ANI’s Defamation case against Wikipedia

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Context (IE): News agency Asian News International (ANI) has moved the Delhi High Court against Wikipedia for allowing allegedly defamatory content on ANI’s wiki page.

ANI alleged that the said content is “palpably false” and its reputation was being tarnished by it.

Why is the suit filed against Wikipedia and not against the individual?

Wikipedia, which started in 2001, itself does not produce the content for its online encyclopedia. It is a collaborative, open source, nonprofit platform whose users contribute to the content of the website.
The suit against Wikipedia, rather than the individuals who could have made the edits to the page, is intended to ensure enforcement by holding the intermediary liable.

ANI has argued that Wikipedia is a significant social media intermediary under the meaning of Section 2(1)(w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The petitioner has also relied on Sections 79(2) and (3) of the Act, which lay down the requirements for the “safe harbour clause” to come into effect.

Section 2(1)(w) of IT Act: Any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record and includes telecom service providers, network service providers, Internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online-market places and cyber cafes.

Section 79 of the IT Act (Exemption from liability of intermediary in certain cases) states that an intermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted on its platform as long it meets certain conditions.

The intermediary does not initiate transmission of the message in question, select the receiver of the transmitted message, or modify any information contained in the transmission, as per Section 79(2)(b).
The intermediary adheres to the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code that mandated setting up a grievance-redressal mechanism, along with a resident grievance officer, a chief compliance officer, and a nodal contact person.
The intermediary immediately removes or disables access to the material in question, on being informed by the government or its agencies, failing which it would lose protection.
The intermediary does not tamper with any evidence of these messages or content on its platform.
Rule 7 of the IT Rules, 2021 states that if “an intermediary fails to observe these rules, the provisions sub-section (1) of section 79 of the Act shall not be applicable”, and the intermediary shall be liable.

Learn more about the Right to Free Speech and IT Rules.

In 2022, SC dismissed a batch of petitions filed by the Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers Organisation of India, alleging that an article published on Wikipedia about them was defamatory and asked the petitioners to avail “any other remedy available to them” under the law.
In 2023, in Hewlett Packard India Sales vs. Commissioner of Customs, SC acknowledged the utility of online sources such as Wikipedia but cautioned about the misleading information as it is based on crowd-sourced and user-generated editing model that is not completely dependable.