How Delhi HC’s Wikipedia ban threat affects India

In September, the Delhi High Court issued a contempt of court notice against Wikipedia for non-compliance with a previous order asking for information on those who made allegedly defamatory edits on Asian News International’s (ANI) Wikipedia page. Justice Navin Chawla even warned that it would shut the website’s operations in India. Wikipedia claimed that the delay was caused due to its headquarters being located abroad.

ANI filed a defamation lawsuit against Wikipedia, seeking Rs 2 crore in damages on July 9, 2024 alleging that the description on its page was defamatory. It sought removal of the content while the Court issued summons to Wikipedia ordering it to share information about the three users who made the edits on ANI’s page.

The news organisation has argued Section 79 of the Information Technology Act (2000) concerning safe harbour does not protect Wikipedia since it is used as a public utility and thus, cannot behave as a private actor.

In this video, MediaNama Founder and Editor Nikhil Pahwa discusses how the court’s decision can impact safe harbour protections and information flows in India. “Overly aggressive enforcement against global platforms ……banning platforms themselves because of some violations such as this can basically stifle the flow of information and knowledge. For us, it is we who are going to get impacted by it. It’s a form of censorship that happens coming out of how we don’t want our maps to be depicted on the platform. But the people suffer in terms of knowledge getting restricted for them,” Pahwa said.

Watch the video here:

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