NEW DELHI, Oct 29: Based on a complaint from the BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, the Delhi Police on Saturday filed an FIR against news website “The Wire” for publication of an alleged “fabricated news” of his enjoying “special privileges” in Meta-owned social media.
The report, however, has since been withdrawn by The Wire.
The complaint was filed with the Special Commissioner of Police, Crime at Police Headquarters in Delhi. The BJP leader filed the complaint days after he said he was going to take action against “The Wire” for publishing reports that he enjoyed the privilege to take down posts on Meta-owned Instagram.
In his complaint, Amit Malviya has alleged that The Wire “forged documents” with a view to maligning and tarnishing his reputation. He also urged the police to register an FIR against The Wire’s founding editors Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, MK Venu and Deputy Editor Jahnavi Sen for “cheating, forgery, harming reputation”.
The compliant was based on the report of October 6, 2022, in which “The Wire” claimed that Meta, the parent company that owns Facebook and Instagram, had removed an Instagram post within a few minutes of it being uploaded by a private account namely “Cringearchivist”. The report claimed that Amit Malviya, who is the IT cell chief of the BJP, had certain privileges to take down posts from Meta-owned Instagram.
The reports soon sparked a row, with questions being raised over its authenticity. Questions were also raised over the credibility of the sources cited by The Wire. The news website initially stood by its report, with The Wire editor Siddharth Varadarajan stating that the “stories came from multiple Meta sources—whom we know, have met and verified.”
On October 11, 2022, however, Meta’s Communication Head Andy Stone issued a categorical denial and stated that the documents presented by The Wire in its report were “fabricated.” The Wire was later forced to retract the stories and it issued an apology. “To have rushed to publish a story we believed was reliable without having the associated technical evidence vetted independently is a failure of which we cannot permit repetition,” it stated.
(Manas Dasgupta)
