Publicly available factual information is a threat to an authoritarian regime
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
321 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
2679 readers
240 users here now
Which posts fit here?
Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
Post guidelines
[Opinion] prefix
Opinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.
Rules
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original link
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
!globalnews@lemmy.zip
!interestingshare@lemmy.zip
Icon attribution | Banner attribution
If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Wikipedia, archive.org, and any similar essential services ought to be migrating their hosting and organizational headquarters to outside the US ASAP.
That's not something you can just do. All of there employees are Americans.
It would be better if they were spread across many countries so that one place couldn't cause a problem.
We have to protect Wikipedia. We have to.
If they take it down we'll make it again.
All you selfhosters out there, this is the cue to make your mirrors
Got my snapshot from Jan.
It's only 20gb.
You need an offline viewer. That's a snap /flat hub install. Kiwix I believe
Says ~110gb for all of english version via kiwix. Did you exclude images or something?
Yes, they’re are different versions. Maxi is the 110GB one, there is also a nopic version that is quite a bit lighter.
Just started, great suggestion.
I can't believe this shit. 2023 me wouldn't believe I'd be doing half of the things I'm doing now.
Just wait til 2025 you couldn't possibly believe what '27's got in stock :p
Though, any server schenanagins That may interest me for some hypotheical good in the world?
No need
Install the free offline reader software from here
Then grab what content you want from https://dumps.wikimedia.org/kiwix/zim/
Here's English Wikipedia, with pictures from 2024 https://dumps.wikimedia.org/kiwix/zim/wikipedia/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-01.zim
names with maxi have all the pictures names with mini few pictures and abridged content names with nopic have no pictures and abridged content
if it says science or basketball, it's just things flagged as science or things flagged as basketball.
Was weighing some options and think I'll be deploying this, thank you.
They literally don't generate any revenue. Wikipedia is quite literally the definition of a non-profit.
Also, trump is barred from running non-profits due to fraud in NY, I feel like that should disqualify him from making these kinds of decisions.
Does Wikipedia receive federal funding? If not, people can shut right up.
I think it's in the single digit percentages of their funding.
They're pretty flush with cash still. Trump can go after them, but for what? They'd need more corruption than they have in the judicial system today. They'll get there eventually, but they don't have it yet.
It’s not that there is no danger, but I don’t see anything immediate.
Good news and fun fact, the entirety of Wikipedia can be downloaded quite easily.
Is there any way to decentralize Wikipedia? P2P wikipedia? Because that seems like the best long term solution to this.
Yes, start with a mirror. A download is enough for yourself, but mirrors retain what is needed to rebuild the database. You will meed a lot of storage
I torrented the text of english wikipedia one time and deleted it a few weeks after to make space for my Monero node. What I meant by "decentralized Wikipedia" would be not only the files being stored in multiple locations but there also being some sort of system (including moderation I suppose) to broadcast edits across the network
Wikipedia over IPFS, it seems to be a work in progress, but its something
that's actually pretty cool, thanks!
How would that work?
We need a federated Wikipedia (Fedipedia)
Why?
I feel like that is a mixed bag
It really isn't bad as is