Russia fines Wikipedia for refusing to remove articles about the invasion of Ukraine

The Tagansky District Court, located in Moscow, fined the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns from the collaborative online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for refusing to remove two articles about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The fine, of 2 million rubles (about BRL thousand ), was applied due to the refusal to withdraw the articles entitled “Nonviolent resistance of the civilian population of Ukraine during the invasion of Russia” and “Assessments on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in ” on Wikipedia in Russian.

Stanislav Kozlovsky, Director of Wikimedia in Russia, said the foundation will appeal the court decision. “We still have a very strong legal procedural position, so we have reason to believe that we will be able to reverse this fine and those that were issued in April,” Kozlovsky told Reuters, referring to previous fines amounting to 5 million rubles (R$ (BRL)). thousand).

Russia refuses to describe the invasion of Ukraine as a war – it uses the term “special military operation”. Previously, technology companies such as Google and Telegram had already been fined for content related to Ukraine.

Last month, Russian financial regulator Rosfinmonitoring placed the American company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, on its list of organizations extremists and terrorists for allegedly encouraging “Russophobia”.

The decision followed that of a Moscow court, which in March had declared Instagram and Facebook as “extremist” and banned the use of these social networks throughout Russian territory.