A Russian court on Tuesday fined the Wikimedia Foundation two million rubles ($27,000) for failing to remove from its online encyclopedia Wikipedia what Moscow considers “disinformation” about its armed forces, Reuters reported.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, authorities in Moscow passed a series of sweeping laws on what can be said about the conflict, with fines or blocking of websites that spread information that contradicts the Kremlin’s official narrative.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, was already fined last year for refusing to remove two articles related to the war, including one about “estimated Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”
The Moscow court fined the Wikimedia organization for seven more articles related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the massacre in Buch and the explosion of a hospital and theater in Mariupol.
The new fine was imposed after Russian authorities accused Wikipedia of “spreading disinformation” about Russian military units, Wikimedia reported.
Such an act entails criminal liability in Russia.
Wikimedia said it is considering whether to appeal the decision to an appeals court, but has not yet made a decision.
“Wikipedia has so far only had a successful experience in Russia challenging decisions in appeals courts,” Stanislav Kozlovsky, director of Wikimedia’s Russian branch, told Reuters.
Wikimedia is a non-profit organization that maintains the infrastructure to run a number of multilingual projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, and more. A wiki is a web application that allows users to add content and maintain their own consistent versions, just like an Internet forum, but also allows anyone else to modify the content.
Russia wants to launch its own, “sovereign” Wikipedia
In December, Russia announced that it was going to launch a domestic version of Wikipedia at the beginning of the year, but has not yet taken any steps to do so.
Back in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the creation of a Russian online encyclopedia more “reliable” than Wikipedia.
“As for “Wikipedia” (…), it is better to replace it with a new Great Russian encyclopedia in electronic format,” he said then in the Kremlin during a meeting of the commission on the future of the Russian language.
Putin was referring to the Russian Encyclopedia, published between 2007 and 2014, which is currently only available in print.
“At the very least, it will be reliable information presented in a high-quality and up-to-date manner,” the head of the Kremlin assured.
Follow the latest events of the 370th day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.
Source: Hot News
James Springer is a renowned author and opinion writer, known for his bold and thought-provoking articles on a wide range of topics. He currently works as a writer at 247 news reel, where he uses his unique voice and sharp wit to offer fresh perspectives on current events. His articles are widely read and shared and has earned him a reputation as a talented and insightful writer.