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A Russian court on Thursday imposed fines on Apple and the host of Wikipedia for failing to remove material deemed to be false information about Russia's military actions in Ukraine. A justice of the peace in a magistrate's court, which handles administrative violations and low-level criminal cases, fined the Wikimedia Foundation 3 million rubles (USD 33,000) for retaining material on Russian-language Wikipedia pages that violated a law against discrediting Russia's military and spreading false information about the Ukraine conflict, the Interfax news agency reported. The same justice found Apple guilty of failing to delete podcasts and apps with such information and fined the company 400,000 rubles (UAD 4,400). Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has enacted an array of measures to punish any criticism or questioning of the military campaign. Some critics have received severe punishments. Opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced this year to 25 ye
A Moscow court on Thursday again fined Wikipedia for a Russian-language article it refused to remove about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the latest in a series of government moves to silence objective reporting or criticism of the war and restrict the Russian public's access to information. The court fined Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs the free, publicly-edited online encyclopedia, 2 million rubles ($24,464) for not removing a Wikipedia article titled Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia region," a reference to one of four Ukrainian provinces that Russia annexed last September. Most countries have condemned the annexation, as well as that by Russia in 2014 of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, as illegal. The state Tass news agency said the Wikimedia Foundation had failed to heed the demands of Russia's state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor to remove articles containing false information. Tass said a Wikipedia representative asked the court to reject the removal ...
Pakistan's media regulator said Monday it blocked Wikipedia services in the country for hurting Muslim sentiment by not removing purportedly blasphemous content from the site. Critics denounced Islamabad's action, saying it was a blow to digital rights. Under Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or its figures can be sentenced to death, although the country has yet to carry out capital punishment for blasphemy. But even allegations of the offense are often enough to provoke mob violence and even deadly attacks. International and domestic rights groups say that accusations of blasphemy have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and settle personal scores. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority says it blocked Wikipedia because a 48-hour deadline to remove the content was ignored, according to a spokesperson. Such things hurt the sentiments of Muslims, said Malahat Obaid, from the regulator. She said Pakistani authorities were
Pakistan has blocked Wikipedia after the website refused to remove offensive or blasphemous material, according to a media report on Saturday. The blacklisting of Wikipedia comes days after the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) degraded Wikipedia services for 48 hours, threatening to block it if the content deemed blasphemous' was not deleted, The News newspaper reported. When a PTA spokesperson was contacted late on Friday night and inquired about the blocking of Wikipedia, the official confirmed that yes it had been blocked, it reported. On the instruction of the high court, the PTA degraded disrupting and slowing access to the encyclopedia website for 48 hours because there was blasphemous content on it. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. The PTA spokesperson stated that Wikipedia was approached for blocking/removal of the said content by issuing a notice. An opportunity for a hear
Online sources such as Wikipedia are based on a crowd sourced and user generated editing model that is not completely dependable and can promote misleading information, the Supreme Court has said. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said it acknowledged the utility of the platforms that provide free access to knowledge across the globe but also cautioned against using such sources for legal dispute resolution. "We say so for the reason that these sources, despite being a treasure trove of knowledge, are based on a crowd sourced and user generated editing model that is not completely dependable in terms of academic veracity and can promote misleading information as has been noted by this court on previous occasions also," the bench said on Tuesday. The apex court said courts and adjudicating authorities should endeavour to persuade counsels to rely on more reliable and authentic sources. The observations came in a judgment in a case regarding the correct classification