A Delhi High Court case could end up threatening how Wikipedia works in India

Last Monday, the United States-based non-profit Wikimedia Foundation agreed to share with the Delhi High Court basic subscriber information about the users who edited the news agency ANI’s Wikipedia page. This came during the proceedings of a defamation suit filed by ANI against the user-created online encyclopeida for stating that ANI had been accused of serving as a “government propaganda tool”. The data about the suers will be shared in a sealed cover, which means it will not be available to the public.

While it is unclear what details will be shared with the High Court, basic subscriber information typically refers to a user’s name, address, email address, phone number and other identifiers.

If the High Court goes ahead with this, it would mark the first instance of Wikipedia sharing user information with an Indian official organisation. Wikipedians – the term used by the lakhs of volunteer Wikipedia writers and editors around the world to describe themselves – that Scroll spoke with said that this would lead to a chilling effect. They would be forced to censor themselves while writing or editing content related to powerful entities or politically sensitive matters.

Defamation suit

The case started in July, when ANI sued the Wikimedia Foundation in the Delhi High Court, alleging that...

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