The Wikimedia Foundation has been fined 2 million roubles ($27,000) by a Russian court on Tuesday after the authorities accused it of failing to delete “misinformation” about the Russian military from Wikipedia, the courts service said.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Russia introduced sweeping new laws restricting what people can report about the conflict, fining or blocking websites that spread information at odds with the Kremlin’s official narrative.
Wikipedia’s parent company, Wikimedia, was previously punished for failing to remove two entries about the conflict, one of which was about “evaluations of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.”
According to Wikimedia Russia, the latest fine was issued after the authorities claimed that Wikipedia had “spread falsehoods” in entries regarding Russian military formations.
The organization stated that while it has not yet made a decision, it might appeal the verdict.
The head of the foundation’s Russian chapter, Stanislav Kozlovskiy, told Reuters that, “So far, in the history of courts in Russia, Wikipedia has only had one successful experience of appealing court verdicts.”
