Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained that the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia was “unreliable” and called for its replacement.
Now, the Russian government has shown that it will update Wikipedia with an edition of the “Great Russian Encyclopedia,” Reuters reports.
“As for Wikipedia. . . it’s better to update it with the wonderful new Russian encyclopedia in electronic form,” Putin told a Kremlin assembly last month, quoted by Russian news firm RIA Novosti. in a friendly and fashionable way. “
This is yet another sign that the Kremlin is playing an active role in cracking down on the types of data its citizens can access online. Earlier this year, the Russian government announced plans to temporarily disconnect the country from the web to verify its cybersecurity defenses.
In 2017, the Russian government also proclaimed that it planned to take over up to 95% of all internet traffic locally, that is, independently of the rest of the world, until 2020.
The new online encyclopedia would cost about 2 billion rubles ($31 million). The government also plans to create a national and educational medium to serve the Great Russian Encyclopedia, according to Reuters.
READ MORE: Russia to update encyclopedia after Putin criticizes Wikipedia [Reuters]
Read more about Russia: Russia plans to disconnect from the internet