2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia
In 2021 Wikimedia Foundation took official actions on the Chinese Wikipedia which was announced on 13 September by Maggie Dennis, Vice President of Community Resilience & Sustainability for the Legal Department. In the actions, the foundation locked seven accounts with additional privileges such as Administrator and Bureaucrat and removed these privileges from 12 additional users after looking deep into the Wikimedians of Mainland China. Four of the top ten most active administrators had their privileges revoked. Background. Maggie Dennis said that the Chinese Wikipedia was under investigation by the foundation for nearly one  year. According to the news report of Hong Kong Free Press, two Chinese Wikipedia users, "Walter Grassroot" and "", threatened Hong Kong Wikipedians, saying that they would report them to the . Wikimedians of Mainland China denied this. In August 2021, the foundation modified the security terms in the "access to nonpublic personal data policy", and overseers from mainland China were asked to resign. For the second time, the People's Republic of China used Taiwan as an excuse to prevent the Wikimedia Foundation from applying to become an observer of the World Intellectual Property Organization in October 2021. A Wikimedian showed  a screenshot to Voice of America referring to the announcement made by one of the globally locked users "Walter Grassroot" in the Wikimedians of Mainland China QQ group, after the foundation's application was rejected. According to the announcement, after the foundation blocked Chinese users, Chinese Wikimedians submitted relevant documents to the Chinese Embassy in Geneva through various channels such as the media. Walter Grassroot also pointed out that the failure of the foundation's application is a piece of good news. Comments. 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. The Foundation decided to launch this action after Maggie Dennis told the media that editors had tried to manipulate the content of the articles and the election of administrators and that other editors had been physically harmed. However, she did not intend to accuse the Chinese government. In response, Wikimedians of Mainland China posted "Cast Away Illusions, Prepare For Struggle — WMC's First Open Letter on the Recent Office Action" on , accusing the Wikimedia Foundation of blocking users for a groundless  reason () and declaring its intention to resist the crackdown with practical action. The "Global Times", a tabloid officially owned and operated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, alleged that the Wikimedia Foundation is "purging" the Chinese editors. In an interview with the BBC 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." Jimmy Wales, the Co-Founder 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." Subsequent events. On October 7, 2021, at the 62nd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), 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". China was the only country out of the 193 members of the organization to vote against the WIPO application, causing the Wikimedia Foundation to fail. Qiuwen baike. In an interview with the BBC in late October 2021, WMC member Techyan said the user group was attempting to create a "Chinese version of Wikipedia", a platform that would represent Beijing's views on some political issues for people in mainland China to  access without a VPN and receive censorship from the People's Republic of China government and would use some of Wikipedia's content. 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. In February 2022, it was announced that ByteDance was providing technical and financial support for WMC's newly created "Qiuwen", but this was denied by ByteDance's subsidiary  Baike.com.