Russian internet authority drops legal complaint against Wikipedia
The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) has dropped its formal legal complaint against Wikipedia.
Four articles from the Russian language version of Wikipedia were found by the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) to contain prohibited information on narcotics. These articles were since edited and no longer present an issue for legal action, Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said.
Currently, “there is no pressing issue with Wikipedia, although strategically the matter is not resolved,” says Zharov. This refers to Roskomnadzor’s wish to engage with Wikipedia in a more systematic way, he said.
Wikipedia’s editors have written to the website’s founder, Jimmy Wales, and are “waiting on his decision whether it is worth it to enter into more detailed dialogue with [Russian authorities],” said Zharov.
“At a local level the issue is resolved. At the global level, though, we hope to establish a platform for dialogue between Wikipedia and state agencies, which can make decisions on the blocking [of pages and websites]. For the meantime, unfortunately, there is no such platform,” the Roskomnadzor head said.
On November 18, the Russia’s drug control service, the FSKN, identified five Wikipedia pages that contained prohibited material on narcotics. The FSKN did not specify the exact Wikipedia pages. According to Wikipedia, the material related to pages covering MDMA, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine and “spice” (a chemical mixture meant to imitate marijuana when smoked). Then on November 23, Roskomnadzor said only four Wikipedia articles contained violations, but did not clarify which ones.
A meeting of the Russian Language Wikipedia Community took place November 26. The meeting was organized by the Wikipedia user “Samal” and Roskomnadzor officials. Members of Wikimedia.ru, an NGO that usually acts an communication intermediary on behalf of Russia’s Wikipedia community, were not allowed to attend the meeting.
The day after the meeting, Wikipedia blocked Samal’s user account. The organization did so, because it “did not support [Samal’s] initiative.”
Wikipedia has already had several disputes with Roskomnadzor over content. In August 2015, Wikipedia was briefly blocked, because of an article on Charas, a hashish form of cannabis from India. The court decision to block the site has since been cancelled.