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- Wiki has been tightened: the amount of Wikipedia fines in the Russian Federation has exceeded 41 million rubles
Wiki has been tightened: the amount of Wikipedia fines in the Russian Federation has exceeded 41 million rubles
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia continues to ignore the legitimate demands of the RCN to remove illegal content. The site's fines for spreading fakes are growing — their amount for 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 has already amounted to 12.5 million rubles, and the total figure has exceeded 41 million. At the same time, she got into a major scandal in the United States: Edward Martin, the federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, appointed by Donald Trump, turned against her. He accused the resource of distorting information, manipulating facts and rewriting historical events and data about former and current politicians. Now Wikipedia may be stripped of its status as a non-profit organization, which exempts it from tax benefits, and it must answer 10 questions from the prosecutor by mid-May.
What's going on with Wikipedia
According to Roskomnadzor, after the start of a special military operation, the Wikipedia administration, represented by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., takes an anti-Russian position, ignores the legitimate demands of the RCN to remove illegal content.
— To date, 229 illegal materials have not been deleted. Of these, 133 contain fakes about the course of a special military operation. In addition, extremist and terrorist-related materials remain available; information about the involvement of minors in committing illegal acts (trafficking, hooking); materials about the manufacture of explosives; suicidal, pro-drug and other prohibited content. For failure to delete prohibited information, a measure of coercion is currently in effect against the company in the form of informing search engines of their users about violations of Russian legislation by a foreign person, the press service of Roskomnadzor told Izvestia.
It is known that the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. has been repeatedly brought to administrative responsibility in Russia for not removing illegal content. In 2024, the courts imposed fines totaling 9 million rubles against the company, and in 2025, the fines amounted to 3.5 million rubles. By August 2023, Wikimedia had been fined a total of 29.4 million rubles, thus the total amount of fines already exceeds 41 million rubles. Izvestia sent a request to the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. regarding the situation with fines, there was no response at the time of writing.
The management of the Wikipedia platform has become addicted to distorting facts and rewriting history, according to federal Prosecutor Edward Martin. He attacked the platform at the end of April and gave the administration a clear deadline until mid-May. The text of his complaint letter appeared online. The prosecutor demands explanations on 10 issues, which relate, among other things, to national security and the interests of the United States. The issues relate to the practice of maintaining transparency by Wikipedia's management, as well as security when posting data and responsibility for it. If Wikipedia fails to convince Edward Martin, the organization risks losing its tax-exempt status.
Another scandal was the expulsion of two veterans from the editorial staff of the Wikipedia website, who were found guilty of official misconduct outside the site. The employees were accused of colluding on the third-party Discord server Tech4Palestine in order to influence the editing of articles related to Palestine in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and were permanently blocked on the site.
Potential blocking and analogues
Wikipedia distributes banned content related to LGBT and other extremist organizations and methods of manufacturing explosives in the Russian Federation. All this may be aimed at forming Russians' propensity for unacceptable behavior. Despite the launch of the Russian encyclopedia "Ruviki", Wikipedia remains the main source of information for many users. Blocking Wikipedia will deprive Russians of access to neutral data, according to third-party experts, and Ruviki cannot yet offer a similar quality and volume of content, said Igor Bederov, head of the information and analytical research department at T.Hunter.
— There is no direct evidence of the involvement of Western intelligence agencies in editing Wikipedia in the search results. However, the peculiarity of conducting hybrid wars is the difficulty of attributing a specific enemy in cyberspace," he added.
In the context of a geopolitical confrontation, Wikipedia can become a field for promoting ideologically charged interpretations of events. For example, articles about conflicts (Ukraine, Syria) or historical events (the Cold War) often reflect the position of the Western media and academic circles, which may be perceived in Russia as bias, Kirill Kopytin, a lecturer at the Department of Esports at the Department of Gaming Industry and Esports at Synergy University, is convinced.
— Wikipedia is vulnerable to manipulation, especially in articles on hot topics. The main problem is not a "Western conspiracy", but a systemic bias caused by the dominance of editors from certain countries. For example, articles about Russian politics may rely on sources critical of the Kremlin. This is a convenient starting resource, but its articles may contain errors or outdated data, especially in rapidly changing fields such as medicine or technology, and often reflect the consensus of the Western academic environment, which does not correlate with the local context," the expert concluded.
Wikipedia has no analogues, but it is unsafe to solve all issues with its help. It is worth using common sense and your own conclusions, rechecking all the data, said Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. The expert is convinced that it is better to use information resources that share the user's point of view. And he suggested leaving the political aspect out of the online encyclopedia.
— Wikipedia itself is a non-profit project, its content is shaped by the global community, which can influence the coverage of certain topics from a Western point of view. However, it is difficult to talk about direct use in someone's interests - it is still a public encyclopedia," said IT expert Daniil Arzhakov.
The attendance of "Ruviki" in the first quarter of 2025 exceeded 22 million unique users. For comparison, the portal's attendance for the first quarter of 2024 was 1.8 million unique users. By the end of the year, the Russian equivalent of Wikipedia plans to make the first approach to its own application, and is also considering integration into VK MAX, as it considers this service extremely promising, the press service of Ruviki said.
— Partnerships are a key vector for the development of the MAX platform. We are open to everyone," the national messenger's press service noted.
It is reported that more than 800 volunteers fill the "Ruviki" every month, who can receive points and prizes for making edits and writing articles. The encyclopedia positively assessed the year 2024, noting a multiple increase in the audience, the introduction of technological innovations, and the expansion of partnerships with expert organizations such as the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Culture, as well as various libraries and museums.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
