A court in New Delhi has ordered the Wikimedia Foundation to remove comments about Reuters-affiliated news service ANI from its website Wikipedia that were found to be defamatory.
The comments alleged that ANI was a “propaganda tool” of the Indian government, to include serving as the “external publicity division” of the Ministry of External Affairs.
This week, a judge overseeing the case sided with ANI, saying the “impugned statements” were “defamatory and tarnish the professional reputation of” the news organization.
Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that financially and technologically supports Wikipedia. Most of its employees work to support the technical foundation of the website, and most of Wikipedia’s contributors — known as “editors” — and administrators are unpaid volunteers.
It wasn’t clear if Wikimedia Foundation intended to appeal the ruling this week. Reuters owns a minority, non-controlling stake in ANI, and the two news outlets work on joint news efforts, though ANI operates as a separate business.
The court case is not done, with ANI seeking at least 20 million rupees (around U.S. $240,000) in reputational damages, as well as a statement of apology from the Wikimedia Foundation.
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Disclosure: Matthew Keys, the publisher of The Desk, worked for Thomson Reuters from 2012 to 2013.
