The Russian invasion of Ukraine is extensively covered on Wikipedia across many languages. [1] This coverage includes articles on and related to the invasion itself, and updates of previously existing articles to take the invasion into account. [1] Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects' coverage of the conflict – and how the volunteer editing community achieved that coverage – has received significant media and government attention. [2] [3] [4] [5]
On March 1, 2022, one week after Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, the Russian-language edition of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia announced that the Russian government's media regulator Roskomnadzor had threatened to block access to Wikipedia in the country. [6] The Russian government cited "illegally distributed information" present on the Russian Wikipedia article of the invasion, including Russian casualties and treatment of Ukrainian civilians. [7] Local downloads of the Russian Wikipedia for offline use from Kiwix increased by over 4,000% following the beginning of the invasion amid fears of a Russian block, and over 105,000 downloads had been made during the first half of March. [6]
In Belarus, Russian Wikipedia editor Mark Bernstein was arrested after having been doxxed (having his personal identity revealed) in relation to his editing and writing about the invasion. [8] [9]
On 16 March 2022, the Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information (news agency founded by the RIA Novosti, the Constitutional Court of Russia, the Supreme Court of Russia, and the High Court of Arbitration of Russia in 2009) published an interview of Alexander Malkevich, the deputy chairman of the commission on the development of information society, media and mass communications of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. In this interview, Malkevich said that Wikipedia (both Russian and others) was becoming a "bridgehead for informational war against Russia". He also stated that Russian law-enforcement agencies had identified thirteen persons who were carrying out "politically engaged editing" of Wikipedia's articles, and about 30,000 bloggers "participating in informational war against Russia". [10]
According to Novaya Gazeta , pro-Kremlin structures related to Yevgeny Prigozhin are actively involved in doxing "coordinators of an informational attack on Russia", including Wikipedia editors. Novaya Gazeta also reports that Special Communications Service of Russia (a division of the Federal Protective Service) employees are trying to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda by editing Wikipedia articles. [11]
On 31 March, Roskomnadzor demanded that Wikipedia remove any information about the invasion that is "misinforming" Russians, or it could face a fine of up to 4 million rubles (approximately $49,000 or $47,000). [12] [13] In June 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation appealed the fine, arguing that people in Russia have the right to access knowledge about the invasion. [14]
In April 2022, EU vs Disinfo found that four pro-Russian disinformation news outlets were referenced in at least 625 Wikipedia articles. Most of these references were in the Russian Wikipedia (136 articles), Arabic Wikipedia (70), Spanish Wikipedia (52), Portuguese Wikipedia (45) and Vietnamese Wikipedia (32). The English Wikipedia has removed most references to these outlets. [15]
In April-May 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites. The list included the articles 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rashism, [16] several articles in Russian Wikipedia devoted to the military action and war crimes during the Russo-Ukrainian War, [17] and two sections of the Russian article about Vladimir Putin. [18]
In May 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation was fined 5 million rubles for articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia claimed to have uncovered 16.6 million messages spreading "fakes" about the invasion on platforms including Wikipedia. [19] The Wikimedia Foundation appealed the ruling in June, stating the "information at issue is fact-based and verified by volunteers who continuously edit and improve articles on the site; its removal would therefore constitute a violation of people's rights to free expression and access to knowledge." [20]
On 20 July 2022, due to the refusal of Wikipedia to remove the articles about the Russian-Ukrainian war, Roskomnadzor ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws. [21] [22]
On 1 November 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation was fined 2 million rubles by a Russian court for not deleting two articles on the Russian Wikipedia. [23]
On 28 February 2023, the Wikimedia Foundation was fined 2 million rubles by a Moscow court for not deleting articles about two brigades of the Russian army and for spreading supposedly unreliable information about the activity of the Russian army in Kharkiv, Lysychansk and Mariupol during the invasion. [24] [25] [20] On 6 April 2023, the same court fined the Foundation 800 thousand rubles for not deleting the lyrics of several songs by the rock band Psychea , which are included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials. [26] On 13 April 2023, the same court fined the Foundation 2 million rubles for not deleting the Russian-language article about the Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. [27]
The Georgian and Ukrainian Wikipedias changed their logos to reflect the blue and gold coloring of Ukraine's flag. [5]
The Wikimedia Foundation released a statement on 1 March 2022, calling for "continued access to free and open knowledge" and for "an immediate and peaceful resolution to the conflict". [28]
The Ukrainian Wikipedia is the Ukrainian language edition of the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The first article was written on 30 January 2004. As of November 2024, the Ukrainian Wikipedia has 1,354,733 articles and is the 14th largest Wikipedia edition.
The Russian Wikipedia is the Russian-language edition of Wikipedia. As of November 2024, it has 2,012,168 articles. It was started on 11 May 2001. In October 2015, it became the sixth-largest Wikipedia by the number of articles. It has the sixth-largest number of edits (141 million). In June 2020, it was the world's sixth most visited language Wikipedia. As of September 2024, it is the third most viewed Wikipedia, after the English and Japanese editions.
The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as Roskomnadzor (RKN), is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media. Its areas of responsibility include electronic media, mass communications, information technology and telecommunications, supervising compliance with the law, protecting the confidentiality of personal data being processed, and organizing the work of the radio-frequency service.
Censorship of Wikipedia by governments has occurred widely in countries including China, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Some instances are examples of widespread Internet censorship in general that includes Wikipedia content. Others are indicative of measures to prevent the viewing of specific content deemed offensive. The duration of different blocks has varied from hours to years.
In Russia, internet censorship is enforced on the basis of several laws and through several mechanisms. Since 2012, Russia maintains a centralized internet blacklist maintained by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
The logo of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, is an unfinished puzzle globe—some jigsaw pieces are missing at the top—each inscribed with a glyph from a different writing system. As displayed on the web pages of the English-language edition of the project, there is the wordmark "WIKIPEDIA" under the globe, and below that, the text "The Free Encyclopedia" in the free Linux Libertine font, which is open-source.
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia was briefly blocked in Russia in August 2015. Some articles of Wikipedia were included into various censorship lists disseminated by the government. Further threats to block were made following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Censorship is controlled by the Government of Russia and by civil society in the Russian Federation, applying to the content and the diffusion of information, printed documents, music, works of art, cinema and photography, radio and television, web sites and portals, and in some cases private correspondence, with the aim of limiting or preventing the dissemination of ideas and information that the Russian state or public opinion consider to be a danger.
As part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state and state-controlled media have spread disinformation in their information war against Ukraine. Ukrainian media and politicians have also been accused of using propaganda and deception, although such efforts have been described as more limited than the Russian disinformation campaign.
On 11 March 2022, Mark Izraylevich Bernstein, a Belarusian blogger and contributor to the Russian Wikipedia based in Minsk, was detained by GUBOPiK personnel after online accusations of violating the Russian 2022 war censorship laws for his editing of Wikipedia articles on the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was sentenced to 15 days' administrative arrest under Article 24.3 of the Administrative Code of Belarus. After that period, he was kept in detention; on 24 June 2022 he was sentenced to three years of restricted freedom and released from custody.
Marina Vladimirovna Ovsyannikova is a Russian journalist who was employed on the Channel One Russia television channel. She worked for Russia's main evening newscast Vremya on Channel One since the beginning of the 2000s, later describing her role as "producing Kremlin propaganda".
On 7 April 2022, Pavel Alexandrovich Pernikaŭ, a 30-year-old Belarusian human rights activist and Wikipedia editor, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for "discrediting the Republic of Belarus" by making two edits to Wikipedia about political repression in Belarus and posting one article to the website of a human rights organization about torture and extra-judicial killings in Belarusian detention centers. Days after his imprisonment, he was recognized as a political prisoner by Belarusian human rights organizations.
On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Articles 31 and 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is a group of federal laws promulgated by the Russian government during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These laws establish administrative and criminal punishments for "discrediting" or dissemination of "unreliable information" about the Russian Armed Forces, other Russian state bodies and their operations, and the activity of volunteers aiding the Russian Armed Forces, and for calls to impose sanctions against Russia, Russian organizations and citizens. These laws are an extension of Russian fake news laws and are sometimes referred to as the fakes laws.
Pro-democratic and pro-Ukrainian partisan movements have emerged in Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War. These resistance movements act against the authoritarian government of Vladimir Putin in Russia, as well as against civilian supporters of these authorities and the armed forces, with the aim of stopping the war.
Ruwiki is a Russian online encyclopedia. It was launched in June 24, 2023 as a fork of the Russian Wikipedia, and has been described by media as "Putin-friendly" and "Kremlin-compliant". A full-scale launch took place on 15 January 2024.
Wikimedia RU, also known as Wikimedia Russia was a non-profit Wikimedia chapter created to support the creation and maintenance of articles in the Russian-language Wikipedia.
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