Looks like there’s another roadblock on China’s information superhighway.
Wikipedia, the preeminent web encyclopedia, is now blocked in all languages in the country, the Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement.
The Chinese-language version of the website has been blocked in the country since June 2015, and Wikipedia has been blocked at various times since 2004, according to foundation, which operates Wikipedia.
“In late April, the Wikimedia Foundation determined that Wikipedia was no longer accessible in China,” the foundation said in an emailed statement. “After closely analyzing our internal traffic reports, we can confirm that Wikipedia is currently blocked across all language versions.”
Google and Facebook are both banned in China, according to Time.
In 2017, Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey, and it has also been blocked in Venezuela at times this year, according to the BBC.
“We have not received notice or any indication as to why this current block is occurring and why now,” the Wikimedia Foundation said. “With the expansion of this block, millions of readers and volunteer editors, writers, academics, and researchers within China cannot access this resource or share their knowledge and achievements with the world.”
The English-language version of Wikipedia has an entry on censorship in China. It’s more than 6,000 words long.
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