Wikipedia has landed in hot water with the Indian government with the latter sending the former a notice about bias and inaccuracies seen on the website and complaints from Indian users about the same.
This is not the first time Wikipedia has been in trouble. In September this year, the Delhi High Court raised concerns about Wikipedia and even warned about a potential ban in the country.
Now, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has issued an official notice to Wikipedia questioning its intermediary status, a status that is given to tech platforms in India.
Why Has Wikipedia Been Given A Notice?
The Government of India’s notice to Wikipedia questioned why the platform shouldn’t be treated as a publisher instead of an intermediary.
Wikipedia’s concept of being a free encyclopedia and thus letting volunteers create and edit pages on the platforms on any available topic, including subjects, people, incidents, and more has raised concerns about its accuracy and potential misuse to spread false information.
Among its first allegations, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has raised concerns about how neutral the platform is, considering that the content could be influenced given the small number of editors it has.
The government has also questioned its status as an intermediary and asked why it shouldn’t be treated as a publisher.
Treating Wikipedia as a publisher instead of just an intermediary would impose more responsibility and accountability on the platform for the information posted on it.
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The notice expressed how frequent complaints have been lodged against the platform for hosting biased and inaccurate content.
Recently Wikipedia was involved in a legal dispute with Asian News International (ANI), where the media house accused the former of hosting defamatory material.
ANI claimed that Wikipedia allowed edits that labelled the agency as a “propaganda tool” for the Indian government, thus being defamatory in nature.
The Delhi High Court in turn had given the ruling that Wikipedia should disclose the identities of the people who made those alleged edits.
Nikhil Chawla, a technology policy commentator, was quoted in an India Today report claiming that this could be an issue for such platforms that run on user-generated content.
Chawla explaining the difference between a publisher and an intermediary said, “If my blog post allows comments, I’m a publisher for my post, and an intermediary for your comments.”
Since Wikipedia doesn’t publish anything on its own but gives a platform for users to post content, they are not the primary publishers here. Wikipedia has also stated that it will allow Indian users the “right to share and access free and reliable knowledge in an open and safe online environment.”
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Economic Times, India Today, Business Today
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This post is tagged under: Wikipedia, Wikipedia India, Wikipedia indian govt, indian govt, Wikipedia notice, Wikipedia indian govt notice
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