Wikipedia Unavailable for a Huge Number of Users

Wikipedia was banned again in China although the local authorities didn't say anything about it. Numerous local users confirmed that the English version of the web-based encyclopedia is unavailable while the Chinese websites are regularly becoming available. PC World reports that Wikipedia is often banned by the Chinese government which considers that many of the articles published on the website are objectionable and are infringing the country's guidelines concerning the Internet content. The reason for the restriction is not yet available but it's a well known fact that numerous websites were banned in China due to their content.

However, the folks from PC World are trying to find an explanation for the ban: "The current blocking may be related to the upcoming Communist Party Congress, which begins Oct. 15 in Beijing. Held once every five years, the meeting is the Chinese government's most important political gathering, used to create five-year plans, which are the bedrock of China's centrally-planned economy. It is also often used to reshuffle government positions or for leaders to consolidate their power."

Obviously, there are numerous ways to access a banned website but once again, the Chinese government blocked the content of a website which was supposed to be open-source and available to everybody.

In the past, a lot of products were affected by the Chinese censorship which was applied without any notification. For example, the Internet users were criticizing the authorities for removing several blogs which were used by the Chinese users to express their opinions about multiple political matters. Some of the Internet consumers were even arrested after the government discovered incriminatory evidence on the Internet. Remember the case involving Yahoo? The Sunnyvale company provided private details about the users which led to the arrest of the users who recently filed a lawsuit against the super giant.