Officials said “an administrative measure” had been taken, but gave no reason why.

Turkish media said authorities had asked Wikipedia to remove content by writers “supporting terror”.

Turkey has temporarily blocked social media sites including Facebook and Twitter in the past, usually following protests or terror attacks.

The Turkey Blocks monitoring group said Wikipedia was unreachable from 08:00 (05:00 GMT). People in Istanbul were unable to access any pages without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

“After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651 [governing the internet], an administrative measure has been taken for this website,” Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying, giving no further details.

However, the Hurriyet daily newspaper said Wikipedia had been asked to remove content by certain writers whom the authorities accuse of “supporting terror” and of linking Turkey to terror groups. The site had not responded to the demands, Hurriyet said, and the ban was imposed as a result.

Turkey Blocks and Turkish media, including Hurriyet, said the provisional order would need to be backed by a full court ruling in the next few days.

Social media was in uproar as news of the ban emerged, with some users speculating that it might be a bid to suppress criticism on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Wikipedia page.

Mr Erdogan narrowly won a controversial 16 April referendum on increasing his powers, but the issue has deeply divided the country.

One Twitter user noted that the Wikipedia page on Turkey’s referendum has a section on “controversies and electoral misconduct”, and cites claims that the government suppressed the No campaign through “arrests, control of the media and political suppression”.

The Turkish government has previously denied censoring the internet, blaming outages on spikes in usage after major events.

Wikipedia has also faced censorship in other countries, including a temporary ban in Russia, and repeated crackdowns in China.

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Source: BBC

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It was not initially clear why the ban had been imposed.

The Turkey Blocks group said the site was inaccessible from 08:00 (05:00 GMT) by order of the Turkish authorities.

People in the capital Istanbul were unable to access any Wikipedia pages without using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

“After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website,” Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying.

No reason was given.

Turkey Blocks and Turkish media, including the Hurriyet Daily News, said the provisional order would need to be backed by a full court ruling in the next few days.

Social media was in uproar as news of the ban emerged, with some users speculating that it might be a bid to suppress criticism on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Wikipedia page.

Mr Erdogan narrowly won a controversial 16 April referendum on increasing his powers, but the issue has deeply divided the country.

Turkey has temporarily blocked popular social media sites including Facebook and Twitter in the past, especially in the wake of mass protests or terror attacks.

The government has previously denied censoring the internet, blaming outages on spikes in usage after major events.

–

Source: BBC

The post Turkish authorities block Wikipedia appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

His goal is for Wikitribune to offer “factual and neutral” articles that help combat the problem of “fake news”.

The service is intended to be both ad-free and free-to-read, so will rely on supporters making regular donations.

One expert said it had the potential to become a trusted site, but suggested its influence might be limited.

Wikitribune shares many of the features already found in Mr Wales’s online encyclopaedia, including the need for writers to detail the source of each fact and a reliance on the public to edit articles to keep them accurate.

However, while anybody can make changes to a page, they will only go live if a staff member or trusted community volunteer approves them.

The other big difference is that the core team of writers will be paid, although there may also be instances in which a volunteer writes the initial draft and then a staff member edits it.

Regular donations

A demo version of the site, seen by the BBC, declared “the news is broken and we can fix it”.

Mr Wales explained that he believed the advertising-based model used by most of the media had led it to “chase clicks”, which affected standards.

“I think we’re in a world right now where people are very concerned about making sure we have high quality fact-based information, so I think there will be demand for this,” he told the BBC.

“We’re getting people to sign up as monthly supporters and the more monthly supporters we have the more journalists we can hire.

“In terms of minimums, if we could only hire two journalists then it would be a blog and not really worth doing.

“But I would love to start with a lot more – 10 to 20.”

The director of Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab, however, suggested Wikitribune’s crowdfunded model might limit its potential.

“There are a variety of people who – if it does this right – will view it as a trusted platform,” commented Joshua Benton.

“But another 10 to 20 people are not going to ‘fix the news’.

“There’s certainly a model for non-profit news that can be successful if it’s done on a relatively small scale and produces a product that is unique enough.

“But I have a hard time seeing this scale up into becoming a massive news organisation.”

Mr Wales said he would be “100% hands-on” with the project in its early stages and would be likely to serve as Wikitribune’s chief executive for at least a year.

Other advisors to the scheme include:

• Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki
• Journalism lecturer Prof Jeff Jarvis
• US law professor Larry Lessig
• Model/actress Lily Cole

Although staff members will decide the topics that get written about on a day-to-day basis, funders will get to influence the contents.

“If you can get together a certain number of people who are interested in Bitcoin [for example] and you flag that when you sign up as a monthly supporter, then we’ll hire a Bitcoin person to do the beat full-time,” Mr Wales explained.

“So, it’s the monthly supporters who will be able to determine what are the topics we are going to cover.

“But it is going to be neutral. They can’t pick their favourite hack, who pumps forward their agenda.

“That’s part of the editorial control.”

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Source: BBC

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It is part of the Wikipedia Zero scheme that has operated in 59 countries around the world since 2012.

The Wikimedia Foundation says it wants to “bring the sum of human knowledge” to as many people as possible.

However some argue that projects such as this go against the principles of net neutrality.

“Net neutrality is the principle that all data are treated equally in the network,” said Joe McNamee, executive director of the European Digital Rights group.

“Treating data the same in the network but then making some data more economically advantageous outside the network would be considered by many to be a breach of this principle.”

The free programme begins on 28 February and was revealed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

‘Important for Iraqis’

The Wikimedia Foundation states on its website that it does not pay mobile phone providers who sign up to the programme and they do not get any editorial control over the platform.

Sarmad Saeed Yassen and his wife Ravan Jaafar Altaie are volunteer Wikipedia editors based in Iraq, editing in Arabic and Kurdish.

Mr Yassen is a telecoms engineer in Erbil, Iraq.

“Mobile internet is available everywhere but the price can be expensive,” he told the BBC.

“Having Wikipedia free is going to be very important to people and also to companies.”

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Source: BBC

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