Moscow will label Wikimedia Foundation, which owns the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, as a violator of Russian laws in search engines, TASS reported on Wednesday.
"Due to the failure of the American non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. to remove the illegal information, Roskomnadzor has decided to apply coercive measures in the form of informing Internet search engines about the violation of Russian legislation by a foreign entity," the statement said.
The Russian media watchdog (Roskomnadzor) pointed out that the measures taken will be valid until the complete elimination of violations.
Banned content, including fabrications about the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, is still undeleted on Wikipedia, according to the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom.
In his previous remarks, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin stressed the necessity to develop an alternative platform for App Store and Google Play as they may soon forbid services in Moscow.
“Using this opportunity, I would like to make a call: guys, developers, programmers, IT folks – let us make our own ecosystem. We have everything for that,” Mishustin said, speaking before the State Duma.
"Also, Wikimedia Foundation has been repeatedly held administratively liable for failure to remove illegal information. The total sum of company fines imposed by the court is 5 million rubles," the media watchdog recalled.
“There are elements of this ecosystem that need to be perfected. We must make our own online store, because App Store and Google Play may practically prohibit us from downloading apps soon.”
Moreover, the Prime Minister indicated that Russia provided IT specialists with every opportunity to work inside the country.
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