Vladimir Putin attacks Wikipedia, pointing to the online encyclopedia as an unreliable information site to his fellow citizens. The Russian president expresses his thoughts in an interview with the Znanie foundation (in Italian: Conoscenza) which, born in 2015 by state decree, proposes the educational and training objectives of civil society and young people.
The story of the war
Wikipedia Italy has published its entry on the Russian invasion of Ukraine
by Pier Luigi Pisa
16 March 2022
Wikipedia has long been in the crosshairs of the Russian authorities who cannot stand the freedom with which Russia’s war on Ukraine is described in the various entries.
Already at the beginning of March, the encyclopedia, founded by Jimmy Wales, received a request to remove an article dedicated to the subject. To advance this claim, rejected by the heads of the Russian version of Wikipedia, were the officials of Roskomnadzor, the body responsible for controlling the media system in Russia.
Due Wikipedia
by Riccardo Luna
16 March 2022
The request, submitted after a challenge by the country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, was, moreover, followed by the threat to apply a fine of 4 million rubles, in the event that it was not respected.
The offending page of Wikipedia, the stone of the scandal for the Russian leaders, called “Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, describes the origins and causes of the conflict and contains information on the victims of the Ukrainian civilian population and the violations of human rights. details that, evidently, clash with the regime’s propaganda, increasingly intolerant of the free press and of facts contrary to the truth of the state, imposed in Russia.
The story
Wikipedia Italy and the invasion of Ukraine: the story of a 19-day draft
by Pier Luigi Pisa
23 March 2022
Also in the month of March, just to get a clearer idea of the liberticidal climate that is found in this area of the world, one of the most active collaborators of Wikipedia, Mark Bernstein, Russia was arrested in Belarus. The accusation is that of false anti-Russian information, disseminated through the platform founded by Jimmy Wales. Which, in this way, is not only deprived of its most important editors and volunteers, to undermine their work, but also de-legitimized, brandishing its business and its articles as a poor product and without value from an informative point of view.
Vladimir Putin himself has repeatedly questioned and devalued the quality of the information published on Wikipedia. In the interview granted to Maxim Dreval, general manager of Znanie, the Russian president again tried to discredit the encyclopedia, relaunching the idea of an alternative Russian project to the site which, despite the obstacles, continues to be visited and source of information also for Russian users.
Gender gap
WikiDonne, the project to rebalance the female presence on Wikipedia
by Emanuele Capone
April 13, 2022
The escalation of attacks against Wikipedia, in this respect, is part of a broader strategy, pursued by the Russian authorities, to restrict and prevent access to news platforms and apps that escape the grip of Kremlin censorship. Facebook and Twitter were blocked on the orders of Roskomnadzor who also asked Google and Youtube to remove content on the war in Ukraine and anti-Russian advertising, threatening sanctions of 8 million rubles.
Accessing Wikipedia is, at the moment, still possible in Russia and the editors of the encyclopedia do not intend to give up their mission, wanting to represent a first line of defense against the manipulation of reality and knowledge.