Russia has launched a state-approved rival to Wikipedia as the Kremlin steps up efforts to censor information about the war in Ukraine.
Wikipedia’s top editor in Russia has quit the online encyclopaedia to launch a rival service sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Medeyko, the long-serving leader of Wikipedia editors in the country, has copied the website’s existing 1.9 million Russian articles into a new Kremlin-approved version.
The creation of the new service, called Ruwiki, was announced by a State Duma deputy from Putin’s political party.
It comes as the Russian leader steps up efforts to censor coverage of the war in Ukraine, amid growing signs of discontent at home.
Russia bans references to the war in Ukraine, allowing media outlets to refer only to a “special military operation” taking place in the neighbouring country.
The Ruwiki entry for Ukraine makes no mention of Russia’s invasion or the international support for Kyiv’s resistance.
Buroda on July 13rd, 2023 at 05:04 UTC »
Fun fact, they did that before. Their version was a carbon copy of Wikipedia with “Wiki” being find-and-replaced by “Encyclo”. sadly whoever did this wasn’t smart enough to consider other words that start with “Wiki” or “Viki” (there’s no distinction between W and V in Cyrillic), which resulted in an article about the mysterious people known as Encyclongs. These turned out to be found and replaced Vikings.
blainehamilton on July 13rd, 2023 at 02:48 UTC »
Kremlinpedia
The free Russian encyclopedia that anyone can edit*
*we have an open window policy for any edit submissions
New_Scientist_8622 on July 13rd, 2023 at 01:19 UTC »
Jesus, half the articles will 404 and the other half will default to the 1953 Time article on Russian expansionism post WW-II.