The ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) has issued a notice to Wikipedia, questioning why it should not be categorised as a publisher in the light of complaints regarding biased and inaccurate content.
This assumes significance as Wikipedia has an open collaborative model, wherein the content is contributed by volunteers. Unlike a publisher, the company does not have a central editorial control. It functions more like a social media intermediary – X, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, etc, where the content is contributed by users.
Notably, a social media intermediary enjoys safe harbour status, which means it has legal immunity against the content posted by the users on its platforms. However, in certain circumstances such as when illegal and false information is posted on the platforms, the government can ask the platforms to remove such content.
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In its notice to Wikipedia, however, the government expressed concerns that the content on the platform is controlled by a small group of editors, leading to biases. Wikipedia, on the other hand, calls itself a free content online encyclopaedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers.
As per the content guidelines of Wikipedia, any content should also meet its standards of “notability”, which means that no original content can be published and the topic must have been covered in mainstream media or major academic journal sources that are independent of the article’s subject.
Notice from I&B to Wikipedia has come at a time when news agency ANI has filed a defamation suit against Wikipedia over edits on Wikipedia page, labelling the agency as a ‘propaganda tool’ of the incumbent government. About ANI, the Wikipedia page cites references from news articles of Caravan and The Ken.
In September, the Delhi High Court also issued contempt of court notice to Wikipedia for not complying with its order of disclosing information about people who made edits on ANI’s Wikipedia page, according to Bar and Bench. Last month, Wikipedia agreed to share details with the Delhi High Court about users who made edits to the page on ANI.
According to policy experts, Wikipedia is an intermediary and not a publisher as it does not have central editorial control just like in newspapers or digital media, where the editors have control. Experts said if the government changes Wikipedia status as a publisher then the company would be held accountable for content posted on its platform, which according to some analysts may be viewed as censorship of content and free speech.
“Wikipedia is an open-source platform enabling users to publish content in alignment with its community guidelines rendering it an intermediary. Being an encyclopaedia of content with citations, if one starts driving the platform contributors to the court, it would unreasonably restrict free speech,” said Pranav Tiwari, senior programme manager at The Dialogue.
Dhruv Garg, partner at Indian Governance and Policy Project (IGAP) and a tech lawyer said, “for categorising Wikipedia as a publisher, the government will have to prove that Wikipedia as a platform is curating content and exercising editorial powers over the wikipages. Also that there exists actual knowledge of all content on its platform (illegal or otherwise). This seems difficult in the case of Wikipedia as the entries on the platform are made by thousands of volunteers, contributors and administrators who are not employees of the platform.”
According to Garg, if classified as a publisher it will affect the fundamental model of Wikipedia operations, and it may find difficult to continue operations in the country.
In multiple instances in the past, the government has warned social media companies of losing safe harbour status on failure to remove misinformation and illegal content from the platforms. Under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the platforms have the immunity against legal prosecution for content posted by users.