Wikipedia, which says it offers "the second draft of
history", is one of the few surviving fact-checked sources of information
in Russian since the crackdown intensified after Moscow sent its armed forces
into Ukraine in February 2022.
The Tagansky district court said it had fined Wikimedia RUB
800,000. Russian news agencies in the courtroom said Wikimedia had been charged
with failing to remove materials related to a song by the alternative rock band
Psychea, or Psyshit, which has been officially designated
"extremist".
Russia has now fined Wikimedia around RUB 9 million in the
past year, the agencies said.
Wikimedia did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.
The foundation's Russia chapter has previously said it
believes other fines may be overturned, but that the number of cases against it
may increase, given the number of articles on Wikipedia about the conflict.
Russia has for years sought to launch a home-grown online
encyclopedia, without a tangible result so far.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday and a
Russian analogue was "absolutely necessary".
"It would contain truly verified and accurate
information, objective information," he said, "because we know that
Wikipedia has many distortions, very many untruths, very many historical,
factual and other mistakes."
Russian domestic tech companies, led by entities controlled
or associated with the state-owned gas giant Gazprom, have been sensing
opportunities in Russia's growing digital isolation as foreign internet firms
are blocked or quit Russia.
But while Moscow has restricted access to Twitter and to
Meta Platforms' flagships Facebook and Instagram, Wikipedia remains freely
available. © Reuters
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