The Indian government formally issued a notice to Wikipedia in response to a growing number of complaints regarding alleged bias and inaccuracies in its articles. The government cited concerns raised by multiple stakeholders about the reliability and impartiality of the information presented on Wikipedia.
The government also questioned the platform for editorial control by only a small group of contributors. Furthermore, the notice also probed whether Wikipedia should be considered a publisher rather than an intermediary.
In September, the Delhi High Court also criticized Wikipedia’s open editing feature as ‘dangerous’ during a defamation case brought by ANI. Asian News International (ANI) filed a lawsuit against Wikipedia seeking Rs. 2 crores after it found out that the Wikipedia article about ANI calls the news agency a “propaganda tool for the incumbent central government.” The article also accused ANI of distributing materials from a vast network of fake news websites.
During the hearing, Judges noted that anybody could modify a Wikipedia page, which raised concerns about the potential for misinformation and defamation, The Court also issued Wikipedia a contempt notice for not disclosing information about people who made edits to ANI’s Wikipedia page.
Wikipedia’s legal representatives said that editors must comply with legal guidelines when creating or updating content. The platform has policies to monitor user contributions and maintain content integrity.
Wikipedia was launched back in the early 2000s with an aim to provide access to information and evolved over time. Now it hosts more than 56 million articles across over 300 languages. It is an important online information resource for most people around the world. Approximately 89 percent of Wikipedia articles are available in languages other than English
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