Russian court fines Wikipedia over military 'misinformation'

[February 28, 2023]  (Reuters) - The Wikimedia Foundation was 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.

Wikimedia, which owns Wikipedia, was already fined last year after it failed to delete two articles related to the war, including one on "evaluations of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine".

The latest fine was imposed after the authorities accused Wikipedia of "spreading misinformation" in articles about Russian military units, Wikimedia Russia said.

The organisation said it may appeal the ruling but that it had not yet made a decision.

"So far, in the history of courts in Russia, Wikipedia has only had one successful experience of appealing court verdicts," the head of the foundation's Russian chapter, Stanislav Kozlovskiy, told Reuters.

($1 = 74.72 roubles)

(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev; Writing by Caleb Davis; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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