The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has reportedly issued a notice to Wikipedia asking why it should not be treated as a publisher instead of an intermediary. Citing numerous complaints of bias and inaccuracies in information provided by it, the Ministry said there is a view that a small group exercises editorial control over its pages, according to the reports.
In the past, Wikipedia has argued that as an intermediary, it has no editorial control over the content of Wikipedia. It is to be noted that recently the news agency ANI took Wikipedia’s parent Wikimedia Foundation to the Delhi High Court for defamation over its page calling the agency a propaganda tool for the incumbent government.
During the proceedings, the Court ordered the Foundation that it would order the government to block Wikipedia in India if it did not provide details on who was/were responsible for this description.
On Monday, the Delhi High Court said that Wikipedia’s disclaimer that its content is based on secondary sources could not absolve it from the responsibility for what the users write on its pages.
The Delhi High Court had also recently described Wikipedia’s open-editing model as ‘dangerous’, and has further voiced the concerns related to the unrestricted user-editing features which could lead to harmful or inaccurate information being published about public figures and entities.
Wikipedia has declined to reveal the identities of the users who made the alleged edits on ANI’s page, despite repeated requests from the Delhi High Court.
Legal representatives for Wikipedia defended its editing model, noting that users are bound by policies mandating verifiable content. However, the lack of transparency around user identities in cases of misinformation remains a point of contention.