On February 24 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. Days after the first shock, Ukrainian Witness started to fight back digitally. In Russia, it's hard to find the truth. The free press is … read moreblocked, Google is blocked, and so are most social media channels. There's one route that remains open: Wikipedia. "Everyone" can change a Wikipedia page. That' s the way in for Ukrainian Witness. Every month, 10.9 million Russians visit Russian Wikipedia. So, simply by adding pictures of devastation on Ukrainian city pages on Russian Wikipedia the truth about the war was shown in Russia, fighting against its Propaganda. An activistic and guerrilla approach to using the platform in a way it has never been used before. But then, Russian bots started deleting these pictures. To win this fight, Ukrainian Witness called for help and collaborated with Wikipedia editors around the world to keep making changes, and to make them last. It worked. For the first time in the history of Wikipedia, editors around the world united and joined the cause: editing Russian pages on Ukrainian cities and bringing the truth to Russia. The number of editors bringing the truth doubled. The total amount of edits they made also doubled. Russian views on the ten biggest Ukrainian city pages on the Russian Wikipedia increased by 242%, turning an online encyclopedia into an uncensored and trustworthy news channel.
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