1 week Ago
The Delhi high court on Wednesday ordered the removal of defamatory descriptions about news agency ANI on its Wikipedia page. A bench of justice Subramonium Prasad also directed Wikipedia to remove the ‘protection status’ imposed on ANI’s Wikipedia page and restrained the platform’s admins from further publishing defamatory content on ANI’s page. The ‘protection status’ allows only admins to edit a Wiki page.
The order came in a defamation suit filed by ANI, which had snowballed into a larger judicial tussle over the liability and duties of intermediaries -- online service providers-- when the content posted by their users is caught in a legal tangle. In its suit, the news agency had demanded that the Wiki page on ANI be taken down and further uploading of defamatory content on it be restrained. The lawyer representing Wikipedia said his client has not claimed the content was factually correct and verified, and stated its content came with a disclaimer that the information was based on secondary sources.
The platform said its content was added through open, editable collaboration. However, in November, the high court pulled up the platform for its apparent reluctance in sharing details of users who made edits to a page, observing that Wikipedia’s disclaimer that its content was based on secondary sources could not absolve it from responsibility for what users write on its pages. The disclaimer cannot act as a “Kavach of Karna”, said Justice Prasad, referring to the mythical shield in the epic Mahabharata.
The judge added that it was “troubling” that the platform represented itself as an encyclopedia while claiming not to endorse what was written on it. While the news agency, in Prayer 2 in its plea had sought removal of allegedly defamatory content, in its Prayer 3 it had sought removal of protection status imposed on its Wiki page. “Prayer 2 and 3 (granted),” the bench said while pronouncing the verdict.
.
