Russian Wikipedia blackout
On July 10, 2012, the
The decision to blackout was made on the eve of the anticipated second reading of the bill. To make the decision to blackout, a discussion was held on
Previous blackouts
The
Italian Wikipedia went on blackout in protest against the DDL intercettazioni bill being considered in the country's parliament.[14][15] The bill would make it mandatory to correct or remove from the Internet any information deemed damaging to one's reputation, without even needing a court order or a formal order from law enforcement. During the blackout, going to any page on the Italian Wikipedia redirected to the relevant statement (Italian). The Wikimedia Foundation announced support for the Italian section on the same day.[16] In total, the petition has been viewed more than 8 million times.[17]
The
Russian Internet Restriction Bill
On June 7, 2012, the draft
Developments
On July 9, 2012, at 15:30 (UTC), two Russian Wikipedia users initiated a poll called "Strike against censorship in Runet".[12][22] The organizers proposed to close access to Russian Wikipedia for 24 hours from midnight on July 10.[22] As a sign of protest "against the introduction of censorship in Runet" it was supposed to redirect users to the press release about the blackout.[22] The choice of date was explained by the fact that on July 10 the bill was scheduled for consideration in the second reading, although on the website of the State Duma it was dated July 11.[1][22] "The strike attracted media attention already at the stage of organizing the poll, which contributed to the high activity of the participants. Almost 200 participants were in favor of the proposal, 27 suggested limiting it to a press release, and about 50 did not support the initiative at all. In the situation of time pressure, the final decision was made only by 21 o'clock (UTC), the section worked unstably for about an hour after that, and only by morning the planned demonstration of the banner with a link to the page about bill #89417-6 was finally set up. Information about the blackout spread very quickly on the Runet.[12]
From 21:00 on July 9 to 20:00 on July 10, 2012 (UTC), a blackout against amendments to the law "On Information" continued on Russian Wikipedia.[10] Attendance on Ukrainian Wikipedia on July 10 was a record five times higher than usual.[23]
During the day on July 10, the executive director of Wikimedia RU, Stanislav Kozlovsky, explained the position of the Russian Wikipedia community and the Foundation to interested parties. In particular, he gave interviews about the action to journalists of Echo of Moscow in the program "Razvorot", as well as to the magazine Snob.[24][25]
During the action, the media also sought clarification from other Wikipedia contributors. For example, in an interview with
Since the discussion of the draft law took place on July 11, 2012, it was decided to extend the protest action, but in a different form. During this day, a banner containing text similar to the previous day's press release with relevant links was placed at the top of the project's title page.[5]
On July 11, the action was supported by colleagues from other language sections of Wikipedia. As a sign of solidarity with the protest of Russian
Supporting the blackout
Since the blackout initiative was unexpected for the
One of the first to join the protest was the
By noon, the action met with massive support from Twitter users.[28] The hashtags #RuWikiBlackout, #Wikipedia and even the number of the controversial bill 89417-6 topped the top of Russian Twitter trends.[28]
At around 14:00 am, a post appeared on
On the afternoon of July 10, LiveJournal spoke out against the bill by placing a banner on its homepage, linking to a page with the text: "Amendments to the law may lead to the introduction of censorship in the Russian-language segment of the Internet, the creation of blacklists and stop-lists, and the blocking of certain sites. Unfortunately, the practice of applying the law in Russia suggests a high probability of exactly this, the worst scenario" and a link to an article about the bill on Wikipedia.
By the evening of July 10,
On July 11, following Wikipedia, LiveJournal and Vkontakte, Yandex "reminded deputies that freedom of speech is no less important than the fight against child pornography," calling on the State Duma to stop, and symbolically corrected the company's slogan on its homepage by crossing out the second word in the phrase "Everything can be found".[31]
On the same day, July 11, Lurkmore supported the action by changing its logo and placing a link to the article "Censorship" on its main page.[32][33]
Critique
Support for the Wikipedia blackout was not absolute, and there were some criticisms.
For example, Alexander Amzin, then a columnist for
The Safe Internet League called Wikipedia's action "an attempt to draw attention to itself," while assuring that the amendments do not imply censorship of Runet.[4]
Media coverage of the action
The Russian Wikipedia blackout aroused media interest even at the preparation stage. In particular, Lenta.ru published a note about the blackout while it was underway, and later was one of the first to report on its start.[22][35] Wikinews, a friendly news project in Russian and English, was also among the first to announce the start of the campaign.[10][36]
Later the action was actively covered by Russian media, news agencies and portals, including:
World news agencies and publications also informed their readers, among them English-language ones:
.After the end of the action, some publications devoted review articles to its analysis.[12]
The query "Why is Wikipedia closed?" was one of the most popular queries on the Yandex search engine in 2012.[37]
See also
- Censorship of Wikipedia
- Block of Wikipedia in Russia
- List of Wikipedia pages banned in Russia
- HTTP 451
- Internet activism
References
- ^ a b c "Bill No. 89417-6". State Duma. 2012. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b "Statement by members of the Council regarding draft law No. 89417-6 "On amending the Federal Law on the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development"". Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Archived from the original on 11 August 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- RBC (in Russian). 11 July 2012. Archived from the originalon 13 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ RBC. Archived from the originalon 29 October 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b "The State Duma finally passed the law on "blacklists" of websites, which critics consider to be censorship worse than Chinese censorship". newsru.com. 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Evening plenary session of the State Duma on July 11". State Duma. 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 18 March 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "The Sovfed approved the law on the creation of a "black list" of Internet sites". RIA Novosti. 18 July 2012. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "The law on the register of banned sites will come into force on July 30". Lenta.ru (in Russian). 30 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 November 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b "Amendments to the Federal Law "On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development" and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation"". Rossiyskaya Gazeta (in Russian). 29 July 2012. Archived from the original on 27 May 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Wikimedia RU (in Russian). Archived from the originalon 19 July 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "The Russian Wikipedia blackout is over". Wikinews (in Russian). 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Uncensored lobby Russian "Wikipedia" went on a one-day strike". Lenta.ru (in Russian). 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 22 March 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Internet companies supported the Russian Wikipedia blackout". RIA Novosti (in Russian). 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Italian Wikipedia has suspended operations". Lenta.ru (in Russian). 5 October 2011. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Blackout in Italian Wikipedia". Wikinews (in Russian). 5 October 2011. Archived from the original on 27 February 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Regarding recent events on Italian Wikipedia". diff.wikimedia.org. 4 October 2011. Archived from the original on 9 December 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Wikipedia article traffic statistics". stats.grok.se. 4 October 2011. Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "SOPA, PIPA Blackout Protest: Minecraft Says 'NOPA'". International Business Times. 19 January 2012. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- Washington Post. 20 January 2012. Archivedfrom the original on 28 June 2022. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Tassi, Paul (19 January 2012). "Internet Blackout Causes 18 Senators to Flee from PIPA". Forbes. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "The official position of RAEC on the bill No. 89417-6". raec.ru. 8 June 2012. Archived from the original on 17 October 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b c d e "Russian "Wikipedia" was proposed to blackout against censorship in Runet". Lenta.ru. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Kozub, Taras (15 January 2013). "Wikipedia pages are defaced by vandals and saved by Justin Bieber". Komsomolskaya Pravda. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Strike by the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia against amendments to Internet regulation legislation". Echo of Moscow. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 16 June 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ Fuchsova, Alina (10 July 2012). "Stanislav Kozlovsky: I hope MPs will not allow Russia to turn into North Korea". Snob. Archived from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- LifeNews.ru (in Russian). 11 July 2012. Archived from the originalon 14 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Imagine a world without free communication". 2ch.so (in Russian). 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ a b "Wikipedia's fight with MPs was picked up on Twitter". NTV. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 10 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- Habrahabr. 10 July 2012. Archivedfrom the original on 12 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "LiveJournal for Freedom of Information". LiveJournal. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 10 April 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Not everything will be found: Yandex asks to wait with blacklists". NTV. 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Lurkmore tweet". Twitter. 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ ""I give the current format of Lurkmore two and a half years."". seopult.tv. 27 August 2012. Archived from the original on 27 December 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Parade of Samoseks Alexander Amzin on a world without free knowledge". Lenta.ru. 11 July 2012. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Russian-language Wikipedia has gone on blackout". Lenta.ru. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "'Imagine a world without free knowledge', in Russia". Wikinews. 10 July 2012. Archived from the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
- ^ "Election and Sasha Grey were the topics of the year for Yandex users". Lenta.ru. 10 December 2012. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. Retrieved 20 December 2023.