this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Could you at least give me some keywords to search?
Firstly, Wikimedia does have many usergroup organizations (i.e. subchapters) in India. And even without that, my point is that Wikipedia can't shut down in India.
They not only can, trivially. They unconditionally must.
It is not possible to ever be a reputable organization ever again if you have to choose between censoring content globally for an authoritarian government and shutting down in that country, and censoring content globally is something they genuinely consider. Open, fact based information is their entire reason for existing.
But the information is already available archived elsewhere? Don't you think the people of India deserve to be educated?
Being available elsewhere is entirely irrelevant. Wikipedia must stand against totalitarian censorship to resemble a reputable organization.
Complying is unforgivable.
Dude, what bad does this do? To the Indian people, to you? The information has already been plastered all over the internet, including archives of said article, which anyone may access at their will and command. You want billions of Indian peoples to suffer and be deprived of intellectual revolution for what, grinding a utopic axe? Ceasing operations in India would do way more damage to Wikipedia's goal.
It sets an absolutely obscene precedent that a government can globally restrict information. Even global terrible actors like Russia and China haven't succeeded at that.
Yes, that precedent is 1000 orders of magnitude more harm than India losing access (which they won't, because the entirety of Wikipedia is open source and would be mirrored in the country instantly. But even if they actually would, it is literally impossible to get anywhere near the harm of the precedent this sets).
Again, the information is still everywhere.
Actually, the Chinese Wikipedia used to have a systemic bias in favor of the CPC before China blocked it, after which the bias was changed.
It's a bit elitist to restrict information—weapons of revolution—to those who know how to find a mirror website. Why don't you survey the Chinese nationals in-person to see if they know how to get on Wikipedia? Plus, to avoid block evasion, no mirrors would be able to edit Wikipedia.