Blocking of Wikipedia in Russia can happen at any time, but if it happens, the portal will not violate Russian laws and circumvent the ban. About this Russian media in the program “Chroniques du Nouveau Monde” said Stanislav Kozlovsky is the executive director of the non-profit partnership Wikimedia RU, which develops the Russian segment of Wikipedia.
According to him, Wikipedia has been threatened with blocking for more than 11 years, since the creation in Russia in November 2012 of the so-called register of banned sites. Roskomnadzor (RKN) has the right to close access to the sites or individual pages included therein in a pre-trial order if, in the opinion of the department, they contain information, the distribution of which is prohibited in the territory of Russia.
“Literally immediately after the registry appeared, Wikipedia was included in it, but was not blocked. There are now about 130 Wikipedia entries in the registry, but it has not yet been blocked. It is not known when it will happen, it can happen at any time,” Kozlovsky said.
He explained that in February last year, the number of Wikipedia articles that were in this register was no more than 30-40. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, their number has increased by more than a hundred, but at the moment the Russian Wikipedia community does not delete them, despite Roskomnadzor’s demand.
“Only the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages the servers, can really block something. In Russia, anyone can edit these articles, they can delete all the text there, but again it will be returned by other users. As long as the Wikimedia Foundation does not delete them from the servers, these articles exist, ”added the head of the Russian-speaking Wikipedia.
According to him, the Wikimedia Foundation, in turn, considers Roskomnadzor’s blocking requests “not very correct”, so the company has hired lawyers who represent its interests in Russian courts and fight for the abolition of these RKN requirements. At the same time, the company’s position, Kozlovsky stressed, is that it will not “fight the state” in the event of a decision on a permanent blockade on the territory of Russia.
“The main position is that the Wikimedia Foundation will not circumvent the block in any way, the Wikimedia Foundation will not fight the state. And if the users circumvent the block, it is in fact the decision of the users, readers,” he added.
Kozlovsky said he was confident that even if that happened, Russia would continue to use Wikipedia as well as banned social networks using VPNs.
In July last year, due to the refusal to remove a number of documents from Wikipedia, including those related to the hostilities in Ukraine, Roskomnadzor obligatory search engines mark the portal as a violator of Russian law. In early April 2023, the head of the Human Rights Council under the President of Russia Valery Fadeev prompted to block “Wikipedia”. At the same time, in the State Duma spoke against blocking the gate before creating its practical counterpart. April 18, Wikipedia blocking not yet planned for journalists informed Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev.
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