ANI sues Wikipedia Delhi [IN] HC Doubles Down (www.moneycontrol.com)
from ulterno@lemmy.kde.social to world@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 2024 15:58
https://lemmy.kde.social/post/1919628

Relevant Article: Asian News International sues Wikipedia for “Defamation” and Archived version

Apparently, Delhi High Court asked Wikipedia to disclose information about editors of said article, which made some controversial edits on the Wikipedia ANI page.

The article states that Wikipedia failed to provide said information.

From the article

Wikipedia explained that the delay had been caused as the platform didn’t have any physical presence in India.

“It is not a question of the defendant not being an entity in India. We will close your business transactions here," the judge said in a stark warning.

ANI asks for removal of said “controversial” edits and wants ₹20000000, ~$240k from Wikipedia.

Archived original article

From the related article:

2022-10-10: Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers of India filed petitions to the Supreme Court, saying that an article on Wikipedia about them, as defamatory. To that, the bench said, “You can edit the Wikipedia article…” and that they could use “any other remedy available to them”.

Additional information from me:

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MediaBiasFactChecker@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 2024 15:58 next collapse
The Indian Express - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

Information for The Indian Express:
> MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - India
> Wikipedia about this source

Internet Archive - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)

Information for Internet Archive:
> MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual - United States of America
> Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.News

https://web.archive.org/web/20240714172651/https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-law/why-has-ani-slapped-a-defamation-case-against-wikipedia-9443391/
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-law/why-has-ani-slapped-a-defamation-case-against-wikipedia-9443391/

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

ulterno@lemmy.kde.social on 06 Sep 2024 16:10 next collapse

Wikipedia vs Delhi HC Judge’s Actions

Wikipedia explained that the delay had been caused as the platform didn’t have any physical presence in India.

  • Wikipedia here, explaining that they have a limited ability and asking HC to be reasonable.

"We will close your business transactions here"

  • Judge, realising they are showing weakness, increasing threat level.

Current actions vs Past actions

  • Refer “Relevant Article” in the post.
  • Low impact companies asked Supreme Court and were shot down
  • Company with a high standing and a potential political backing, asks the High Court and gets full attention
    • On top of that, Delhi HC Judge decides to move to “Contempt of Court”, making it much harder for Wikipedia, in case they move Supreme Court (SC) in the future, for a re-trial
    • I feel like this would have gone differently had ANI gone to SC from the beginning.

Writing this part separately in a comment, because I understand this includes my bias.

Also, if I don’t interact with any comments later, please excuse me. GOI might have stopped my internet, just for posting this, because they can.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 06 Sep 2024 20:40 collapse

I wonder who is harmed more by Wikipedia stopping business in India? Indians or Wikipedia?

ulterno@lemmy.kde.social on 06 Sep 2024 22:44 collapse

For the average Indian, it would be just a minor inconvenience. Having to visit a site full of ads and half-assedly written information, whenever they want to know something new, is the price they will pay.

For Uni students, looking for stuff to plagiarise, it won’t be much different either, as most of the times, Wikipedia is considered a less reliable source than a shady website having 10’s of ad popups leading to malicious targets. Probably because the one grading it, only has to check to make sure it is not a Wikipedia URL and doesn’t really need to actually open the link to see here it leads.

Wikipedia kinda works like a Democracy of the type, ‘Logical Consensus’, making it very hard for people to just throw money at it to get false information shown, at least on topics with enough hands-on people^[as compared to a normal democracy, which only relies on number of people supporting a decision]. This makes it very unappealing for political campaigns. Meaning, Govt. doesn’t have a reason to care for it.

What we lose:

  • As a kid, most articles I read on Wikipedia were Science and Technology related. They seemed to have a certain amount of care put into writing them and I picked up a bit of “care” from it.
    • We lose this potential positive influence on future inquisitive children, which will probably turn to video based sources (assuming they don’t just give up and go back to WhatsApp/X/other stuff). While video based sources are also fine, IMHO, the way Wikipedia tends to have stuff laid out, is a really nice way to let people learn new stuff, which might be leagues away from their on level and domain.

What Wikipedia loses:

  • India has a lot of people. A lot of them would be contributing to the information in it. That is lost.
    • Catch: A lot of the Indians in Science and Tech tend to just emigrate. So, Wikipedia still has those.
    • Blind Spot: I don’t really read much other than Science and Tech and won’t be able to assess the amount and value of other articles. By extension, the contribution by resident Indians to those.

What Wikipedia as a company, loses:

  • A bit of money maybe.
    • Though still much less than what ANI is trying to extort

What I gain:

  • Another reason to consider emigration
  • A reason to vote. And not incumbency this time.

What happens if Wikipedia pays out?

  • A precept
    • I’d rather have WMF block Indian access, than this happen.

Anti Commercial-AI license

ulterno@lemmy.kde.social on 06 Sep 2024 23:00 collapse

ANI does seem to be getting the Streisand effect going though. I would never have checked their Wikipedia page and never have known of said allegations. And no, I didn’t even have to see the Wikipedia page, to know that something on those lines was written on Wikipedia.

mlg@lemmy.world on 08 Sep 2024 20:21 collapse

If you want to see some real level of mental degeneracy, you should check out the edit and discuss pages for any Wikipedia articles involving Modi or the BJP.

It’s literally like 2 mods keeping information up and preventing a wave of salty nationalist trying to edit in propaganda.

en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:2002_Gu…

ulterno@lemmy.kde.social on 09 Sep 2024 17:51 collapse

I usually try to stay away from any of those.
Just that this time, they decided to use the legal system to suppress Wikipedia, which is why I thought, this needed to be shared.

Normally, I don’t even care about checking Wikipedia for controversial topics.