The Wikimedia Foundation has responded to the lawsuit this week by Asian News International (ANI), the newswire agency that supplies video and text feeds to several news organisations in India. ANI had sued the Wikipedia parent demanding โน2 crore for what it said were defamatory allegations in the introduction section of its page on the online encyclopaedia โ such as its alleged pro-government bias and tendency to cite misinformation.ย
โIt has come to our attention via press reports that the Honโble Delhi High Court has issued a summons to the Wikimedia Foundation regarding a defamation case filed by ANI against the Foundation,โ the foundation said in a statement. โAs a technology host, the Wikimedia Foundation generally does not add, edit or determine content published on Wikipedia. Wikipediaโs content is determined by its global community of volunteer editors (also known as the โWikimedia Communityโ) who compile and share information on notable subjects.โ
The foundation said it hadnโt yet received a summons in the case, and would determine next steps when it does. The case pits, potentially for the first time in such a significant way, Wikipediaโs volunteer-centric editorial norms against Indian regulations like the IT Rules, 2021, which require all loosely defined internet โintermediariesโ to take action against content online if it is, among other things, defamatory, and a court or government order is issued against them.
One of the main constraints in this case is that Wikipedia globally abstains from the kind of article-level control over its content that such regulations demand of online platforms, deferring instead to its vast network of volunteer editors. Having content run by volunteers opens the encyclopaedia up to such legal claims, while also risking vandalism: in 2022, for instance, then Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar called out the platform for derogatory remarks added to the cricketer Arshdeep Singhโs page.ย
That vandalism was quickly fixed. The contention this time around is this: the very safeguards Wikipedia volunteers have adopted to safeguard against vandalism may, in part, be keeping ANIโs Wikipedia page from changing. That page has been set to โextended confirmed protection, which allows edit access only to volunteer user accounts that meet the criteria of being at least 30 days old and having 500 edits,โ the Wikimedia Foundation said.
That drastically diminishes the pool of individuals around the world who have the ability โ or interest โ to โimproveโ ANIโs Wikipedia page. โExperienced users can continue to improve the Wikipedia article about ANI in accordance with Wikipediaโs policies and guidelines on reliability, verifiability, neutrality and conflict of interest editing,โ the foundation spokesperson said.
In 2019, in response to a draft version of the IT Rules, the foundation said in a filing with the government that the regulationโs โproposed changes may have serious impact on Wikipediaโs open editing model, create a significant financial burden for nonprofit technology organizations and have the potential to limit free expression rights for internet users across the countryโ.
The case is listed in the Delhi High Court for its next hearing on August 20.ย
