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Wikipedia, Human Rights, and Freedom of Speech
Jimmy Wales Wikimania 2008 Reflections on Freedom and Free Culture
Freedom of Speech today
Freedom of Speech used to be mostly about Freedom of the Press
In a sense, the abscence of a business regulation Freedom of the Press mattered to most people
because it helped ensure a diversity of sources of information
But most people did not actually have the means to publish directly
Growth of Wikipedia
What are some factors inhibiting the growth of Wikipedia around the world?
Lack of access to computers Lack of access to broadband Censorship
Freedom and Knowledge sharing
FreedomHouse ratings
Finland (Free) – Political 1, Civil Liberties 1 Albania (Partly Free) – Political 3, Civil Liberties 3 Tajikistan (Not Free) – Political 6, Civil Liberties 6
Freedom and Knowledge sharing
Articles per million population
Finland (Free) – 6 mln - 20,595 Albanian (Partly Free) – 6 mln- 2,816 Tajikistan (Not Free) – 4.3 million - 1,875
Censorship goes both ways
Buekorp
Freedom of Press is Personal
When press freedom was violated in the old days, it did not tend to suppress education of the world about your country
But today violations of press freedom affect ordinary citizens who would communicate values of basic human dignity to others
War is caused by fear of the other – to avoid war, allow your citizens to be real to the world
How can Wikipedia help?
Wikipedia culture is about free access to high quality information
A culture of NPOV ”Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the
privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire Building this culture builds a culture of tolerance
of ideas, a culture of willingness to examine bad ideas rather than foolishly attempt to suppress them