Delhi HC orders Wikipedia to take down defamatory content against ANI

New Delhi: Delhi High Court’s division bench has ordered Wikipedia to take down the defamatory content about the news agency ANI, published on the platform.

Wikipedia was previously ordered by the court’s single-judge bench led by justice Subramonium Prasad on April 2, to take down the content, a verdict Wikipedia further contested.

Wikipedia referred to ANI as a “propaganda tool” for the central government. ANI called the claims false and defamatory. 

The bench said that the platform is bound by the Information Technology (IT) Act and it must remove “false” and “untrue” content.

The court further said that the word ‘pedia’ comes from encyclopaedia, hence Wikipedia, as a source of information, must stay neutral, not opinionated. The platform was asked to not take sides.

Wikipedia, represented by senior advocate Akhil Sibal, argued that the single judge court’s verdict was based on the wrong premise as the content on the platform had not been changed since 2019. It added that it neither employs its editors nor does it pay them, hence it has no editorial control over them. It is an open-source platform and cannot be held accountable for the content published on it.

The court instructed that since Wikipedia refers to itself as an intermediary, it cannot contest the court’s decision on merits.

“Since Wikipedia claims to be intermediary, in terms of IT Rules, the intermediary has an obligation to make efforts not to publish any objectionable content. Perusal of Rule 3 of the IT Rules shows that if there is any content on Wikipedia website which a person whose info it professes to publish is false and untrue, on receipt of court order, within 36 hours, the intermediary is obliged to take down content. The single judge heard parties and gave prima facie opinion that content is defamatory. Wikipedia would be liable to follow IT Rules and if the same is not taken down, the plaintiff can approach this court,” a bench of justices Prathiba M Singh and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta said.

Additionally, the platform must take responsibility for the content published on it, the bench added.

ANI, represented by advocate Siddhant Kumar argued that Wikipedia had failed to remove the defamatory content within the deadline laid under the IT Rules 2021.

The court ordered Wikipedia to remove the defamatory content and restrained it from publishing defamatory content in the future.