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Wikipedia is facing mounting regulatory pressure in India as local authorities question whether the platform should continue to enjoy legal protections as a neutral intermediary rather than being classified as a publisher.
The Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a notice to Wikipedia on Tuesday questioning the encyclopedia’s intermediary status that’s offered to tech platforms in India. The ministry cited concerns about concentrated editorial control and persistent complaints about bias and inaccuracies on the platform.
The notice follows a contentious case in the Delhi High Court, where judges have described Wikipedia’s open editing feature as “dangerous” and threatened to suspend its operations in India. The court is hearing a defamation case brought by news agency Asian News International, which seeks to identify Wikipedia contributors who allegedly characterized the news agency as a “propaganda tool” for India’s government.
Justice Navin Chawla had dismissed Wikipedia’s plea for additional time to respond due to its lack of physical presence in India, warning of initiating contempt proceedings against the platform if it failed to comply with orders to disclose user information. “If you don’t want to comply with Indian regulations, then don’t operate in India,” the judge stated.
Wikipedia has maintained that its volunteer editors must adhere to its established policies regarding verifiable content and legal guidelines, though this defense has faced increasing scrutiny from Indian authorities concerned about the platform’s content moderation practices.
Wikimedia, the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nikhil Pahwa, editor of MediaNama and a prominent voice on technology policy, questioned the legal basis of the government’s move, arguing that India’s IT law determines platform status based on function rather than the number of editors.
“You can be a platform with one user/editor or a billion,” he wrote on X.
Manish Singh is a senior reporter at TechCrunch, covering India’s startup scene and venture capital investments. He also reports on global tech firms’ India play. Before joining TechCrunch in 2019, Singh wrote for about a dozen publications, including CNBC and VentureBeat. He graduated in Computer Science and Engineering in 2015. He is reachable on manish(at)techcrunch(dot)com.
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