Report: Kremlin has no plans to ban Wikipedia

MOSCOW, Nov 8 (PRIME) -- Russia will not ban online encyclopedia Wikipedia, business daily Kommersant reported on Friday on its website citing the president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

“Bans or barriers for Wikipedia are out of the question,” Peskov said after reports that President Vladimir Putin had suggested replacing the resource with the Great Russian Encyclopedia.

“What the president and some other speakers meant that, with all due respect, the information published in Wikipedia and regularly updated is not guaranteed by anyone,” Peskov said.

The local analogue of Wikipedia is expected to be created in 2020–2023 with financing of 1.7 billion rubles. The portal will be based on 35 volumes of the Great Russian Encyclopedia and will service 15 million users per day.

(63.7298 rubles – U.S. $1)

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