2021 Wikimedia Foundation actions on the Chinese Wikipedia

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Logo of Wikimedians of Mainland China, the user group being investigated in the action

Logo of Gongbi Quanshu, the successor of Wikimedians of Mainland China and the operator of Qiuwen Baike

The Wikimedia Foundation took several actions in response to Chinese government infiltration of Chinese Wikipedia as well as harassment by pro-Beijing editors during the Hong Kong protests. In August 2021, the Wikipedia Foundation modified the security terms in the "access to nonpublic personal data policy", and users with advanced permissions allowing them to retrieve IP address data of other users on Chinese Wikipedia had their access revoked. At 16:13, September 13, 2021 GMT (00:13, September 14, 2021 Beijing Time), the Wikimedia Foundation globally banned seven accounts from editing Wikipedia, revoked the administrative rights of twelve accounts, and warned twelve other users.^[1][2] Four of the top ten most active administrators on Chinese Wikipedia had their rights revoked.^[3]

Maggie Dennis, Vice President of Community Resilience and Sustainability for the Legal Department at Wikimedia Foundation, conducted a yearlong investigation into "infiltration concerns" that threatened the "very foundations of Wikipedia". Dennis observed that the infiltrators had tried to promote "the aims of China, as interpreted through whatever filters they may bring to bear". The investigation had also found that an unaffiliated Wikipedia user group of approximately three hundred members from Mainland China, the Wikimedians of Mainland China (WMC or WMCUG), had been involved in vote-stacking and manipulation of administrative elections.^{[4][5][6] [7]} Suggesting possible links to the Chinese Communist Party, Dennis said "We needed to act based on credible information that some members (not all) of that group [WMC] have harassed, intimidated, and threatened other members of our community, including in some cases physically harming others, in order to secure their own power and subvert the collaborative nature of our projects".^[8][9] After the Wikimedia Foundation took action against the WMC editors, the Taiwanese Wikipedia community noted that such an action was long overdue and released a statement saying “We need to rebuild an inclusive wiki that welcomes everyone from all places who wants to contribute to Chinese language Wikipedia in good faith...Many people have felt unsafe for years, so restoring a shared sense of comfort is likely to take some time”. ^[10]