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Russia Clones Wikipedia, Censors It, Bans Original (www.404media.co)

submitted 4 months ago by otogiri46@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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What the hell?

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[-] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 255 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Graphic designer Constantine Konovalov calculated the number of characters changed between Wikipedia RU and Ruviki articles on the same topics, and found that there were 205,000 changes in articles about freedom of speech; 158,000 changes in articles about human rights; 96,000 changes in articles about political prisoners; and 71,000 changes in articles about censorship in Russia. He wrote in a post on X that the censorship was “straight out of a 1984 novel.”

Interestingly, the Ruviki article about George Orwell’s 1984 entirely omits the Ministry of Truth, which is the novel’s main propaganda outlet concerned with governing “truth” in the country.

That last detail...wow. They really don't want to leave any doubt about what they're doing, do they?

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 51 points 4 months ago

I have to wonder, don't the majority of Russians pretty much know that their government is full of shit? There's enough of the population old enough to see the fall of the USSR, the time between the fall and the rise of Putin, and then every bit of Putin's transition to autocracy, to the point that there's enough word of mouth in private to counter the majority propaganda. Granted, the younger generations will grow up not knowing anything else, especially with older generations dying off or getting killed either via war or suicided by falling out of windows.

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 68 points 4 months ago

They do know, but they honestly, sincerely believe that a government of for and by the people isn't possible for them.

Source: hosted a Russian exchange student. We had this talk, I suggested that Russia could have a state that works for its people and got laughed at and basically told "we don't do that here." And honestly, as an American in 2024 watching our democracy implode in real time so that billionaires can have lower taxes, I get it.

[-] humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 4 months ago

I have to wonder, don't the majority of Russians pretty much know that their government is full of shit?

Let me offer my perspective,as a Russian. People do not want to lose everything like they did in the 90s. Yes, everyone understands that the government is full of shit, but they believe in the belief (google it, an interesting concept) that it's virtuous to support a government.

It's like a classic trolley problem. Yes, you'd probably push that lever, but you know of consequences and you just purchased a car and your wife is pregnant. You are caught in this unending circle, you simply do not want to deal with it because it doesn't affect you. But when it does affect you, it's always the west: shock therapy of the 90s, current sanctions, debit card ban, visa bans, etc.

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 12 points 4 months ago

Interesting, thank you for your input.

[-] schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 4 months ago

It doesn't really matter because Russians have never really had a mature democracy and so, I think, do not really know how it should/could be different. They are used to various forms of authoritarian rule; whether the leader is called a Tsar, or a General Secretary of the Communist Party, or a President of the Russian Federation doesn't make that much difference.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago

Well, that was also true in Korea and Japan before WW2, yet both are shining examples of democracy (with a healthy amount of chaebol/Keiretsu/oligopoly to round it out). Likewise in Germany.

So it's not impossible, just foreign.

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[-] Aux@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

Life in Russia is ridiculously tough if you don't live in a major city like Moscow or St. Petersburg and don't have a decent job. People don't really have time to think about Putin and politics, they have to survive. I have some distant relatives there, man is a truck driver, his wife is a teacher. The guy goes hunting and fishing regularly to have food on the table. Can you imagine hunting to survive in a developed country? Can you imagine thinking about politics in these conditions?

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[-] Mac@mander.xyz 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

"i have to wonder...full of shit"
think about how many poeple voted for and continue to vote for Trump and republicans in general here in the US when they have a long and obvious track record.

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[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 103 points 4 months ago

Doesn't seem to be banned by my ISP.

Anyway, Russian Wikipedia clones to steal budget money are old news.

There even is such a meme as "encyclong", that's what the Wikipedia article for vikings turned into after one such cloning with replacing wiki- (no difference between V and W in Russian) with encyclo- .

[-] otogiri46@programming.dev 46 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Really? Good to hear it's just an ineffective censorship attempt then.

There even is such a meme as "encyclong", that's what the Wikipedia article for vikings turned into after one such cloning with replacing wiki- (no difference between V and W in Russian) with encyclo- .

Damn that's funny.

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[-] lurch@sh.itjust.works 26 points 4 months ago

lmao the encyclongs raiding the villages again. genius. never heard of that before either. 🤣

[-] Axiochus@lemmy.world 86 points 4 months ago

Huh? Wikipedia isn't banned in Russia yet. Though I do expect them to take steps towards it.

[-] otogiri46@programming.dev 26 points 4 months ago

Yeah. Someone else corrected that part earlier. It's not a good headline, but I didn't want to change it.

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 73 points 4 months ago

Cool, so less Wikipedia vandalism for the rest of us!

[-] jabjoe@feddit.uk 43 points 4 months ago

Nope. The vandalism is by the troll farms and a weapon of the quiet information war waging against reality.

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[-] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 4 months ago

Give it 5 years and I bet Florida does the same.

[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 40 points 4 months ago

There's already Conservapedia.

[-] positiveWHAT@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago

Filled with "alternative facts"?

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 38 points 4 months ago

The 2021 Capitol protests also known as the J6 FBI false flag attack on the U.S. Capitol or Fedsurrection consisted of a diverse group of American patriots of different races, backgrounds, and cultures protesting the electoral college certification of the fraudulent 2020 presidential election who were entrapped by the FBI on January 6, 2021.

I just threw up a little just visiting for 5 seconds.

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[-] FaceDeer@fedia.io 21 points 4 months ago

Very much so. Last I heard the userbase was composed of roughly half truly sincere ultra-conservative nut and half parody accounts attempting to portray ultra-conservative views too extreme and nutty for the sincere ultra-conservatives, and nobody could tell who was what.

[-] palordrolap@kbin.social 16 points 4 months ago

Poe's Law in action.

[-] Carmakazi@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

Last I knew they called the Russia-Ukraine war the "NATO War in Ukraine" and claimed Russia killed over 10,000 "NATO mercenaries" mostly from Germany.

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[-] mypasswordis1234@lemmy.world 43 points 4 months ago

Let's clone Russia, censor it and ban original

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 months ago

You mean uncensor it?

Let's just clone vlad and everyone gets one as a personal punching bag.

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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago

Kinda reminds me of the American Conservative vanity project

https://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

by the failson of the notorious 1970s political harpy Phyllis Schlafly.

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[-] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 36 points 4 months ago

Of course, all you need to do is run a differential between Wikipedia and this thing to find exactly what the government is trying to censor. Idiots.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That would be a cool project. You'd basically see everything the Russian regime doesn't want you to see, i.e. all the interesting bits.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Wikipedia is not currently banned in Russia.

But the Russian branch of Wikimedia as an organization is.

Also, pretty much nobody in Russia uses Ruwiki, everyone keeps using Wikipedia.

That's all not to say it isn't a troubling development, though. But Russians are more likely to access Wikipedia through VPN than to rely on Ruwiki. The game's not lost.

Edit: Thank you OP for striving for the best accuracy!

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 25 points 4 months ago

Tbh I’m most surprised by OP’s surprise. Russia doing weird, censorious shit like this is just another Tuesday.

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 23 points 4 months ago

So Putin's regime embraced, extended and extinguished it? How ironic...

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[-] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Must be nice, in China we only have the poorly formatted, lack-of-citation garbage that is Baidu Baike https://baike.baidu.com/ .

The "sorting algorithm" article: https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%8E%92%E5%BA%8F%E7%AE%97%E6%B3%95/5399605 only have 3 citations: none of which are the original papers and none of which have any links. I tried searching these "citations" and found absolutely nothing...

Similarly, the article for "Amsterdam" contains almost no citation beyond the first paragraph https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%98%BF%E5%A7%86%E6%96%AF%E7%89%B9%E4%B8%B9/814

Just imagine how bad it would be for more obscure concepts.

[-] atocci@kbin.social 21 points 4 months ago

From the top of the page:

Ruviki 2.0 is in beta | Report bugs

Trying to pass this clone off as an "update" to actual Wikipedia lol

[-] Jaysyn@kbin.social 19 points 4 months ago

The Ruzzian Federation is lies all the way down.

[-] Fijxu@programming.dev 16 points 4 months ago

lmao what a fucker

[-] Dreizehn@kbin.social 16 points 4 months ago

MAGATs are dreaming to copy Vlad's Russia.

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[-] JATtho@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

So, now they are slowly (or immediately and forever, I don't know the time span) injecting propaganda into their clone of wikipedia and they are simultaneously thus admitting they are doing it. (to further brainwash the russian citizens)

So lettme repeat: FUCK PUTIN, and stuff your rubber clones in your ass. (which there are many of)

[-] db2@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

Humans are stupid. We should just start over.

[-] cm0002@lemmy.world 24 points 4 months ago

Issue reviewed and closed by WorldProgrammer73993224499 with comment: "Rewrite too expensive and complex, closing."

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[-] masquenox@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Russia wants to ban Wikipedia - the US wants to ban TikTok.

Something tells me the mass-surveillance toy they hoped the internet would turn into isn't working out the way they had hoped.

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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024

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