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