Making Wikipedia available anytime, anywhere

Mark A. Shiffri... — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:13:21 -0500

The same body of knowledge once contained in a shelf-long encyclopedia can now be made freely available in digital form -- not only where Internet access is widespread, but even in places where it is not.

We take for granted the easy access to information that Internet search engines allow. But, these benefits are minimally available in the developing world, where Internet service is limited, and in states like China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia where websites and information deemed unacceptable to the state are blocked. Making Wikipedia, the user-edited online encyclopedia, available offline could significantly improve world-wide, free access to information.

Wikipedia is compiled by users around the world. It is available in English and fifteen other languages in common use throughout the world and is the product of a nongovernmental organization. The Wikimedia Foundation that administers Wikipedia is analogous to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that administers the Internet itself. As a creation of Internet users -- rather than governments -- the Foundation is even more independent than ICANN. Wikipedia’s community of editors reaches beyond politically correct and governmentally sanitized ideas.

Available technology can make the difference here. Thumb-drive technology is well-developed, cheap, and portable. These devices are computer data storage tools the size of key fobs that allow easy data transport from computer to computer and from place to place.
A resource like Wikipedia, downloaded to a thumb drive, becomes more than an online encyclopedia -- it becomes a portable, virtual library that can be updated whenever there is an Internet connection. Anyone with an Internet connection in any corner of the world could download Wikipedia onto a thumb drive -- and share it.

While a static representation of data is not equal to a search of the latest information online, it would provide an encyclopedic range of information taken as a snapshot in time. It could fuel the inexpensive “$100 computers” developed for poorer nations where Internet access is spotty. It could provide an end-run around censorship where Internet freedom is restricted. It could be an encyclopedia for those students in the United States who lack Internet access at home.

The Internet unleashes the power of the individual to think for himself and to access the ideas of others. In free societies with widespread Internet use, we can accept or reject blogs and news sites as we wish in considering the information and ideas they express. Employing the online utility of Wikipedia as downloadable and portable data would empower those who cannot readily access the Internet, or who live where governments seek to limit that access.

Because Wikipedia is run by an independent international community and not controlled by any government, it has a unique authenticity as a source of information. It can be a democratizing influence where the Internet is not freely available -- by circumstance or governmental interference -- as are search engines in areas where there is Internet access and online freedom.

Using digital technology to make Wikipedia available to those without ready access to the Internet, inquiring minds anywhere in the world can have a thumb-sized encyclopedia. The benefits are not just abstract pursuit of knowledge, but unleashing the competitive power of individuals throughout the world by free access to information that can inform their lives and their economic and personal potential.

There is an inherent value of knowledge freely compiled by the marketplace of thinking people, without the oversight of any government or individual society. This is knowledge any of us can take on our own terms and accept or reject in our judgment, without having been told by any government filter what we can or cannot think. Wikipedia provides a free-flowing pipeline of knowledge constrained by no government. It can be the pipeline not only where the Internet flourishes, but where access is imperfect due to technology or economic constraints, or the interference of repressive societies.

Mark A. Shiffrin, a lawyer, is a former Connecticut state consumer protection commissioner.