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A newDelhi High Court ruling in theongoing case between theWikimedia Foundation andAsian News International (ANI) required the WMF to remove "defamatory" content concerning the Indian press agency from its Wikipedia page.
Media coverage of the ruling included articles fromDeccan Herald ("Delhi High Court orders Wikipedia to remove allegedly defamatory description of ANI from its page");Bar and Bench ("Delhi High Court orders Wikipedia to takedown defamatory edits on ANI page");The Indian Express ("In a first, Delhi High Court directs Wikipedia to remove ‘defamatory’ content on news agency ANI"); andReuters ("Wikimedia must remove India content deemed defamatory, court rules").
According toThe Indian Express, it was "the first ruling byan Indian court in which Wikipedia has been directed to remove defamatory content". As of this issue's publication, Reuters, which owns 26 percent of ANI, but is not involved in the agency's operations, did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday, Reuters cited unnamed sources who stated thatWikipedia filed an appeal, and an Indian newspaper said thatone High Court judge had recused himself from the case.
The Delhi High Court will continue to hear the case, in which ANI seeks damages of about 20 millionrupees (roughly $240,000) and an apology from the Wikimedia Foundation; last December, a Judge hearing the WMF's appeal of a possibleinjunction in the case, said that he would read the sources used to reference the allegeddefamation on the article for ANI – see relatedSignpost coverage at ourDecember 2024 In the media report.
In January, the WMF took the case to a hearing at theSupreme Court of India, which reportedly expressed concern over the Delhi High Court's reasoning for the takedown order, with at least two judges noting that the case would have broad implications for press freedom – see relatedSignpost coverage at ourMarch 2025 report.
You can also read theNovember 2024 In focus report for more context on the court case. –B andO
"Wikipedia May Be the Antidote to Trumpism"(audio with transcript), according to WNYC'sBrian Lehrer Show.Matt Katz interviewsMargaret Talbot, ofThe New Yorker. Her article 'Elon Musk Also Has a Problem with Wikipedia' was reviewed inthis column last month. Talbot glowingly explains the Wikipedia editing process. Then Katz lobs a softball "You did write ... that Wikipedia is in almost every aspect the inverse of Trumpism. ... Why do some people refer to the site as the last good place on the Internet, and why is it an inverse to Trumpism?" Talbot knocks it out of the park, listing transparency on the talk and history pages, clear "policies and practices", and "a real dedication to using reporting from reliable news sources." Later she praises thereliable sources/perennial sources page and contrasts the Wiki toElon Musk'sDickipedia proposal and hisstiff-arm salute. –S
In the last few weeks, the current dispute between theFrench Wikipedia and French news magazineLe Point has been covered by several national media outlets:Le Monde has published a detailed article on the matter(behind pay-wall), asLe Parisien(withtwodifferent articles) andLa Voix du Nord(at this link) have done.
The same story also drew attention from all over the political spectrum, includingcentre-right newspaperLe Figaro(at this link),right-wing magazineMarianne(whichalso addressed their own dispute with theLes sans pagEs project) andleft-wing magazinePolitis(at this link). Historian and professorJean-Luc Chappey has alsowritten an opinion article in defense of fr.wiki forLibération; the same side has been picked byMathilde Panot, the current President of theLa France Insoumise group in theNational Assembly, in aYouTube video. And, of course,Le Point itself has publishedlots of op-eds and articles on the case involving one of their journalists.
Finally, Canadian French-language networkIci Radio-Canada also reported on the case(in audio format), as well as English-language portalBrussels Signal.
For more context on the case involving the French Wikipedia andLe Point, see theNews and notes andCommunity view columns from the February 27 issue. –O
interviews with 25 publishers and people who work with themthat
[t]he now-ubiquitous AI-generated answers [above regular search results] — and the way Google has changed its search algorithm to support them — have caused traffic to independent websites to plummet(not unlike media coverage of variousprevious algorithm updates in past decades). This conclusion was disputed by a Google spokesperson, who pointed out that website traffic can also change due to other reasons. In any case,
Google has said AI Overviews is driving more traffic to a diverse mix of publishers, but the company hasn’t provided data to back up that assertion. According to the data firm BrightEdge, the sites receiving the most referral traffic from AI Overviews are primarily big players, like TripAdvisor, Wikipedia, Mayo Clinic and Google’s own YouTube, rather than smaller publishers.
More specifically, the cited SEO firm, BrightEdge,reports that wikipedia.org is among theDomains [that] Are Sourced the Most
: It has about 11% "Share of Citations in AIO" (apparently meaning the percentage of all AI overviews sampled by BrightEdge that provided at least one Wikipedia page as a citation, possibly among other sources). Still, this is much lower than the top two domains, which belong to theNIH (ca. 31%) and theMayo Clinic (ca. 28%) - BrightEdge notes thatour data skew[s] to healthcare
.
On its blog, the firm had also published several somewhat breathless updates about month-to-month changes in the data, occasionally mentioning Wikipedia.During June 2024 (shortly after Google's general launch of the feature in the US),[c]itations for wikipedia.org declined 28% from the start to the end of the month [June 2024]. This may indicate a shift away from general knowledge sources towards more specialized, authoritative references [such as cdc.gov for medical content]
.A month later, BrightEdge reported that Wikipediashowed a slight decline of about 5% in daily search volume
from June to July.
Still, such fluctuations have to be weighed against the benefit of Wikipedia being linked in the AI Overviews at all (as opposed to the smaller websites in the Bloomberg article). Especially considering thataccording to BrightEdge,[t]he average AI Overview result has expanded to 1,000 pixels tall—a 50% increase since August 2024—pushing traditional organic results further down the page.
–H
The WMF blanked the article about the court case, upon the demand of the court, which felt that the Wikipedia article discussing the case could prejudice the case itself. Perhaps not an unreasonable request.
As for the case itself. The claimant presumably wants "disparaging" statements, such as this statement in the article lead, to be removed from the article. This is where issues of Freedom of the Press come into play.
Long-form investigations byThe Caravan andThe Ken have described ANI as being closely associated with thegovernment of India for decades, including underCongress Party rule, but especially after the 2014 election of theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In 2019,The Caravan reported that ANI "has a disturbing history of producing blatantpropaganda for the state".
Of course, views can vary about whether a statement is true fact, or blatant propaganda. My statement here is my own. This edit is not an endorsement of the WMF. –wbm1058 (talk)12:20, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's no reason to think the statements about the editors are neutral, accurate, or unbiased. We're quoting attacks on Wikipedians, inSignpost voice. WE CANNOT DO THIS.Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.9% of allFPs.19:02, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't that made into a draft, rather than being deleted? So it's still readable - and by everyone, not just admins.DS (talk)02:43, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
