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Why Delhi high court called Wikipedia editing function ‘dangerous’
Wikipedia was sued by news agency ANI for entries on its site calling the news agency a “propaganda tool” for the current government.
The Delhi high court, while hearing a defamation suit filed against Wikipedia by news agency ANI on Friday, said the functioning of the platform, particularly its open-access editing was “dangerous”, reported Bar and Bench.
While hearing the case with the rest of the division bench, Justice Subramonium Prasad said, "Anybody can edit a page on Wikipedia?" What kind of page is this if it is open to anybody (for editing)?"
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Though the judge called the functioning of the platform “dangerous”, senior advocate Jayant Mehta, who was representing the online encyclopedia, submitted that users have to comply with the law while creating the page or updating information.
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Advocate Mehta argued that Wikipedia was not like Facebook or other social media pages where a person maintains a page and can say anything.
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"It is not social media where you have a page and anybody can do anything. It is an encyclopedia where any user can add information if its worthy. The page is open to editing by anybody and that is how it gains credibility. Every information is required to be cross-reference to source," Mehta said.
ANI has sued Wikipedia for allowing defamatory edits on its page which earlier referred to ANI as a "propaganda tool" for the current government. They demanded that the page be taken down in their suit.
Advocate Sidhant Kumar, representing ANI, argued that though Wikipedia represented its information as a matter of fact, it is an “aggregator of defamation”.
Earlier, the high court had asked Wikimedia to disclose information on the three people who made edits to the ANI Wikipedia page but Wikimedia appealed against the summons and now the issue rests with a division bench, reported Bar and Bench.
The matter was adjourned by the court to October 28.
