2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia

On September 13, 2021, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) took official action in relation to the Chinese Wikipedia after investigating users from Wikimedians of mainland China (WMC or WMCUG), an unaffiliated Wikipedia user group.

The Wikimedia Foundation globally banned seven people from editing all Wikimedia sites on September 13, 2021, at 16:13 (September 14, 2021, at 00:13 CST). The Wikimedia Foundation also revoked the administrative rights of 12 people on Chinese-language projects after the ban.[1] Four of the top ten most active administrators on the Chinese Wikipedia had their rights revoked. These actions were announced by Maggie Dennis, Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability for the Legal Department at the Wikimedia Foundation.

Background

The Chinese government

Despite Wikipedia being censored in mainland China, and VPNs normally not being allowed to edit it, Wikipedia administrators from China have permitted IP block exemptions for a select number of mainland users. Such users are recruited to change the editorial content on Wikipedia in support of China's viewpoint and/or to support the election of pro-Chinese-government administrators on Wikipedia, with the aim of gaining control of Wikipedia, as a part of the Chinese Communist Party's coordinated efforts to push their preferred narrative on platforms that have respected worldwide credibility.

Reactions

In an announcement on Wikimedia about the actions, Maggie Dennis acknowledged the radical nature of the Foundation's actions but stressed that the decision was based on a number of considerations and an in-depth investigation.[11] The Foundation decided to take action after Maggie Dennis told the media that editors had tried to manipulate the content of articles as well as the election of administrators and that other editors had been physically harmed. However, she did not intend to accuse the Chinese government.[12][13][14]

In response, Wikimedians of mainland China posted an open letter titled "Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle" (丢掉幻想，准备斗争),[15] calling the Wikimedia Foundation's actions baseless and declaring its intention to resist the crackdown with practical action.[16][17] The Global Times, a tabloid officially owned and operated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, alleged that the Wikimedia Foundation "purged" the Chinese editors.[18]

In an interview with the BBC's Tech Tent program commenting on the latest obsessions about China, Maryana Iskander, the new Chief Executive of the Wikimedia Foundation, emphasized the autonomy of the Wikipedia community and said, "One of the very early things that I've learned in this process is that certainly the Wikimedia Foundation does not play a role in setting editorial policy and that these are the debates that happen in communities."[19][20]

Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia, commented on these actions in an interview with BBC: "I have deep experience of talking to people all over the world, and the idea that people in China, for example, are so brainwashed that they can't see that neutrality is just false," but said "The idea that we are excluding China, is absurd. We welcome with open arms editors from China."[21]

After the Wikimedia Foundation took action against the WMC editors, the Taiwanese Wikipedia community noted that such an action was long overdue and released a statement saying, "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".[22]

Subsequent events

On October 5, 2021, at the 62nd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the People's Republic of China voted against the Wikimedia Foundation's application to become an official observer of the WIPO on the grounds that Wikipedia violated the "one-China principle" and "disseminated false information".[23][24] China was the only country out of the 193 members of the organization to vote against the WIPO application,[25] causing Wikimedia Foundation's application to fail.

A Wikimedian showed a screenshot to Voice of America of an announcement made by globally-banned user "Walter Grassroot" in the Wikimedians of mainland China QQ group after the foundation's application was rejected. According to the announcement, after the foundation banned Chinese users, Chinese Wikimedians submitted relevant documents to the Chinese Embassy in Geneva through various channels. Walter Grassroot also suggested that the failure of the foundation's application was good news.[26] Between 2021 and 2025, all attempts by the Wikimedia Foundation and local chapters to join WIPO failed.[27]

Qiuwen Baike

In an interview with the BBC in late October 2021, globally-banned WMC member Yan "Techyan" Emming and six other users said that the user group was attempting to create a "Chinese version of Wikipedia",[28] a platform that would represent Beijing's views on some political issues for people in mainland China to access without a VPN with oversight from the People's Republic of China government and would use some of Wikipedia's content.[28]

In December 2021, WMC member Techyan told Fast Company that "a tech giant" was negotiating a partnership with them, and that more than 40 Chinese Wikipedia editors had joined Qiuwen, which has a total of 200 active editors, and that people would be involved in both Wikipedia and Qiuwen.[29]

In February 2022, ByteDance's subsidiary Baike.com denied the existence of a partnership between ByteDance and WMC to provide technical and financial support for Qiuwen Baike.[30]

websitename	Qiuwen Baike 求闻百科
type	Online encyclopedia
language	Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese (supports traditional and simplified conversion)
owner	Wuxi Gongbi Quanshu Technology Company Limited (formerly Wikimedians of mainland China)
url	https://www.qiuwenbaike.cn
commercial	No
predecessor	Chinese Wikipedia
content license	CC Attribution / Share-Alike 4.0

2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia

Background

The Chinese government

The Community

Reactions

Subsequent events

Qiuwen Baike

See also

Further reading

External links

References