If Wikipedia is blocked in Russia, people are unlikely to stop reading it, but Russian users will no longer be able to edit pages. Stanislav Kozlovsky, executive director of the non-profit partnership Wikimedia RU (develops the Russian segment of Wikipedia), told Russian media about it in the Chronicles of a New World program. He also explained how Wikipedia tries to remain neutral when covering the conflict in Ukraine, why the portal in Russia has not yet changed to a new design, and when neural networks will write articles for Wikipedia.
On the inclusion of “Wikipedia” in the register of prohibited sites
Literally immediately after the registry appeared, Wikipedia was included in it, but was not blocked. About 130 Wikipedia entries are now in the registry, but the resource itself has not yet been blocked. When that will happen is unknown. It can happen at any time.
Roskomnadzor sends a notification that an item has been entered into the register. As a result, there is a special “Wikipedia” page that the community keeps track of, and people are looking to see what’s wrong with this article. Sometimes it is corrected, supplemented, edited, but articles are not deleted if they do not violate Wikipedia rules.
November 2012 in Russia won the so-called registry of banned sites. Individual sites or pages included in this list may be blocked by providers at the request of Roskomnadzor (RKN) under a pretrial order if, in the opinion of the agency, they contain information whose distribution is prohibited in Russia.
Only the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages the servers, can really block something. In Russia, anyone can edit these articles, can delete all text, but it will be returned by other users. Until the Wikimedia Foundation removes them from the servers, these articles exist. The Russian Wikipedia community does not remove them either.
Kirill Kukhmar / Kommersant
How the Wikimedia Foundation Responds to Roskomnadzor’s Requests
They believe that these requests are not very correct. The Wikimedia Foundation has hired a special legal company that defends them in court, where they explain to the judges in detail, systematically, what is wrong with these requests, what really does not need to be blocked.
We have the 422nd judicial district, which reviews all the cases that Roskomnadzor, in fact, sent to them. That is, all lawsuits are held there against Google, on TikTok, on VKontakte, including on the Wikimedia Foundation.
In fact, this deadlock situation has existed for 11 years. Wikipedia has been in the registry for 11 years and can be blocked at any time. 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 bypass the block, it’s actually the decision of the users, of the readers.
On what blocking Wikipedia will mean for Russians
Wikipedia, if blocked in Russia, will be read anyway. We see how a large number of officially blocked sites are read. After blocking social networks, many already have a VPN installed on their computers, on their phones, and millions of people bypass these blocks and understand that it is in fact two clicks of the mouse.
But at the same time, it will no longer be possible to edit Wikipedia. About 80% of Wikipedia authors (in Russian) are from Russia, and in this case it is impossible to edit Wikipedia via VPN, via Tor – this is blocked at the engine level. He (the user) can read but cannot write. As a result, the number of Russian authors will decrease by 5 times.
In fact, of course, in addition to Russian Wikipedia, about 30 Wikipedias are being created in Russia in the languages ​​of the peoples of Russia. There is the largest after the Chechen Russian Wikipedia, then Tatar, Bashkir; available in Erzya, Chuvash, Lezgi (languages). That is, in almost all the main languages ​​​​of Russia there is “Wikipedia”.
John Schnobrich / Unsplash
About who and how can edit Wikipedia articles
Anyone can edit. A lot of people are following these changes. In fact, on Wikipedia, everyone follows everyone. If someone is paranoid, someone thinks they can influence Wikipedia, all the tools have been designed so that anyone can find out who edited what article and when. Therefore, if someone does not like certain articles, they can modify them. But, according to Wikipedia rules, it should be links to authoritative sources, a neutral presentation of information.
About two years ago there was a scandal: they found several editors who got together and edited articles, clearly to order. But there is still no political theme, but commercial. They have all been blocked on Wikipedia.
On whether Russian editors were suspended from articles on politics
No, it’s a lie. The people who edit Wikipedia are a pretty well-established community, they’re the same people. But articles on Ukrainian topics, people from Russia, after all these attacks on Wikipedia, after all sorts of other lawsuits against Internet users, many are simply afraid to edit, in any sense, just so that their nickname (user profile name – Russian media) does not remain in history changes.
There are about 12,000 active authors who make numerous edits per month on Wikipedia. About 3 million people are registered in Russian Wikipedia. But obviously, everyone has a very different opinion on this (Ukrainian) issue: someone is vehemently supporting, someone is against, a lot of people are trying to maintain a neutral position…
Felipe Dana/AP
On the neutrality of presenting articles on controversial topics such as the conflict in Ukraine
The great principle of Wikipedia is the neutrality of presentation. That is, everyone follows each other, there are Russian-speaking Ukrainians, there are a lot of Russians, everyone follows each other so that each fact is presented in a neutral way. Regarding Ukrainian articles, neither Ukrainian sources nor Russian sources can be referred to, since these are the two sides of the conflict and, obviously, each side is interested in saying it one way or another in its own direction. For the rest (sources), for English speakers, for Spanish speakers, for Arabic speakers, for Chinese, for Farsi – please, no problem.
“Wikipedia” does not give estimates of who is right, who is wrong – the facts are described with links to sources that claim these facts.
On criminal cases for editing articles on Wikipedia
Yes, there are people who write denunciations, including in Russia. But so far none of the users in Russia have been imprisoned or fined for Wikipedia. But this happened in Belarus – three people were convicted. There is an active Wikipedian Mark Bernstein, he spent six months in prison in Belarus, he is now released under house arrest for 3 years. Two other people are in prison in this country for having edited Wikipedia.
In June 2022, a court in Minsk sentenced Wikipedia editor Mark Bernstein to 3 years of house arrest. As Mediazona* wrote, he was charged with a flagrant violation of the order. Before that, Pavel Pernikov, the editor of Wikipedia, had been imprisoned for two years in Brest in April. He was found guilty of “discrediting” Belarus for posting “knowingly false information” on Wikipedia.
Oberon Copeland / Unsplash
About when Russian Wikipedia will switch to a new design
We started with the (French version), they all liked it. In English, they discussed at length, made many modifications… In the various Wikipedias, all the communities do not intersect, or intersect weakly. Everyone has their own cultural baggage. In the Russian Wikipedia, so far, many do not like this new design. But it’s changing, being updated, so I think they’ll switch in a year or two.
This will be discussed with the community. So far, people don’t really like the new design… First, it’s made for the reader, and the editors make the decision to change. For assembly, it is not yet very practical. In this case, if it is very inconvenient for publishers, no new articles will appear, articles will not be updated, and readers will gradually leave. In other words, people don’t come for the design, but for the information.
Whether neural networks will be used to write Wikipedia articles
There is a project called Wikimedia Functions, where they are trying to make it possible to generate (create – Russian media) articles at the engine level. For example, now, if we write an article about a director, his entire filmography, in fact, is typed by hand. If we look at an article about a movie, not all actors can be listed there, but this movie can be listed in the biography of the actor, that is, such a discrepancy can occur.
Now, it is difficult to distinguish the text that a person writes from that which is created by artificial intelligence. But if it is revealed, these texts are deleted. In fact, the situation is rather the opposite – to a greater extent, the artificial intelligence learns from Wikipedia articles, that is, it takes this content: it is multilingual, very well marked, it there are no copyright restrictions, and most of these artificial intelligences are on “Wikipedia”, on the “Wikidata” project are trained.
Susan High/AP
On the attitude of the scientific community towards Wikipedia
In general, there are many scientists and university professors among Wikipedia authors. In fact, it is impossible to say that there is a general negative attitude on the part of the scientific community. All items are different, some good, some not so good, which need to be finalized.
“Wikipedia”, for example, is taught at the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University, and an interfaculty course “Introduction to Wikipedia” is taught at Moscow University. And some other universities also provide such courses. Therefore, to say that it is some kind of big negative is not. There are people who hate Wikipedia no matter what.
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