Four of The Wire’s editors’ homes and the company’s office were both searched by the Delhi Police on Monday, according to people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to the media. The four editors were Siddharth Varadarajan, MK Venu, Sidharth Bhatia, and Jahnavi Sen.
Amit Malviya, the head of social media for the Bharatiya Janata Party, filed a complaint, and two days later a first information report (F.I.R.) was filed against the editors on suspicion of cheating, forgery, defamation, and criminal conspiracy.
“The police arrived around 4:40 and left around 6.” “They claimed to have come here on behalf of the Amit Malviya FIR filed by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police. My iPad and iPhone have been taken for cloning.
The searches at the homes of Varadarajan and Sen took place around the same time, they said. The search at Bhatia’s home started around 7.30 pm.
“We are fully cooperating with them,” Varadarajan said. “We have given them the devices and passwords they asked for. They have taken four devices – one MacBook, two iPhones and one iPad.”
Venu also revealed that a lawyer for the editors has visited the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch office to ensure that only evidence relevant to the case is taken from the seized devices.
More than 20 officials were involved in the search, which lasted until 9.45 p.m., according to a member of The Wire’s staff who was present at the office during that time.
He claimed that “they seized iMacs and demanded the passwords of those in the office.”
The four editors received no notices on Monday, according to Delhi Police officials, and no investigation was done. “Additional investigation is ongoing, and the required actions will be taken,”
Malviya’s complaint relates to a series of articles about social media company Meta that The Wire retracted on October 23.
The Wire had claimed that Malviya, who heads the social media cell of the saffron party, had special privileges through an Instagram program called X-Check that ensured that any posts he reports are removed from the platform immediately, with “no questions asked”.
On its part, The Wire has claimed that it had been deceived by a member of its investigative team. On October 29, the digital publication filed a police complaint against researcher Devesh Kumar, who had worked on the Meta articles, claiming that he “fabricated and supplied documents, emails and other material such as videos with a view to damaging The Wire and its reputation.”
The Digipub News India Foundation, an 11-member digital-only news association, said that “immediate and arbitrary search” based on a complaint filed by a spokesperson of the ruling BJP “smacks of malafide intentions”.
The purpose of the searches was to create a chilling effect against journalism in India, Digipub said in a statement. “Moreover the danger of these searches being used as an excuse to seize and duplicate confidential and sensitive data held by The Wire cannot be dismissed,” the news websites’ the statement noted.
However, it added that a media organization should be held accountable by its peers and the civil society for publishing a false report.
The association also expressed concerns that the investigation could become “a tool to further worsen the already fraught state of journalism in India”.
What the Controversy Of META & THE WIRE Actually is …
The controversy started after on October 6, The Wire said that Instagram had deleted a satirical post showing a man worshipping a statue of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath for violating the platform’s guidelines on “nudity and sexual content” even though the image did not depict any nudity.
The publication followed this up with a report on October 10 claiming that the post was taken down after a complaint by Malviya, the head of the BJP’s social media cell. The Wire report claimed that Malviya has special privileges through an Instagram programme called X-Check that ensures that any posts he reports are removed from the platform immediately, with “no questions asked”, even if they do not violate Meta’s rules.
On October 11, 2022, Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, said that The Wire’s report was based on false information. He said that X-Check system had “nothing to do with the ability to report posts”.
In addition, he claimed that “posts in question were surfaced for review by automated systems, not humans” and that “appears to be fabricated” an internal Instagram report cited by The Wire’s source.
In support of its report, The Wire published another article on October 11 that included an image of an email that Stone is said to have sent on that day in which he reprimands some of his colleagues, inquires about how the internal Instagram report “got leaked,” and requests more details.
According to the report, Stone asked his coworkers to “watchlist” Varadarajan and Sen.
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