Maharashtra Police registered a case against 4-5 Wikipedia editors for not removing misinformation and disinformation on legendary Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. As per reports, they were involved in editing and spreading misinformation, and the government fears that it could lead to law and order problems.
Sources revealed that the Cyber Cell had repeatedly requested the removal of objectionable content and it send 15 emails to Wikipedia. However, the US-based Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia, didn’t respond which prompted the officials to proceed with legal action.
The case has been booked under Sections 69 and 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, giving the government power over monitoring and controlling online content. As per officials, the failure of the Wikipedia site to heed these concerns might incite disturbances among followers of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj.
The development specially comes at a time of public outpour of emotions around the recent Bollywood film, Chhaava, depicting the heroic life of one of the greatest Hindu warrior Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. The movie has reinvigorated the old debate around the falsification of Indian History and how unjustly the Mughal dynasty has been talked about in the NCERT books while legendary Hindu warriors rarely find a mention in these school textbooks.
Nonetheless, following the controversy around the misinformation on Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis directed the Cyber Cell to escalate efforts to engage with Wikipedia. He stressed that open-source platforms must not allow the distortion of historical facts.
“This is not a case of, say, the right of free speech per se; it is indeed true that the freedom of expression cannot be such as to trample upon, disregard, or infringe the rights of others,” said Fadnavis.
It is pertinent to note that Wikipedia is notorious for peddling biased leftist agenda and maintaining a leftist narrative on its pages. While it maintains that a large pool of editors make the changes, the editorial team is dominanted by leftist ideologues, and request by Nationalist contributors are often turned down for flimsy reasons. TFI has been extensively exposing Wikipedia for its lack of editorial check, in true sense, and peddling misinformation and disinformation.
