The online encyclopaedia is unreliable and lacks detail on Russian life, the Kremlin library says
Russia's presidential library has announced that it is creating an online encyclopaedia to rival Wikipedia. The organisation said that it hoped to provide people with "detailed and reliable" information drawing on 50,000 books from 27 Russian libraries. Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers, has pages on Russian history, geography and politics, but the presidential library says that the site's information is not reliable. "Analysis of this resource showed that it is not capable of providing information about the region and life of the country in a detailed or sufficient way," the library said, Reuters reports. President Vladimir Putin has previously expressed reservations about online information and services, once labelling the entire internet a "CIA special project", Time reports. Wikipedia has long been criticised for factual inaccuracy. Entries on Wikipedia about aspects of the conflict in Ukraine have apparently been edited by people within Russia's state media, the Washington Post reports. An early entry about the downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 said that the plane had been shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation," the Daily Telegraph reported in July. But an IP address linked to the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company changed the story to read: "The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers", the Washington Post says. It is not yet clear whether the Russian version of Wikipedia will allow users to edit articles. Source: The Week UK
