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ISTANBUL Turkey has blocked online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the telecommunications watchdog said on Saturday, citing a law allowing it to ban access to websites deemed obscene or a threat to national security.

The move is likely to further worry rights groups and Turkey's Western allies, who say Ankara has sharply curtailed freedom of speech and other basic rights in the crackdown that followed last year's failed coup.

"After technical analysis and legal consideration ... an administrative measure has been taken for this website (Wikipedia.Org)," the BTK telecommunications watchdog said in a statement on its website.

It cited a law that allows it to block access to individual web pages or entire websites for the protection of public order, national security or the well-being of the public.

Turkey's communications ministry said Wikipedia was attempting to run a "smear campaign" against Turkey, saying some articles purported that Ankara was coordinating with militant groups, state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

"Instead of coordinating against terrorism, it has become part of an information source which is running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena," Anadolu quoted the ministry as saying in a statement.

The ban would be lifted if Wikipedia met the government's demands, Anadolu said.

Under the law, the watchdog is required to submit its ban to a court within 24 hours. The court then has two days to decide whether the ban should be upheld.

'CENSOR CONTENT'

A block on all language editions of the Wikipedia website was detected at 8:00 a.m. (1.00 a.m. ET) on Saturday, monitoring group Turkey Blocks said on its website.

"The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country," it said.

When attempting to access the webpage using Turkish internet providers, users received a notice the site could not be reached and a "connection timed out" error.

Monitoring groups have accused Turkey of blocking access to social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, particularly in the aftermath of militant attacks.

The government has in the past denied blocking access to some sites, blaming outages on spikes in usage after major events. But technical experts at watchdog groups say the blackouts on social media are intentional, aimed in part at stopping the spread of militant images and propaganda.

Since last year's failed coup, authorities have sacked or suspended more than 120,000 people from the civil service, police and judiciary and arrested more than 40,000 on suspicion of ties to terrorist groups.

President Tayyip Erdogan says the measures are needed given the scope of the security threat Turkey faces.

Turkey last year jailed 81 journalists, making it the world's top jailor of journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence and Ros Russell)

LONDONSocial media were heavily criticized by a committee of British lawmakers on Monday for failing to do enough to remove illegal and extremist material posted on their sites, and for not preventing it appearing in the first place.

JEDDAH Saudi Arabia wants German companies Siemens and SAP to play an important role in furthering the kingdom's "digital transformation", company officials said on Sunday during German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to the country.

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Turkey blocks access to Wikipedia - Reuters

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Image: INQUIRER.net stock photo

In one fell swoop last Saturday, the Turkish government banned Wikipedia and television dating shows, and axed 3,974 public officials.

According to the countrys official gazette, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also signed Decree no. 689 to shut down a newspaper, a magazine, 14 associations, 13 health clinics and 18 foundations.

In a report from state-run Anadolu news agency, the Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry blocked Wikipedia because of articles and comments showing Turkey in coordination and aligned with various terrorist groups.

The capital Ankara was willing to lift the ban if the website complied with its demands to remove offending content.

However, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales expressed support for Turks through a tweet: Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people I will always stand with you to fight for this right.

Jimmy Wales. Image: Screen grab from Twitter/@jimmy_wales

The Turkish government has a history of removing access to websites for security purposes. Rights groups view these actions as a means of curtailing freedom of speech and information. Social media sites and instant messaging apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, WhatsApp, and Skype have been blocked after militant events, such as anti-government protests and bombings.

The government had been mulling a dating show ban because these were against Turkish traditions and customs. Critics fearthat the current administration aims to make Turkey more conservative.

The dismissed officials included 1,000 in the justice ministry, 1000 in the army, and nearly 500 members of the academe in state institutions.

This is part of an ongoing purge against alleged supporters of United States-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who the government alleges instigated the failed coup attempt on July 2016. Gulen has denied any involvement in the military insurgence.Nia V. Guno/JB

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Erdogan seeks control after coup attempt in Turkey

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After Wikipedia ban, Turkey blocks dating shows, fires officials - Inquirer.net

With an abundance of misinformation being shared as news and a segment of the public not trusting mainstream media, Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Wales decidedtoget everyday people in on the reporting process.

Wales plans to launch a news website called Wikitribune, which would have professional journalists working alongside volunteers who proofread, fact-check and suggest changes.

"The quality of the media and the level of public trust in the media has really declined to a point where it's causing problems in society," he said Wednesday, during a speech in Chicago at the Morningstar Investment Conference at McCormick Place.

"There's been a lot of discussions about fake news obviously, (President Donald) Trump has used that (term)a lot," Wales said. "I'm not going to go in on the president's tweets, but there is an issue. We have to have good, quality media. It needs to be honest and it needs to be trusted by the public."

Wales made the comments Wednesdayin his first public speech since announcing the initiative Tuesday.

Wikitribune isn't affiliated with Wikipedia. The project isrelying on donors, rather than the ad-driven model he said has incentivizedsome news organizations to postclickbaiton their sites.

The model is still being worked out, he said, but the site would employ one reporter for every 500 donors who contribute $15 a month. As with Wikipedia, the site's content would be available toeveryone.

While the site is currently raising money just to start up operations, eventually Wikitribune will allow people to donate fora specific area to be covered.

"Local news is potentially where this can get very interesting," Wales said, noting many local news operations have seen their coverage of government diminished, as a smaller number of journalists are stretched to cover larger geographic areas.

"One of the functions of local journalism is to be that watchdog," he said. "In these small towns, there are going to be a lot of brother-in-laws of mayors who are doing very well with construction contracts, because nobody is really investigating."

People could also donate forspecific topicsto be covered, Wales said. For example, if enough donors wanted to fund reporting on Bitcoin, a journalist could be dedicated to that coverage.

Editorials and opinion pieces will not be a part of the platform initially, he said.

While many hybridcitizen journalism efforts haven't been successful, Wales said, some effort is needed to provide quality news from sources people trust.

Wales said he's been encouraged by a rise in digital-only subscriptions of the New York Times and a membership program that supports The Guardian newspaper. He believes there's a sense of group goodwill that comes withsupporting newspapers.

"A good quality general interest newspaper, when you pay for it, you pay because you want everybody to read it, so that they make better decisions voting, and understand all the pros and cons," he said. "It's really important that people are willing to do that, and its really important that people trust journalism."

Cheryl V. Jackson is a freelance writer.Twitter@cherylvjackson

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Wikipedia's co-founder joins fight against fake news with Wikitribune - Chicago Tribune

For more than 15 years, Mr Jimmy Wales has been the poster boy for the promise and the power of crowd-sourcing. When he launched Wikipedia in 2001, virtually everyone scoffed at the idea of a free and open-sourced online encyclopaedia with articles written by amateurs. Today it is the world's fifth-most visited website, a go-to destination when almost anyone wants to learn about almost anything.

Having redefined and restructured one historical repository of trusted information, the encyclopedia, Mr Wales is now taking on another, the newspaper. His new initiative, called Wikitribune, will combine the work of paid professional journalists with volunteer contributors. It's an effort to counter the rise of "fake news" and other forms of misinformation by exposing it to the scrutiny of the entire world.

The model is similar, though not identical, to that of Wikipedia, with which Wikitribune is not formally affiliated. The news site will be free of advertising and free to read, with funding provided by donors and by "supporters".

These monthly subscribers will have the ability to shape the site's agenda, for instance, by steering journalists towards coverage of particular issues, although the editorial process will block attempts to artificially boost pet projects or perspectives. The public will be able to modify and update articles, but updates will not be published until they have been approved by a Wikitribune journalist or another trusted source.

In other words: crowd-funded, crowd-sourced and crowd-fact checked.

Will it work? The success of Wikipedia suggests it might. Wikipedia now includes nearly 5.4 million English-language entries, totalling 42 million-plus pages. It also publishes in 294 other languages, including a great many that most of us have never heard of, and claims 68 million users worldwide.

Although no one has yet had clear success with crowd-funded news, initiatives like pay-per-view news aggregator Blendle and member-funded De Correspondent (both Dutch in origin but testing the United States market) continue to innovate. Someone is going to get there.

Yes, all that information is from its own website. But I believe it.

And that's the point. Wikipedia has earned the trust of millions of users by listening to its critics and transparently making a good faith effort to address their concerns. Information found to be flawed is removed, and various other changes through the years have strengthened the reliability of its content without gutting the central concept: real people have interesting and valuable contributions to make to the storehouse of what the rest of us know.

As Mr Wales admits: "It's noisy and not a perfect place." But Wikipedia's openness has proved to be its strength. It's not so much about the general wisdom of the crowd as about the particular wisdom of the millions of individuals who make up that crowd.

Will Wikitribune prove financially sustainable? Again, it might. The election of Mr Donald Trump was, at least for some segments of society, a wake-up call that high-quality news is valuable enough to actually pay for. Leading print publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, among others, as well as investigative sites such as ProPublica, have seen a sharp increase in subscriptions.

Although no one has yet had clear success with crowd-funded news, initiatives like pay-per-view news aggregator Blendle and member-funded De Correspondent (both Dutch in origin but testing the United States market) continue to innovate. Someone is going to get there. And it might well be Mr Wales. He has the experience, the connections, the vision and the passion.

Will it help?

Finally, the most important question is whether Wikitribune will change anything. Again, it just might. The surge in populist politics in Europe and the US has had shocking effects but isn't inherently startling. The anger and frustration of people who feel they are being ignored, misled or outright trammelled by powerful institutions in society - including the media - were palpable well before the Brexit referendum, the 2016 US election or the rise of Ms Marine Le Pen in France. And around the world, trust in the media is at a historic low.

Wikitribune proposes to counter that sense of alienation not just by making people feel the news is relevant to them, but also by inviting them to directly and personally engage with its production. If you feel a news account is inaccurate, propose a correction. If you feel it is biased, provide the countervailing evidence. If you are wrong, no harm done. Your contribution will be vetted and rejected, and at least one bit of fake news will not blight our collective understanding of the world. But if you are right, then you have helped not just yourself but the rest of us as well. Because in the end, we all share responsibility for the health of our networked society.

The writer is professor of journalism innovation at City University of London.

This article first appeared in theconversation.com, a website of analyses from academics and researchers.

Read more:
Wikipedia founder takes the fight to fake news - The Straits Times

April 30 2017, 12:01am,The Sunday Times

Sarah Baxter

The site is to offer news but is unreliable; only a free press gets at the truth

It is very bad form to google yourself or to check your own entry on Wikipedia. It was my son who tipped me off that I sounded like a deranged warmonger. What? I immediately looked myself up. He was exaggerating, but not by much. Whoever compiled my Wikipedia entry clearly thinks my position on the Iraq War is the most interesting thing about me.

It was pretty accurate as these things go. Among the factual guff about my work and personal life culled from the News UK website, its true that I supported the First Gulf War in the 1990s and later backed George W Bush for US president over John Kerry in 2004 because of the war on terror.

Maybe these really are the

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Wikipedia won't break real news - The Times (subscription)