration concerns" that threatened the "very foundations of Wikipedia". Dennis observed that the infiltrators had tried to promote "the aims of China, as interpreted through whatever filters they may bring to bear".

The investigation had also found that an unrecognized group of PRC-associated users, with about three hundred members, had been involved in vote stacking to manipulate administrative elections.[6] Suggesting possible ties to the Chinese Communist regime, Dennis said:[5][6]

We needed to act based on credible information that some members (not all) of that group [WMC] have harassed, intimidated, and threatened other members of our community, including in some cases physically harming others, in order to secure their own power and subvert the collaborative nature of our projects.

Response from Taiwanese users

After the Wikimedia Foundation took action against the WMC editors, Taiwanese users said that this was long overdue:[5]

We need to rebuild an inclusive wiki that welcomes everyone from all places who wants to contribute to Chinese language Wikipedia in good faith [...] Many people have felt unsafe for years, so restoring a shared sense of comfort is likely to take some time.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Chinese: 中文維基百科
  2. ↑ "百無一用是書生" a.k.a. "時昭"
  3. ↑ 00:13, September 14, 2021 Beijing Time

References

  1. ↑ Richey, Jason. "[Wikipedia-l] new language wikis". List.Wikimedia. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". Wikimedia Statistics. Retrieved 2022-06-23.
  3. ↑ "Wikipedia founder defends decision to encrypt the site in China". September 4, 2015. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2018.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Wikipedia User Fails to Remove Controversial Administrator, Censors Political Censorship" 維基用戶罷免爭議管理員失敗 轟政治審查 過濾「六四」「席揚」. Ming Pao (in Chinese). Hong Kong. April 23, 2010. Archived from the original on January 14, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Harrison, Stephen (2021-10-26). "Why Wikipedia Banned Several Chinese Admins". Slate. Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Vallance, Chris (September 16, 2021). "Wikipedia blames pro-China infiltration for bans". BBC News. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
  7. ↑ Miller, Carl (2019-10-04). "China and Taiwan clash over Wikipedia edits". BBC News. Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  8. ↑ Cheng, Selina (2021-07-11). "Wikipedia wars: How Hongkongers and mainland Chinese are battling to set the narrative". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Wikipedia in Chinese editing war of words". BBC News. 2021-10-29. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
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