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Court upholds earlier decision to fine Wikimedia Foundation $54,000

The reason for the fines was the refusal to remove information about the special military operation in Ukraine

MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. The Tagansky Court of Moscow has upheld the decision to fine the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the Russian-language Wikipedia, 5 million rubles ($54,036) for refusing to remove banned content, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"The court considered two appeals against the decisions of the magistrate’s court of district No. 422 dated August 3 and 15 and decided to leave them unchanged," the court said.

According to these decisions, the magistrate imposed two fines on the Wikimedia Foundation for 3 million ($32,445) and 2 million rubles ($21,630). The company was found guilty under Part 2 of Art. 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (failure of the owner of a website to delete information or a webpage in case the obligation to delete such information, such a webpage, is included in the legislation of the Russian Federation). The reason was the refusal to remove information about the special military operation in Ukraine.

In February, the company was also fined 2 million rubles for publishing data on the locations of three military units of the Russian Federation.

In April 2022, the same court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 5 million rubles for refusing to remove articles about the events in Bucha, the destruction of a hospital and theater in Mariupol, and the production of gunpowder. According to Russia's mass media and telecommunications watchdog (Roskomnadzor), banned content remains undeleted on the Wikipedia portal, including fakes about the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine. In this regard, the Wikimedia Foundation will be marked in search engines as a violator of the Russian law.

Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a non-profit organization registered as a charitable foundation in the United States. The organization is known as the platform for Wikipedia and related projects.