Wikipedia’s content is determined by its global community of volunteer editors, its owner United States-based non-profit Wikimedia Foundation has said in response to a defamation case filed against it by news agency Asian News International, The Hindu reported on Friday.
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia that uses a collaborative software known as wiki to facilitate the creation and development of articles.
On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court had summoned the parent organisation of the online encyclopaedia in the defamation case after ANI told the court that a Wikipedia page contained a defamatory description of it.
The Wikipedia page about ANI says that the news agency has been criticised for serving as a “propaganda tool” for the current Union government. ANI told the court that the description was defamatory.
Its petition sought to have this text removed, in addition to Rs 2 crore in damages from Wikipedia.
“It has come to our attention via press reports that the Hon’ble Delhi High Court has issued a summons to the Wikimedia Foundation regarding a defamation case filed by ANI against the Foundation,” Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement, according to The Hindu.
“As a technology host, the Wikimedia Foundation generally does not add, edit or determine content published on Wikipedia,” it said. “Wikipedia’s content is determined by its global community of volunteer editors [also known as the ‘Wikimedia Community’] who compile and share information on notable subjects.”
ANI had, however, contended that Wikipedia was not allowing its page to be edited. “They have closed my [ANI’s] page for editing by anyone and can only be edited through their representatives,” the news agency told the court.
It had said that Wikipedia was a “public utility” and could not “behave as a private actor”.
To this, Wikimedia Foundation said that the page on ANI has been set to “extended confirmed protection, which allows edit access only to volunteer user accounts that meet the criteria of being at least 30 days old and having 500 edits”.
The foundation added: “Experienced users can continue to improve the Wikipedia article about ANI in accordance with Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines on reliability, verifiability, neutrality and conflict of interest editing”.
The case is listed for hearing on August 20.
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