Wikimedia says it ‘will not back down’ after Russia threatens Wikipedia block

The Wikimedia Foundation has issued a press release supporting Russian Wikipedia volunteers after a censorship demand from web regulators. On Tuesday, tech and communications regulator Roskomnadzor threatened to block Wikipedia over the Russian-language web page masking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming it contained “false messages” about conflict casualties and the results of financial sanctions, amongst different issues.

“On March 1st 2022 the Wikimedia Foundation received a Russian government demand to remove content related to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine posted by volunteer contributors to Russian Wikipedia,” reads the assertion despatched to The Verge by way of e mail. “As ever, Wikipedia is an important source of reliable, factual information in this crisis. In recognition of this important role, we will not back down in the face of efforts to censor and intimidate members of our movement. We stand by our mission to deliver free knowledge to the world.”

The Roskomnadzor demand, which was posted in Russian Wikipedia’s Telegram channel, calls for Wikimedia tackle person edits from a February twenty seventh model of the article. As translated by Wikimedia Russia, it takes situation with “information about numerous casualties among the military personnel of the Russian Federation, as well as the civilian population of Ukraine, including number of children,” in addition to “the need to withdraw funds from accounts in banks of the Russian Federation in connection with the sanctions imposed by foreign states.” (While the conflict’s casualties stay tough to estimate, the United Nations has confirmed hundreds of civilian deaths in Ukraine for the reason that battle started final week, together with at the least 13 youngsters, and acknowledged that its numbers seemingly underestimate the actual demise toll.)

Wikimedia Russia known as the claims “fundamentally impossible” to judge and urged the federal government to not block entry to the article — which might successfully require blocking entry to all of Wikipedia. It additionally famous that the web page is consistently altering due to the work of its quite a few editors. “All these people have very different views on what is happening, and they are all very careful to ensure that someone does not insert false information or misleading wording into the article,” the group wrote.

As Input notes, Russian authorities have despatched a lot of complaints about Wikipedia pages previously. The authorities outright blocked the location in 2015 over a cannabis-related article, however the blackout was short-lived. However, the present menace is an element of a bigger on-line crackdown across the invasion — one which’s seen Russia block Twitter and Facebook in an effort to manage the narrative across the conflict. “Tuesday’s takedown request threatened censorship. Denying people access to reliable information, at a time of crisis, can have life-altering consequences,” warned the Wikimedia assertion.