Wikipedia Owner Fined for Failing to Delete Alleged Extremist Content

The Wikimedia Foundation, proprietor of the net encyclopedia Wikipedia, was fined by a Russian courtroom on Thursday for failing to delete content material thought-about extremist as Moscow pursues a drive to crack down on impartial sources of knowledge.

Wikipedia, which says it affords “the second draft of history”, is without doubt one of the few surviving fact-checked sources of knowledge in Russian because the crackdown intensified after Moscow despatched its armed forces into Ukraine in February 2022. 

The Tagansky district courtroom mentioned it had fined Wikimedia RUB 800,000 (practically Rs. 8 lakh). Russian information businesses within the courtroom mentioned Wikimedia had been charged with failing to take away supplies associated to a music by the choice rock band Psychea, or Psyshit, which has been formally designated “extremist”.

Russia has now fined Wikimedia round RUB 9 million (practically Rs. 90 lakh) prior to now yr, the businesses mentioned. 

Wikimedia didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. 

The basis’s Russia chapter has beforehand mentioned it believes different fines could also be overturned, however that the variety of circumstances in opposition to it might improve, given the variety of articles on Wikipedia in regards to the battle.

Russia has for years sought to launch a home-grown on-line encyclopedia, and not using a tangible consequence to this point.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned on Tuesday and a Russian analogue was “absolutely necessary”.

“It would contain truly verified and accurate information, objective information,” he mentioned, “because we know that Wikipedia has many distortions, very many untruths, very many historical, factual and other mistakes.”

Russian home tech corporations, led by entities managed or related to the state-owned gasoline big Gazprom, have been sensing alternatives in Russia’s rising digital isolation as overseas web corporations are blocked or stop Russia. 

But whereas Moscow has restricted entry to Twitter and to Meta Platforms’ flagships Facebook and Instagram, Wikipedia stays freely out there.

© Thomson Reuters 2023