China unblocks Wikipedia

No one knows why

16 November 2006 16:21 GMT / By Amber Maitland

The Chinese government has apparently unblocked Wikipedia, as it was discovered to be accessible in China again today.

It was blocked for more than a year as its open editing policy made it a magnet for a community to build around it. The government blocks access to sites it thinks are subversive, and filters certain pages for “sensitive” terms.

A foreign ministry spokeswoman said to Reuters that she hadn’t heard of any reports about Wikipedia, and went on to explain, “We manage the internet according to our laws and regulations. This is the usual practice for all the countries in the world”.

Even though the average internet user couldn’t access Wikipedia, some internet users figured out how to use proxy servers in order to gain access to it and edit it. However, searching for politically-sensitive terms yields no results.

The BBC news websites can sometimes be difficult to access in China, as can other international news websites.