On Russian Wikinews: Устроившая переворот в Мьянме хунта заблокировала Википедию https://ru.wikinews.org/?curid=8842919
We also await official comment from the Wikimedia Foundation. sasha. On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 11:09 PM 《求闻》编译组／Qiuwen WMCug <qiu...@wmcug.org.cn> wrote: > > BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Qiuwen) - NetBlocks, the internet freedom advocacy group, > says Wikipedia was blocked in Myanmar by the authorities. > > NetBlocks confirms "all language editions of Wikipedia" were down in Myanmar > starting Thursday morning local time. In a tweet [1], Netblocks said, this is > "part of a widening post-coup internet censorship regime imposed by the > military junta." > > Netblocks provided additional information in a picture attached to the tweet, > suggests that they have tested the connectivity of Wikipedia in English and > French, Wikidata, and wikimedia.org, with none of them accessible. This may > intimate that it is highly that the Burmese authorities not only blocked "all > language editions of Wikipedia," but all Wikimedia projects, as a whole. The > picture also suggests that Wikipedia remains inaccessible across four > different > internet service providers in Myanmar. > > It is likely that the Burmese authorities are blocking Wikimedia projects > using the same tactic seen in China and some other countries, which is by > blocking the main IP address Wikipedia and its sister projects uses. All > Wikimedia projects share the same IP address, which makes it an easy target by > censors to implement a block. > > Qiuwen noticed that starting from February 19th, there was a noticeable > increase of edits made from IP addresses that were likely to be used for VPNs > on Burmese Wikipedia, signaling locals may have to use VPNs to get onto > Wikipedia already. On Friday evening local time, an administrator posted a > message on the Village Pump of Burmese Wikipedia, explaining the use of "IP > block exemption," a special MediaWiki flag, similar to rollback and patrol, > allowing users with the flag to edit from VPNs. A similar banner was also set > up, visible on every page of Burmese Wikipedia. The "IP block exemption" flag > is widely issued to users of Chinese Wikipedia, and previously, users of > Turkish Wikipedia, who needed VPNs to access. > > Internet blackouts are increasingly common in Myanmar and across the world. > The military shut down the internet before they attempted the coup on February > \1st, and the military authority has blocked or temporarily blocked Facebook > and other social media platforms starting February 3rd. Usages of VPNs > reportedly skyrocketed for locals eager to access blocked websites. NetBlocks > says the authorities have been implementing an "internet curfew," as the > internet shut down during the nights. > > This also means Myanmar has joined an increasingly bigger club of countries > that had blocked Wikipedia. Its recent members include Iran, which blocked > Wikipedia for around 24 hours in March 2020, and Venezuela in January 2019. > In countries such as Iran, Internet blackouts also interfered with the > Wikimedia movement, such as Iran's week-long blackout in November 2019 had > delayed the Wikipedia Asian Month edit-a-thon. China, the "permanent member" > of the club, blocked Wikipedia since 2015. It is not clear whether or not the > block on Wikimedia projects will be lifted in the future, similar to what the > Iranian and Turkish authorities had done. > > The Wikimedia Foundation has yet to comment on the block. Myanmar Wikimedia > Community User Group, the Wikimedia user group representing Myanmar, has also > yet to comment. Their Facebook page was last updated on January 16th, two > weeks before the military coup. > > ---- > Qiuwen is a news service operated by the Wikimedians of Mainland China user > group[2]. > Follow us for the latest Wikimedia news in greater China. > CC BY-SA 4.0 > > Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/Qiuwen > > [1]: https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1362814793502097409 > [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Mainland_China > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
