I volontari estoni di Wikipedia hanno difficoltà a proteggere Wikipedia dalla propaganda russa – La Wikipedia in lingua inglese sta rendendo la storia estone più favorevole ai sovietici.
https://novaator.err.ee/1609903111/vikipedist-vabatahtlikel-on-raske-vikipeediat-vene-propaganda-eest-kaitsta
di GrumpyFinn
17 commenti
The English-language Wikipedia is making Estonian history more Soviet-friendly. According to Robert Treufeldt, chairman of the board of the NGO Wikimedia Estonia, it is difficult for Estonian volunteer Wikipedians to resist Russian propaganda resources that direct international public opinion.
The English Wikipedia lists the birthplace of many well-known Estonians as the Estonian SSR and the Soviet Union, although it previously referred to the Republic of Estonia. Treufeldt noted on the program “Terevisoon” that the public discussion on this topic began in Lithuania. As a result of the votes held there, for example, the designation “Tallinn, Estonian SSR, USSR” began to be used for people born in Tallinn.
“Unfortunately, if you look at who made the vote, there were at least no identifiable Estonian usernames there. There was someone from Canada, someone from Yemen,” Treufeldt described. In other words, according to him, the change was decided by users who do not know enough about the history of either the Baltic states or the Soviet Union.
However, the rewriting of history is often done by users who express Great Russian chauvinist views and act in Russia’s interests. According to Treufeldt, the editing activities of individual users can be seen on Wikipedia. He explained that one of the aforementioned discussion initiators has indicated on his profile that he has changed from a liberal to a nationalist. “Anyone who knows the conditions in Russia will understand what this really means. We can say that he is a sweet figure of Great Russian chauvinism,” the Wikipedian explained.
Such activity, according to Treufeldt, could be part of a broader soft power movement, where history is rewritten in small steps. “First, there is the problem that who can monitor the entire Wikipedia and all the language versions? It is a voluntary activity: if someone notices something, it usually comes out,” he noted.
Secondly, people in Estonia may not realize how different the prevailing opinion about Russia is elsewhere in the world. “The Third World at the time was actually quite influenced by the Soviet Union. So a Russian-friendly information space is still quite acceptable in many ways in Latin America, Africa and Asia,” Treufeldt described. As a result of all of this, he said, an editorial war could break out in certain articles, which could result in the editing of some articles being blocked altogether.
According to Treufeldt, Estonia has difficulties monitoring Wikipedia, because Russia’s state resources significantly exceed the capacity of local volunteers. “Who would take care of ensuring that the Estonian version, so to speak, stays on top in the world? It’s quite difficult to compete with Russia in terms of resources,” he stated. According to the Wikipedian, one of the most important topics for Russian propaganda is the so-called Great Patriotic War, the events surrounding which are monitored very closely.
Artificial intelligence agents and other digital tools may help keep an eye on propaganda content added to Wikipedia in the future. However, according to Treufeldt, Estonians currently only deal with problems when the situation has become critical. “Use Wikipedia, it is still our main source of information,” he nevertheless urged people, despite the editorial war.
it’s wild how the talk pages on english wikipedia have basically become the new front line for historical revisionism especially with how coordinated those campaigns are getting lately
r/WikipediaVandalism
What actual evidence is there that there’s a Russian agenda in play in this specific situation?
The central contention about how birthplaces are formatted does not seem unreasonable to me, and similar things can be seen with people and places elsewhere in the world. The example I used in r/eesti was how Vietnamese people born in South Vietnam are listed as such, and we wouldn’t consider this offensive to present day Vietnam.
I reject the notion that acknowledging the historical reality of the occupation is an endorsement of the Soviet regime or an attack on the independence of Estonia.
Modern day warfare is the most boring shit ever
Not only corpos are destroying free, community build internet, but now also Russians destroy it by desinformation. I’m tired of this timeline…
What’s even worse i see that it starting to affect people that lived during communism. Number of people in Poland that thinks that PRL was better then living in EU has become too damn high in recent year.
That’s the point in time to revert and freeze content until the threat of malicious editions is over
I know what to do next time I see one of their ads asking me for money then
Ah yes, some “enlightened western progressives” for totally unfathomable reason (/s) love to suck russian *****, even if it’s just licking the tip.
Russian government is the scum of Europe. The rest of Europe needs to start “fighting back” in the information war. No more well-versed letters. Get a grip, we’re under social attack.
I feel like this was always an inevitability. Allowing anyone to edit the biggest encyclopedia on earth is both a blessing and a curse.
What would be Soviet friendly? Pointing out that Estonia celebrates the SS?
I recently got to wikipedia trying to help im mathematics pages and stuff, and from what the glimpses i have seem i can tell the following. Regardless of how true is the news claim, i can formally state the following.
Wikipedia is truly a place where you need solid citations that sustent claims. It is no wonder that having to debate against biased organised sources is a HUGE struggle for good willed editors.
For any wikipedia editor out there, I have mad respect for ya, btw.
Same in Finland. Few years ago I noticed that Finnish president Urho Kekkonen (25 years in office, a right wing politician and literally the father of modern Finland) was mentioned to be born in “Imperial Russia”, which is technically true by some means, but there was also a legal political entity called “The Grand Duchy of Finland”, internationally recognized “country”. Russian Czar was its head of a state, The Grand Duke of Finland. Ordinary Finns used to often call Finland “the land of a grand duke” in the 1800s, and this Grand Duchy was a Protestant country, specifically Lutheran, it had its own laws derived from Swedish laws, and it had own money called Finnish Mark since 1860. During the 600-700 years old Swedish era Finland was also a country of its own. Both Swedes and Finns recognized that these are two different regions with relatively similar cultures but still unique, and Finnish leaders were quite independent in their actions, loyal only to the King of Sweden. Finland was Swedish in some similar sense as New England in America was English. As a Finn I find it weird when people try to explain that there never was any Finland, when it is a fact that our culture is a five thousand years old thing.
Nowadays Kekkonen is Finnish-born in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urho_Kekkonen
Propaganda clash should be proactive, not reactive. Also a good point to at least limit Russian content broadcast to Europe and finally label these products as such. There also must be repercussions for open support of Putin and war, similar to the law punishing antisemitism. I commonly see Ukrainians being publicly mocked by Putin supporters.
West but especially Europe has been on information war waged by russia for 15 years. Europeans just refused to acknowledge that this is war, for past 10 years most even refused to acknowledge there was disinformation campaign at all. While russians were coordinatig full fledged effort, building thousands of bot farms, paid troll armies and hordes of useful idiots. The war started over 15 years ago and that’s when we lost it, by not picking up the glove. All that’s left is damage control.
It might be interesting if we use AI translation to maintain Wikipedia in one single language at its core.
It doesn’t matter which language to use, even some ancient ones like Greek, Latin or Sanskrit would work.