Wikipedia Freedom

I’ve had to struggle these past few days to figure out how to access wikipedia here in China, since I use it for my work and study. In the process, I’ve had a realization about why China seems to fear giving its people access to this wonderful resource, and it is different than the common explanation that it will allow people to learn things that they didn’t otherwise know.

Access to information is definitely one reason why China’s government doesn’t want its own people to use wikipedia. But, a second reason I believe is that wikipedia is a functioning model or expression of how freedom itself works. And, that is another reason to fear it.

Wikipedia is described as a system that works in practice, but not in theory. In other words, in theory it seems that a forum with so many participants, like wikipedia’s users, each with a nearly unrestricted rights to edit and delete and amend articles, is a recipe for complete chaos. People can pretty much say and do what they want. But the result, as we know from using wikipedia, is that its users, like people in a democratic country, generally organize themselves into decision making structures, and usually make good decisions.

Some people, in the USA and on wikipedia, say and do destructive things. And, these bad players cause Wikipedia and a democracy to struggle to right course. But in general in the end both are organized and their participants feel as though they are part of the process.

So, if you ask me why the government here restricts access to wikipedia, I’d answer that it is for the same reason that it doesn’t let people speak and read and write freely: they are afraid of creating chaos that, in fact, we have seen in other countries doesn’t occur.