Roskomnadzor demands that Wikipedia put an end to dissemination of false info about special military operation in Ukraine

MOSCOW. April 5 (Interfax) - The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) confirms it has demanded yet again that Wikipedia block false information about the Russian operation in Ukraine.

"Based on a motion from the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, Roskomnadzor demanded on April 4 that the Wikipedia management put an end to the dissemination of false socially significant information," the agency said.

Roskomnadzor's demand that information from five articles concerning Russian activities in Ukraine be removed was reported on the social media of the Russian-language Wikipedia on Monday evening.

Roskomnadzor said that Wikipedia did not meet the previous demand of the kind.

"Materials containing false information about the special military operation in Ukraine and operations of the Russian Armed Forces have been massively published on Wikipedia in the recent period. Wikipedia has become a new line for continuous information attacks on Russians," Roskomnadzor said.

"The authors of certain articles published on Wikipedia intentionally misinform users of the Internet resource with obviously false information," it said.

"The articles published by the resource are promoting an exclusively anti-Russian interpretation of the events," Roskomnadzor said.

Consistent with the Russian law, the owner of a resource that fails to remove illegal information at the demand of Roskomnadzor faces a fine of up to 4 million rubles for legal entities, it said.

Representatives of the Russian-language Wikipedia said on social media on March 29 they had received a repeat notice from Roskomnadzor regarding the blocking of a Wikipedia page. The first notice was sent on March 1. Later on, Roskomnadzor confirmed the sending of the notice and warned Wikipedia of administrative liability for the refusal to comply with the demands of the Prosecutor General's Office.

Roskomnadzor said on March 31 that Wikipedia would be held administratively liable for refusing to remove "false information about the Russian special military operation in Ukraine aimed at misinforming Russian users," and might be penalized with a fine of up to 4 million rubles. The service said it would draw up a motion in Wikipedia's regard on the basis of Article 13.41 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses.