Government of India Notice to Wikipedia for Publishing False Information
Government of India Notice to Wikipedia for Publishing False Information
Wikipedia is one of the biggest online scandals that is happening in cyberspace.
By Rakesh Raman
The Government of India has asked Wikipedia to explain the reasons for putting biased and inaccurate information on its site, which claims to be a free online encyclopedia.
According to an NDTV report of today (November 5), India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has raised concerns over the flaws on Wikipedia site and asked it to show cause why it should not be treated as a ‘publisher’ instead of an ‘intermediary’.
As a publisher, Wikipedia will be directly responsible for the information that it carries on its site instead of putting the blame on the anonymous editors who keep adding or editing information on Wikipedia surreptitiously.
The government notice to Wikipedia comes at a time when it is already facing contempt proceedings initiated by the Delhi High Court which has asked the site to reveal the names of editors who published obnoxious information about a news agency in India.
The court is in the process of hearing a defamation case filed by news agency ANI against Wikipedia, alleging that Wikipedia allowed certain objectionable edits about ANI on the site.
According to an NDTV report of September 5, the alleged edits called ANI as “the propaganda tool” of the Indian government. The court had ordered Wikipedia to reveal details of three user accounts that made the edits.
But according to ANI, Wikipedia defied the court order and did not reveal the names of editors. As Wikipedia operates in an opaque, shady manner, most editors use pseudonyms to add or edit content unscrupulously on the site.
As a journalist, I (Rakesh Raman) have also worked as a Wikipedia editor and had a bad experience on the site. I observed that many big organizations and political parties have deployed gangs of Wikipedia editors who work clandestinely and keep removing critical content about the outfits they represent.
In 2022, for example, as Wikipedia editor I tried to add information related to the crime and corruption cases of an Indian political group named Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
When I added verified content about the AAP crimes on the AAP Wikipedia page and the Wikipedia pages of AAP politicians such as Manish Sisodia, the content was repeatedly removed from the pages.
I had followed all the Wikipedia guidelines to update AAP pages. But to my utter surprise, the information that I was adding on AAP Wikipedia was getting removed by unknown people.
[ You can click here to read the full report including the screenshots of my interaction on Wikipedia about the AAP pages. ]
In March 2023, my editing rights as an editor on Wikipedia were restricted under the pretext of copyright violations when I started adding content to Wikipedia about the alleged financial frauds of Adani Group companies.
Since the chairman of the Adani Group, Gautam Adani, is a close partner of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, the critical content about the Adani Group started disappearing from Wikipedia. [ You can click here for details. ]
I was not allowed to contribute Adani-related content to Wikipedia saying that there are copyright violations, although no original copyright holder of the content had complained against me and I was following all the Wikipedia rules for editors.
In this case, Wikipedia itself claimed in February 2023 that the Adani Group content on Wikipedia is being manipulated unscrupulously. I asked Wikipedia to remove restrictions imposed on me and save Wikipedia from nefarious elements who have hidden objectives to censor critical content.
But dishonest Wikipedia editors – presumably hired by the Adani Group secretly – ignored all my truthful arguments and deprived me of my editing rights under the garb of copyright rules. I operate with an open identity Rrthakur22 on Wikipedia, as my full name is Rakesh Raman Thakur.
In fact, Wikipedia is full of mercenary editors who work with fake identities on behalf of certain people and organizations. These rogue editors keep removing critical content about their employers under different pretexts or they add obnoxious content to target certain entities.
Since Wikipedia works in a free-wheeling manner and mostly operated by naive or dishonest editors, there is no reliable mechanism where you can complain about arbitrary removal of your content or get objectionable information removed.
Thus, Wikipedia is one of the biggest online scandals that is happening in cyberspace and after the action of the court or the Indian government against it, perhaps Wikipedia will shutter its shop in India.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society.
