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Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has met with the Chinese government body in charge of censoring online content in the country. Cai Mingzhao, Vice Director of China's State Council Information Office in charge of China's "Internet Management Division" (censorship division), discussed Wales' concerns regarding censorship. Although no deals or agreements where made, it has been reported that the meeting has "opened a channel of communication and dialogue between the Wikipedia community and the Chinese government."

Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre reports: "Since 2005 Wikipedia—both Chinese and English—has been blocked in China, but it was unblocked in the run-up to the Olympics, along with a number of other overseas websites. At last year's Wikimania meeting in Taipei, Jimmy was adamant in stating that neither Wikipedia nor his company, Wikia, will ever agree to censor content at the request of Chinese authorities. Google's decision to offer a censored search engine in China, he said last year, was 'a bad business decision for Google… When there is a sufficient amount of change that the Great Firewall is torn down, the Chinese people will appreciate that Wikipedia stood its moral ground.'"

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See related topics: Censorship, Web