The new electronic encyclopedia is planned to be placed on Russian servers. Channel 24 writes that it will be run by a Russian legal entity.

What will it be?

According to Russian sources, the idea for the new service, created strictly for propaganda purposes, belongs to Vladimir Medeyko, the former director of the Russian division of the Wikimedia Foundation (this foundation manages Wikipedia). According to the media, Medeyko was recently fired, saying that anyone can buy content from the encyclopedia, but using the admin position for this is wrong, especially when working on a new resource secretly and for a long time. . It has also been blocked from Wikipedia.

Medeyko himself assures that the project will not be related to the state and will be financed “only by private investors”, but does not disclose their names and investment amounts.

The first 1.9 million Russian articles will be imported (or rather stolen) directly from Wikipedia into the new project, but in the future it will develop platform-independent and “differently”.

According to Medeyk’s statements, “Wikipedia” is “on the lookout” among users because it has gained an “uncertain reputation”. “Ruviki” should become a place where Russians come for “balanced and accurate information”.

Our core values ​​are reliability, balance, impartiality,
– Says the former manager of Wikimedia Ru.

Fortunately, this Russian swamp will be locked within Russia itself, where it will be limited to local “trusted” writers and local readers.

We will remind:

• In early 2022, Russian editors threatened to block Wikipedia if it did not edit one of its materials, an article about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The so-called “expertise” revealed that the article contained “false reports about terrorist acts or other unreliable information of public importance that was circulated under the guise of credible reports”.
• At the end of the same month, resource management received a second warning about the same material, but again ignored it.
• In May 2022, Russia lists the source for “landing”, which means the need to open a local office and store data on Russian servers within the country. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the site, also ignores this requirement.
• Later, a Moscow court fined Wikimedia 5 million rubles (about $65,000) for four separate articles on Russian war crimes in Ukraine, the bombing of Mariupol, and Russian crimes in Buch, in addition to invasion material. The fund went on appeal.