The court in Moscow fined the owner of “Wikipedia” for 2 million rubles

Timur Vakhrameev, the magistrate of the court district No. 422 of the Tagansky district of Moscow, fined him 2 million rubles. the Wikimedia Foundation (which owns Wikipedia) for refusing to remove materials about military units of the RF Armed Forces. The Foundation was found guilty under Part 2 of Art. 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (non-deletion of prohibited information).

According to the case file, Wikipedia administrators refused to remove articles about the 74th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, the 138th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade, and the 92nd Missile Brigade. Also, materials about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine were not removed from the site, TASS reports.

In March 2022, Roskomnadzor threatened Wikipedia with blocking for an article about the Russian military operation in Ukraine. In the same month, the agency contributed to the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to the register of companies for “landing” in Russia. In November, Wikimedia was fined 2 million rubles. for not deleting data on the military operation.

Laura Keffer