Because they thought it was too ‘woke’ and wanted to burn the books.
FWIW you can download it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
Edit: Lots of good answers. When I ask the question I mean the main site. We would all have access to it. Hell I downloaded the text yesterday on two computers. I mean could the masses ever be denied access to wikipedia in the only form they are used to?
I’m sure the government can do anything they want… but a lot of people have it backed up including myself
Yeah, I assume if they took down Wikipedia itself then hundreds of copies would pop up all over the place, probably hosted elsewhere, and one of them would become the primary replacement over time.
Media might be lost to some extent, but I doubt there’s any way you can take the text/information/metadata off the internet at all, and that’s the most important aspect.