After cloning Wikipedia, Russia censors its new version and replaces it with propaganda articles

Ruwiki, the Russian equivalent of Wikipedia, is no more. Russia renamed it Ruviki, keeping essentially the same URL, but rewriting its history based on pro-Russian articles.

Always more among the Russians. Even though Vladimir Putin’s nation is no stranger to disinformation, especially during US elections, nor to interference, no one expected Russia to take over an Internet colossus like Wikipedia .

These are our colleagues from 404 Media who revealed it. Not only was the Russian version of Wikipedia, Ruwiki, created in January 2024, “cloned,” but it was subsequently banned and replaced by Ruviki. A small letter changes. This may be a small detail for you, but for Russia it means a lot. Ruviki, between censorship and propaganda, rewrites the history of Russia.

Ruviki, between censorship and propaganda

To say that Ruviki is the state version of Wikipedia in Russia is an understatement. It represents nothing more and nothing less than a form of digital censorship by modifying and omitting information present in Ruwiki, the original version of Wikipedia in Russian. This censorship is primarily done through the exclusion of content that could be perceived as critical or unfavorable to the Russian government.

For example, mentions of “ foreign agents ”, a government designation for those who express opinions about the government with outside support, are systematically removed. Opposition figures like Alexei Navalny, who died in prison, and organizations like Memorial, dedicated to the memory of victims of the Soviet regime, are either omitted completely or presented in a negative light.

Ruviki has also been criticized because of the support he receives from pro-government media. The latter consider it as the beginning of a pro-Russian encyclopedia which would replace Ruwiki. Ruviki’s articles on topics such as freedom of expression, human rights, political prisoners and censorship in Russia have undergone significant edits.

404 Media highlights the disturbing comparison with the book 1984by the visionary George Orwell, ironically about the fact that Ruviki removed from his article about the work the Ministry of Truth, a central element of the novel which symbolizes the manipulation of the truth by the government.

The war in Ukraine largely revisited by Ruviki

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine since 2022 has also not escaped the facelift of Ruwiki into Ruviki. Because there are no less than 2 million articles from the old version of the encyclopedia that Vladimir Medeyko, former boss of Wikimedia in Russia and now supreme head of Ruviki, has “cloned” and filtered to adapt them to standards reliability demanded by users in Russia.

However, according to the independent media Bumaga, it appears that nearly 110 articles concerning the Ukrainian conflict have disappeared from Ruviki. In addition to these “omissions”, certain content has undergone a small facelift, such as the change in the title of the article “ Russian invasion of Ukraine ” in ” Military operations in Ukraine (in 2022) “. The objective here is to justify Russia’s attack on Ukraine for the sole purpose of protecting Russian national security and ” for the demilitarization of Ukraine », in the words of President Vladimir Putin in the introduction.

Source : 404 Media