Wikipedia Arabic closes its site for 24 hours in solidarity with Gaza

[rnu]

Jordan News: Wikipedia Arabic closes its site for 24 hours in solidarity with Gaza

Wikipedia Arabic announced that it will close its website on Sunday for 24 hours in solidarity with Gaza and protest of Israel’s aggression.
In a statement, the company stated why it will temporarily shut down its website, emphasizing “Against everything that is happening in Gaza, heart, and soul, it will be closed as of Sunday, in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

[Ron Lybonly]

How does an individual Wikimedia project do this? The Wikimedia Foundation owns the site and the servers; I think they’d have to be the ones to do this.

[Vigilant]

Countdown before this gets noticed and the thrashing starts.

[Wampyre1990]

How does an individual Wikimedia project do this? The Wikimedia Foundation owns the site and the servers; I think they’d have to be the ones to do this.

Individual wikis can do it too, from their MediaWiki:Common.js (T-H-L) and .css.

The last Wikimedia wide blackout was done in 2012 to protest Stop Online Piracy Act (T-H-L) That was understandable since it directly impacted the project.

Would be interesting to see what the WMF will do about this.

[rnu]

How does an individual Wikimedia project do this? The Wikimedia Foundation owns the site and the servers; I think they’d have to be the ones to do this.

There have been precedents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Onli ... a_blackout
The 2012 blackout of the English Wikipedia. The article doesn't say how it was done. But WMF made an announcement, so it is possible that the technical aspect was handled by them. Apparently the mobile version was not included in the blackout.(*) It's been a while, but if I remember correctly all Wikipedia did was overlay everything with the protest message which could be removed using an ad-blocker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_W ... ng_protest
A 2011 blackout of Italian Wikipedia. The article says:

During this time, all of the site's articles were hidden and the website was blocked by its administrators[.]
[...]
From October 4 to 6, 2011, a knowledge blackout was in place. During this time, all pages on the Italian Wikipedia project were redirected to this one-page Manifesto.

Here too, WMF endorsed the action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_W ... government
The Russian Wikipedia had a 24h blackout in 2012. The article gives no information on how it was done, or whether the WMF was involved.

Edit: just found this FAQ about the technical aspect of the 2012 en-wiki blackout:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/English ... hnical_FAQ

[Dan of La Mancha]

How does an individual Wikimedia project do this? The Wikimedia Foundation owns the site and the servers; I think they’d have to be the ones to do this.

There have been precedents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Onli ... a_blackout
The 2012 blackout of the English Wikipedia. The article doesn't say how it was done. But WMF made an announcement, so it is possible that the technical aspect was handled by them.

The initial proposal was made by Jimmy Wales, and when the idea received general support, the WMF requested further input on details of implementation. So while it was technically a community decision, the WMF gave their seal of approval well in advance.

[Dan of La Mancha]

The Arabic Wikipedia still works, there's just a big black banner at the top of every page.

Here's a Google translation of the community discussion.

[rnu]

The Arabic Wikipedia still works, there's just a big black banner at the top of every page.

Here's a Google translation of the community discussion.

The actual blackout hasn't started yet.

Edit: Apparently I misunderstood. Only editing will be blocked for 24h according to this:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/ ... B3FVDZEUY/

Greetings to all,

Arabic Wikipedia editors have agreed to hold a day of action to highlight
the plight of the Palestinian people and to call for peace. At 00:00 UTC on
the 23rd of December, the Arabic Wikipedia "went dark", meaning that
Wikipedia will not be editable for 24 hours. Wikipedia remains accessible
for reading, though.

This action stems from the community's sense of moral duty to combat
injustice. Wikipedia communities have previously stood up for human rights
such as by protesting legal travesties like SOPA and PIPA or by showing
solidarity with Ukrainians following Russia's invasion of their country.

May everyone celebrating the holidays - and those who aren't - stay safe,
and may peace and justice prevail throughout the World.

All the best

Farah

[rnu]

Warning: According to the above linked mail-list users get automatically logged out of Wikipedia without notification or warning when they visit the Arabic version.

[Dan of La Mancha]

Edit: Apparently I misunderstood. Only editing will be blocked for 24h according to this:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/ ... B3FVDZEUY/

I see. That's a little confusing. When I try to edit an article, a warning pops up that says the page is on the title blacklist. It doesn't explain why, or what that means. Putting myself in the shoes of an average Arabic editor, it would never occur to me to connect this notice with the big black banner up top, especially if I had dismissed the banner earlier in the day (I'm not getting the logging-out problem, and once the banner's gone it stays gone). Seems like poor implementation.

And why block editing, anyway? What's the message?

[rnu]

Edit: Apparently I misunderstood. Only editing will be blocked for 24h according to this:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/ ... B3FVDZEUY/

I see. That's a little confusing. When I try to edit an article, a warning pops up that says the page is on the title blacklist. It doesn't explain why, or what that means. Putting myself in the shoes of an average Arabic editor, it would never occur to me to connect this notice with the big black banner up top, especially if I had dismissed the banner earlier in the day (I'm not getting the logging-out problem, and once the banner's gone it stays gone). Seems like poor implementation.

And why block editing, anyway? What's the message?

During en-wiki's 2012 blackout editing was also blocked.

[Dan of La Mancha]

Edit: Apparently I misunderstood. Only editing will be blocked for 24h according to this:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/ ... B3FVDZEUY/

I see. That's a little confusing. When I try to edit an article, a warning pops up that says the page is on the title blacklist. It doesn't explain why, or what that means. Putting myself in the shoes of an average Arabic editor, it would never occur to me to connect this notice with the big black banner up top, especially if I had dismissed the banner earlier in the day (I'm not getting the logging-out problem, and once the banner's gone it stays gone). Seems like poor implementation.

And why block editing, anyway? What's the message?

During en-wiki's 2012 blackout editing was also blocked.

Because the articles weren't accessible at all, right? The point was to block the articles from being read, which naturally meant that they also couldn't be edited. The form of the SOPA protest was consistent with the message (anti-censorship), but I don't get the connection between "we support Palestine" and "you can't edit Wikipedia today".

[The Blue Newt]

Given that so much of of what is wrong in the Middle East has to do with horrors done outside of public eyeshot, the idea of lessening visibility to help things seems martian.

[rnu]

[...]
And why block editing, anyway? What's the message?

During en-wiki's 2012 blackout editing was also blocked.

Because the articles weren't accessible at all, right? The point was to block the articles from being read, which naturally meant that they also couldn't be edited. The form of the SOPA protest was consistent with the message (anti-censorship), but I don't get the connection between "we support Palestine" and "you can't edit Wikipedia today".

During the SOPA protest articles could be read via the mobile version or via several workarounds (e.g. disabling JavaScript), but editing was completely blocked by removing editing privileges from all user groups (at least that's what the FAQ above says). I think the point there was "you need the internet and the internet requires volunteers, so don't piss us off or we won't create any content anymore". Here, I guess it's just (partially) copying what was done in 2012. The whole thing looks poorly planned and poorly executed.

[Zoll]

I love neutrality.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Because the articles weren't accessible at all, right? The point was to block the articles from being read, which naturally meant that they also couldn't be edited. The form of the SOPA protest was consistent with the message (anti-censorship), but I don't get the connection between "we support Palestine" and "you can't edit Wikipedia today".

They were going to go with a profile picture overlay on Facebook, but that seemed like too much, so they went with this.

[rnu]

The Signpost: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI
Apparently ar-wiki used WikiBreak Enforcer. Because of the forced logout issue mentioned above a steward removed it following a steward request.(*)

See also: Requests for comment/Violating the Neutral point of view in Arabic Wiki on meta.

[Elinruby]

How does an individual Wikimedia project do this? The Wikimedia Foundation owns the site and the servers; I think they’d have to be the ones to do this.

There have been precedents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Onli ... a_blackout
The 2012 blackout of the English Wikipedia. The article doesn't say how it was done. But WMF made an announcement, so it is possible that the technical aspect was handled by them.

The initial proposal was made by Jimmy Wales, and when the idea received general support, the WMF requested further input on details of implementation. So while it was technically a community decision, the WMF gave their seal of approval well in advance.

The influx on the talk page leading up to this was unbelievable. Of course, Twitter,Google and Facebook were involved also so a lot of people where having a whats a SOPA moment

[ltbdl]

now on User talk:Jimbo Wales...

Greeting, Jimbo. Something serious appeared on Arabic Wiki. It seemed that Wikipedia project is hijacked by a host of users, directly promoting terrorism. And some scripts, added to that project, disallowed any user from removing it.
There are two discussions on metawiki regarding this case, m:Requests_for_comment/Violating_the_Neutral_point_of_view_in_Arabic_Wiki (T-H-L) and m:Steward_requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12 (T-H-L). Promoting terrorism is a very serious accusation, and as the discussion going on, someone said they has already called police about that, which escalated the situation. Reports already filed to Wikimedia Foundation, but no further replies got.
If possible, we'd like to hear your voice regarding this case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... rabic_Wiki

[Hemiauchenia]

now on User talk:Jimbo Wales...

Greeting, Jimbo. Something serious appeared on Arabic Wiki. It seemed that Wikipedia project is hijacked by a host of users, directly promoting terrorism. And some scripts, added to that project, disallowed any user from removing it.
There are two discussions on metawiki regarding this case, m:Requests_for_comment/Violating_the_Neutral_point_of_view_in_Arabic_Wiki (T-H-L) and m:Steward_requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12 (T-H-L). Promoting terrorism is a very serious accusation, and as the discussion going on, someone said they has already called police about that, which escalated the situation. Reports already filed to Wikimedia Foundation, but no further replies got.
If possible, we'd like to hear your voice regarding this case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk ... rabic_Wiki

I suspect that this will lead to a decisive resolution /s

[Vigilant]

Seems a long way from the purpose of a neutral reference organization.

[rnu]

Bharel (T-C-L) has contacted WMF using multiple channels and after getting no response has now filed a police report (somewhere in Europe)(*):

I have sent this previously to the Wikimedia legal team and got no reply. As a long time contributor and member of the Wikimedia Foundation, it seems like the foundation stands behind "freedom of speech" more than any other value. Since I haven't received any reply, and the Arabic Wikipedia further escalated their stance, I might as well go public and proceed with filing an official complaint to the European Union against the Wikimedia Foundation for hosting content promoting terrorism. The following btw was my exact email sent to legal:

Dear Wikimedia,

I've been looking around the Arabic Wikipedia and have seen plenty of material supporting / encouraging terrorism. For example, here's the Wikipedia article about the military wing of Hamas, glorifying its achievements of killing civilians using suicide bombings:

https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/كتائب_الش ... دين_القسام (Rev 65475100)

As I was deeply concerned about third parties reading those Wikipedia articles and believing that joining a terrorist organization would be a positive idea, I was about to report the material per TERREG, but having seen your FAQ regarding TVEC I thought to give you a heads up first.

I've previously asked on different articles / read other people asking for content to be changed in the Arabic Wikipedia, but unfortunately in all cases the community chose to keep up incorrect / terrorism promoting content.

I'm yet to know if it is even legal to host per the PATRIOT act, but do not know the legal intricacies involved.

Thanks, REDACTED User: Bharel

As an additional information, I'd just like to state that my Facebook account was restricted for sharing that link to the Wikipedia article, as I was sharing "content promoting terrorism". What a joke. Bharel (talk) 01:35, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

So since I didn't receive the response, I reported the content to the police. I live in Europe, and in here it's illegal to sponsor content calling for my death by stabbing, what can I do. Apparently calling for the death of "Zionists" an achievement is a neutral point of view. @Hemiauchenia I know, I have a warped version of what neutrality means. What would you think if the Hebrew Wikipedia will write an article listing all of the Palestinian children deaths, and saying that we achieved great milestones in recovering the biblical land by purging the population? The more dead the better it is. Do you think it would be an NPoV? Because like it or not, that's literally the content of that article. Bharel (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Meta does not have such a policy afaik, and it's not a legal threat. According to the official meta FAQ - if the police finds terror content and asks it to remove it, they have to oblige. I followed the entire FAQ, sent it to legal, sent it to ca, even sent it to emergency, had absolutely no answer from Wikimedia whatsoever, arwiki community seems to have no problem with that content, so I had to escalate the matter. As an administrator I filed police reports against trolls plenty of times, and some of them were prosecuted for internet crime violations. It's completely transparent in the Hebrew Wikipedia - we have a page of all the police and abuse reports we submitted.
Shouldn't I file a report when someone calls for my death? I don't remember us Wikipedians being above the law... Bharel (talk) 03:42, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

[rnu]

I've run the article that Bharel mentioned through google translate. And it is bad.
كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
The lead:

The Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, abbreviated the al-Qassam Brigades , is the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” that operates in Palestine . It is considered one of the most prominent resistance factions in Palestine , and its name is attributed to Izz al-Din al-Qassam , a Syrian scholar and mujahid who was martyred at the hands of the British forces in the Ya’bad forests near Jenin . Year 1935 AD
The Al-Qassam Brigades, currently led by Muhammad al-Deif and his deputy Marwan Issa , are the largest and best-equipped group inside Gaza today

It's role is described as "defending the occupied territories of Palestine". The IDF is called "the Zionist occupation army". Sections of the article describe the structure, leadership, and weapons like it is a regular army.
Then comes a long list of "firsts", like
- "The first to manufacture a homemade Palestinian sniper rifle, Ghoul Snipers , 2014"
- "The first to use car bombs in resistance attacks after the outbreak of the first intifada, in Bisan in 1993, was carried out by Saher Tamam"
- "The first to target Zionist buses with a martyrdom attack using an explosive belt, in the second response to the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque at the Hadera bus station"
You'll notice the word "martyrdom". It and its cognate, like "martyr", "martyred", etc are used widely in the entire article.
Then come lists of "Wars, battles and operations", "Most prominent operations" (mostly suicide bombings", "Kidnappings and captured of Israeli soldiers" and "notable members".
Israel is only rarely mentioned by that name, mostly it is called "Zionist occupation force", "Zionists", "Zionist entity", etc.
Very little of the information is cited to sources.

I'm looking forward to see WMF doing its usual "it is not our responsibility, we have nothing to do with Wikipedia" dance. I'm surprised this hasn't been picked up by more media. So far I only found very few arab news sources reporting on the blackout announcement. Nothing so far in western or Israeli media.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I've run the article that Bharel mentioned through google translate. And it is bad.
كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

Archives: article article translation history history

[rnu]

Arabic Wiki

Greeting, Jimbo. Something serious appeared on Arabic Wiki. It seemed that Wikipedia project is hijacked by a host of users, directly promoting terrorism. And some scripts, added to that project, disallowed any user from removing it.
There are two discussions on metawiki regarding this case, m:Requests_for_comment/Violating_the_Neutral_point_of_view_in_Arabic_Wiki and m:Steward_requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12. Promoting terrorism is a very serious accusation, and as the discussion going on, someone said they has already called police about that, which escalated the situation. Reports already filed to Wikimedia Foundation, but no further replies got.
If possible, we'd like to hear your voice regarding this case. -Lemonaka‎ 02:32, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

not really hijacked, they just set up a (poorly-done) blackout in support of gaza. they have a black banner and changed the wiki logo to have a palestine flag. here. apparently they also prevented editing, although... i think it's broken. ltbdl (talk) 03:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

@Ltbdl I'm more worried about someone is going to call the police, that's more worrisome rather than the case itself. -Lemonaka‎ 06:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone come up with an interpretation of this according to which Lemonaka (T-C-L) isn't saying that someone reporting Wikipedia to the police is worse than Wikipedia promoting terrorism? Because I can't.

[Vigilant]

Feed this to AIPAC.

Watch the fireworks.

[Midsize Jake]

@Ltbdl I'm more worried about someone is going to call the police, that's more worrisome rather than the case itself. -Lemonaka‎ 06:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone come up with an interpretation of this according to which Lemonaka (T-C-L) isn't saying that someone reporting Wikipedia to the police is worse than Wikipedia promoting terrorism? Because I can't.

It's all just a matter of perspective. To many Wikipedians, someone credibly reporting WP to "the police" would absolutely be more worrisome than the idea of Wikipedia (or even just any given Wikipedia article or other page) "promoting terrorism," especially if there was a chance that "the police" might actually do something about it. But at the same time, from a non-Israeli/non-Zionist perspective, the blackout, and presumably whatever message was displayed instead of the usual content, wasn't promoting terrorism at all. Rather, it was done as a show of support for people and groups who some might consider terrorists, but that's not really the same thing.

Ultimately, the question here is whether or not Jimbo, and/or some other supposedly-powerless WMF representative, should have responded to this guy. Sure, maybe, but by doing so they'd create a documentation trail, and virtually anything they might have said to the guy would have been used against them in someone's propaganda campaign — even if all they'd said was "we don't involve ourselves in content issues."

[rnu]

At least one Israeli news source has picked it up now:
Ynetnews: Arab Language Wikipedia in solidarity with Palestinians in war

[rnu]

American right-wing media have picked it up now.
National Review (via archive.is): Wikipedia’s Arabic-Language Site Spreads Anti-Israel Propaganda
Daily Caller: Arabic Wikipedia Pushes Pro-Hamas Propaganda On Every Single Page

[rnu]

New discussion on enwiki: ongoing (permanent)

RfC on meta: Community consensus for blackouts and other advocacy
Discussion of the RfC on enwiki: ongoing (permanent)

[rnu]

Jerusalem Post: Arabic Wikipedia features site-wide "No to genocide in Gaza" banner