Tensions rise in India over claim that Instagram let ruling party tamper with posts
NEW DELHI — Last week, The Wire, a small but gutsy Indian news outlet, seemed to land one explosive punch after another on Meta, the social media giant that owns Instagram and Facebook.
The final straw came Tuesday. One of the experts that Wire journalists said had served as a technical consultant said that he never helped with the outlet’s reporting. The expert, Kanishk Karan, told The Washington Post that he was informed that Wire staffer Devesh Kumar had showed his boss, Wire founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan, an email from Karan that supported Kumar’s reporting. But Karan had never sent that email, he said.Karan did not accuse Kumar of fabricating the email.
With a staff of about two dozen people, The Wire has often been lauded as a rare voice of journalistic courage at a time when many Indian outlets, particularly television networks, hew close to the government’s line. And Varadarajan, the editor, was seen not only as a thorn in the government’s side but also a probable target of surveillance.
The Wire seemed to confirm those long-standing suspicions when it published a damning story on Oct. 10 alleging Meta gave special privileges to Amit Malviya, who heads the BJP’s IT department and social media efforts, as part of the company’s internal “cross-check” program, which shields VIP users from usual speech enforcement procedures.
A day later, The Wire defended its reporting by publishing an internal email purportedly sent by Andy Stone, a Meta spokesman, in which he responded angrily to the Wire report and demanded that his colleagues take action to identify the employee who had leaked the Instagram records. Again, Meta said that The Wire’s second big scoop — Stone’s alleged email — was also fabricated.
“None of this makes sense to me,” Green said, referring to The Wire’s explanations about the discrepancies.
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