WikiTruth

Entrant name: Publicis Groupe 

Advertiser: Ukrainian Witness NGO          

Award — Contest — Category:

• Silver — Human Rights, Justice & Strong Institutions — Social Media & Influence
• Silver — Human Rights, Justice & Strong Institutions — PR Campaigns

On February 24, 2022 Russia starts full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Days after the first shock, Ukrainian Witness started to fight back digitally targeting Ukrainian inhabitants, Western communities — to ask for the support; and russian audience — to make sure they see the reality, so that they would stand for stopping the war.

Due to propaganda, Russians hardly hear the truth. Free press is blocked, as are most social media channels. 

However, Wikipedia is still accessible and open to adding information. Anyone can change a Wikipedia page. The idea of posting photos about the devastation on the Russian Wikipedia pages of Ukrainian cities was born. They showed the stark contrast to the beautiful tourist photos that normally appear on the pages of these cities.

But then, Russian bots deleted the photos. We mobilised Wikipedia editors to continue posting photos, including influential Wikipedia editors who were tagged on twitter.

Results: Russian visits to the Russian Wiki pages of the 10 largest Ukrainian cities increased by 242% from 3.9 million to 13.3 million views. The number of editors doubled, so did the number of edits.