Amid tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China, the suppressed protests of 2019 and 2020 have turned into a war of words.
On Wikipedia, pro-democracy writers clash with pro-Beijing editors.
A BBC Click investigation revealed "publishing wars" on Wikipedia.
Editors clash over issues relating to Hong Kong.
An example of these "publishing wars" is an article in the Chinese version of Wikipedia.
This one deals with the Yuen Long attack of 2019. The incident took place amid protests in Hong Kong.
About 100 men in white shirts, described as having ties to the pro-Beijing camp, attacked people at a transport station.
123 changes made to text in two days
The screenshot of a video showing the men in white shirts walking with Hong Kong police has been removed from the page.
The document initially appeared right next to the article.
Then at least 123 changes were made to the text in the space of two days, in August 2020. For example, “conflict” and “terrorist attack” have been swapped to describe the situation.
The situation worsened last September when the Wikimedia Foundation banned seven active pro-Beijing editors.
She accuses them of intimidating editors with a pro-democratic stance.
Wikimedia then withdrew the administrative powers of twelve other editors who questioned its sanction.
Wikipedia, accused of being pro-Beijing
"You eliminate the pro-Beijing voices and therefore the balance will tip towards the anti-Beijing forces within Wikipedia," accuses Enming Yan, a former administrator of the site.
Banned from the platform, he announced that he was actively participating in the creation of a new platform, "more representative from Beijing's point of view."
China already has Baidu Baike.
This local encyclopedic website has over 24.5 million articles, compared to 1.2 million for the Chinese version of Wikipedia.
Another difference with Wikipedia, Baike is a Chinese start-up.
According to reports, it would therefore be forced to censor its content according to the Chinese government's request.
Founder points to Chinese government
For his part, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, says the principles of free speech and platform neutrality apply globally.
According to him, Wikipedia can still be a viable source of quality information about the country, "if people have proper access to it".
To use Wikipedia, Chinese users must access it through a proxy server or VPN.
“The biggest thing preventing the Chinese from expressing their point of view is the Chinese government, which does not allow them to edit Wikipedia,” says Jimmy Wales.
The idea that we are excluding China is absurd.
We welcome the editors from China with open arms.
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