If content was based on purely factual information and opinions were contrasted/highlighted, Russia would have a much harder time finding a suitable argument.
do you deny countries the legal right to set their own limitations on free speech?
So yeah - free speech is a thing we should aim for. Some disrespect it more than others and Russia is definitely not a great example to follow.
If Free Speech is defined as "whatever the government deems free speech" then the word itself becomes, at best, meaningless or, at worst, the twisted definition becomes itself a form of oppression.
"WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." - 1984
Free Speech is an absolute. Every country falls short of it in some respect, but that does not detract from the concept.
I assumed that the parent comment was genuinely curious about whether people in this discussion think that governments should be allowed to set their own limitations on free speech. I've spent a lot of time helping people find technical means to access things that local legislation says they shouldn't, and promoting the work of people who do that, so apparently I think the answer is no. But I think most people worldwide tend to think the answer is yes, so it wouldn't be so unreasonable to parse the parent post as a question about what people in the discussion think.
Another issue is, this is not even a limitation of someone's free speech, but limitation of my rights to read. I believe it's an important distinction.
Arguments are for systems where there are dissenting voices. In blocking Wikipedia, they silence those voices. They are choosing between displaying information critical of their government and not displaying that information.
They could block it for having information about drugs (like Reddit) but that is not at all what this discussion is about.
don't know why OP is getting downvoted because this reflects my observation as well
i trace the systemic bias in wikipedia to an equivalent bias in the English language media and wikipedia's policy of reliable sources. the latter is a doubly edged sword that keeps out the crackpots but also ignores reasoned dissenting voices that come from outside the corporate media circle.
Personally I think problems of bias on Wikipedia are an interesting issue that can be hard to deal with, because many Wikipedians have assumed that the elaborately-worked out policies about point of view, reliable sources, and citations have already addressed this. But maybe in many contexts these policies don't work well or don't achieve their goals well (and there are lots of ways that could be so, some of which are already identified within the Wikipedia community but not necessarily solved).
I assume the downvotes have to do with the implication that it's legitimate to block Internet content that is biased, rather than with the assertion that Wikipedia content is sometimes or increasingly biased.