ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_120906

Wikipedia doesn't censor for China

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, said that |Wikipedia does not censor their contents|http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1869074,00.html], and therefore remains blocked in China:

Wales said censorship was ' antithetical to the philosophy of Wikipedia. We occupy a position in the culture that I wish Google would take up, which is that we stand for the freedom for information, and for us to compromise I think would send very much the wrong signal: that there's no one left on the planet who's willing to say "You know what? We're not going to give up."'

This is one of the better reasons to have non-profit organizations collecting and ordering data: they don't have sales quotas to meet, and therefore they don't have to give in on pressure. Google and other companies are, in the end, out to make money, and the red line is the most important principle of all, over which any other principles can be sacrificed.

In a free environment, both work. But when push comes to shove, I'd bet on the non-profit, volunteer organization in the long run.

(Via http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/11/jimmy_wales_to_beiji.html.)