The Kremlin's Rewriting of Wikipedia: A New Version of History Emerges

[Social Media]

 

Wikipedia has long been a bastion of shared knowledge and collaborative truth-seeking. Yet, in Russia, a new narrative is taking shape as the Kremlin pushes forward with its own version of this ubiquitous online encyclopedia. The RuWiki project, a state-sponsored alternative to Wikipedia, marks a significant shift in how historical and contemporary information is being presented to the Russian public.

 

Wikipedia had faced trouble from the Kremlin before, with Russian censors threatening it almost from the start of the Ukrainian war in 2014. However, it was only in late 2023, with the appearance of glitzy ads across Moscow, that a serious plan to replace it became clear. RuWiki, as the censors’ project is known, is mostly a straightforward copy of Wikipedia. But the most sensitive moments of history have been left out or rewritten. The Kremlin’s ideologues hope that millions of Russians will now embrace these new versions as the truth.

 

The RuWiki project might be called Orwellian, if only the British author were not himself occasionally censored. The entry on “Nineteen Eighty Four,” for example, omits the regular site’s description of Winston Smith’s Ministry of Truth, where historical records are “corrected” (though Smith’s job does get a mention elsewhere). Elsewhere, RuWiki’s rewriters hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology: LGBT rights, oral sex, Soviet history, and the war in Ukraine. 

 

Russian atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are reimagined as a “Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign”. Kherson, a Ukrainian city being destroyed by Russian bombs, is mentioned without a word about the war. The execution of nearly 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn in 1940 is rewritten to cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services. There is no entry on "Putin khuylo!", a derogatory chant mocking the Russian president first heard on Ukrainian football terraces in 2014. And all references to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was killed in prison in February 2024, are altered to describe him as a mere “blogger”.

 

A forthcoming analysis of the site by Mediazona, an independent Russian media outfit, shows the vast majority of the new edits are being made during weekday working hours. They reckon that shows teams of paid writers are doing the edits, unlike Wikipedia’s volunteer model. Earlier versions of the RuWiki site were open about how much was changed and when. In late 2023, it was possible to see that a full 158,000 symbols had been erased from an original Wikipedia text about Russian human rights. An entry on “Russian freedom of speech” was 205,000 symbols lighter. The article on “censorship” was also 71,000 symbols shorter. But recent versions of the site hide such statistics, likely due to negative media publicity.

 

Despite long-running disagreements, Russian authorities have not yet blacklisted Wikipedia as they have dozens of other media. For the time being the two exist side by side. But the heavy investment in RuWiki suggests that Wikipedia’s days are numbered. Sergei Leschina, a member of the original Russian Wikipedia team, who left in 2015 following earlier attempts at censorship, says the Kremlin views such resources as bricks in a Chinese-style wall around the truth. The Russian internet is slowly being cleaned of foreign sites, he said, and local search engines and AI models will soon be compelled to prioritize the new fake history. “The Russian internet isn’t yet built like the Chinese one,” he says, “but it’s the direction we are heading, and quickly.”

 

The Kremlin's move to rewrite Wikipedia is part of a broader strategy to control the narrative and reshape historical and contemporary accounts to align with state ideology. As the internet becomes an increasingly vital battleground for information and influence, projects like RuWiki illustrate the lengths to which authoritarian regimes will go to maintain their grip on public perception. The implications of this shift are profound, not only for Russians seeking reliable information but for the global community's understanding of truth in the digital age.

 

Credit: The Economist 2024-07-12

 

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[Tug]

Oh ho don’t let the 2025 reputrumpiclans get any ideas!not in the least surprised the Putin regime would do this hopefully the Russian people can fix their problem soon!

[Yagoda]

7 minutes ago, Tug said:

Oh ho don’t let the 2025 reputrumpiclans get any ideas!not in the least surprised the Putin regime would do this hopefully the Russian people can fix their problem soon!

Still Russia babbling? History has passed you by...

[Hakuna Matata]

2 hours ago, Social Media said:

As the internet becomes an increasingly vital battleground for information and influence

 

I believe, China is doing it the right way.

 

The so-called American democracy model should not be imposed on other countries. It is not suitable to many countries in the East and Global South.

[impulse]

4 hours ago, Social Media said:

Wikipedia has long been a bastion of shared knowledge and collaborative truth-seeking.

 

That first sentence had me choking on my corn flakes, I laughed so hard.

 

That may have been the origin and lofty founding goal of Wikipedia, but it hasn't sought the truth in many years.

 

Edited July 12 by impulse

[LukKrueng]

5 hours ago, Social Media said:

Putinist ideology: LGBT rights, oral sex, Soviet history, and the war in Ukraine. 

Could you elaborate the oral sex party please?

[James105]

Russia are no different to the west in this regard.   They get their propaganda, we get ours, and everyone thinks they are the good guys as that is what the propaganda tells them.  

 

[radiochaser]

6 hours ago, Tug said:

Oh ho don’t let the 2025 reputrumpiclans get any ideas!not in the least surprised the Putin regime would do this hopefully the Russian people can fix their problem soon!

Too late.  democrat marxist party is rewriting  the history of America now. 

Edited July 12 by radiochaser

[thesetat2013]

throughout time countries have changed their histories to make their ideology seem so good or to blot out something very bad from peoples memories. Most Asian countries still do it. Thailand tried a few years ago when they changed history books to allow only those that left out Thaksins illegalities.. Am sure changes were also made to history books even higher up the pipeline. China does it, Korea does it, and many others. Although, I can not say if those changes showed in Wikpedia. but it makes sense that the government can do what they want to get their people to believe whatever is written and taught. just look how they wrote about the covid epidemic and the source of it. that alone should tell you how easily governments control what is placed online about history.