On October 17, the controversy involving Meta and The Wire came to an abrupt end (hopefully), with The Wire issuing a public statement that it does not want to move further with the story. The reason The Wire gave was that if they move ahead, it might compromise the identity of their source at Meta, who apparently has a personal relationship with one of The Wire’s team members.
Why were they at loggerheads anyway? Well, The Wire came up with an allegation that Meta has given Bharatiya Janata Party’s IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya VIP privileges at Meta under the program X-Check. Based on these mythical ‘powers,’ Malviya was able to get over 700 posts removed from Instagram, no questions asked. These posts include seven posts of an Instagram handle, Cringearchivist, that was based on the allegations raised by The Wire.
However, as the fight between the two moved ahead, The Wire’s reports raised more questions on the news portal itself rather than Meta. Eventually, The Wire decided to end it abruptly and left a lot of questions on the table.
Now, while The Wire has decided to step back, the liberal cabal is furious as, according to them, Meta skipped the questions that The Wire raised about additional powers to those who are included in the X-Check list, including Malviya.
The Scroll questioned Meta
The Scroll, a propaganda portal, said in a report on October 15 that while the spat between Meta and The Wire continued, three questions remained unanswered. Why were they unanswered? Because the whole attention was on the possible fabrication of evidence by The Wire that the liberal cabal failed to gasp.
Anyway, the three questions by The Scroll were:
- Which content moderation benchmarks were violated by @cringeactivist?
- Instagram’s communications with the user claimed that the post was related to sexual activity. What was the rationale for tagging a video of a man praying to an idol as sexual content?
- Was this content moderation decision taken by an automatic computer system or humans, or both?
When Scroll sent these questions to Meta, they responded with the link to the official statement. As per Scroll, it did not answer the question about moderation, so they contacted Meta again, but Meta declined to provide any additional inputs. Interestingly, the Scroll seems to have asked no questions to The Wire. In fact, even their questions had little to do with Amit Malviya’s role and far more to do about Instagram’s content policy, which had nothing to do with the original story per se.
Caravan Magazine’s editor fumed at Meta
The Caravan magazine’s political editor Hartosh Singh Bal did not appreciate Meta’s reply to The Scroll. He was upset and tweeted, “When Scroll.in sent Meta follow-up questions regarding content moderation, the company declined to provide “additional inputs.”‘ Meta screams hoax but can’t answer the one basic question that is at the heart of the matter.”
When someone pointed out that AI might have marked the image as “nudity” because of the colours, Bal did not believe it and called it Bulls**t. This particular aspect was explained by OpIndia as well. We tested three images of the CM Yogi’s temple from three different sources and angles and found that Google AI marked two of them as ‘possible exposed.’ More details can be found here.
Even though a technical explanation was made available to him, it was summarily rejected and this question was never posed to The Wire by these eminent journalists. It is apparent that the entire media cabal was more than happy to believe the hit job by The Wire because it was an attempt to implicate BJP, a party they despise. While they are entitled to ask META questions, since META is no saint either, but with glaring loopholes in the story, it is a testament to their “journalism” that no questions were posed to The Wire.
More the merrier
Rituparna Chatterjee, Deputy Asia Editor with Independent said, “Why was the post about man worshipping yogi Adityanath removed under bizarre nudity clause @Meta? Still waiting to hear that answer.” She also RTed many others raising questions on Meta but did not raise any questions, objections, or concerns over The Wire’s report.
Technology journalist Abhishek Baxi put Meta under the scanner as well. He said, “It is unfortunate that The Wire had to elaborate about their due diligence… not as evidence of their investigation, mind you. A newsroom led by credible, veteran journalists is pushed to a level of scrutiny which an American outlet wouldn’t have been subjected to.”
It is notable that Baxi mentioned he talked to several experts in the field and many of them sided with Meta but claimed they did not want to go against The Wire. He said, “I’ve talked to some smart tech journalists, some with longer and wider experience than I. Few agreed with Meta’s rebuttal, some even believed in the hoax theory (and feared what we are in for), and some were undecided. But none wanted to cheer Meta or bring down The Wire.”
Also, he has a special message for those who pointed out things like reliability of read receipts, DKIM validation. He said, “Jaa, baap ko mat sikha (Go away, don’t teach your father).”
The Scroll’s Karnika Kohli also wrote a long thread targeting Meta. However, no questions to The Wire. She also praised The Wire for giving a “detailed explanation” of what they did and how they did it. Karnika has worked for The Wire in the past.
The Wire conveniently threw the burden of proof under the rug
There are many like Scroll and Hartosh Singh Bal who are siding with The Wire. However, it is strange that despite the questions raised over the documents and evidence The Wire provided, none of them is ready to question The Wire. They are putting Meta under the scanner, but The Wire is getting a free pass.
Being the one who raised the allegations against Meta, the burden of proof was, is, and will remain on them. Most of the evidence and statements that The Wire made or presented to prove their theory against Meta and against BJP, as a matter of fact, were thrown behind because of the red flags raised against The Wire. The more the news portal attempted to prove they were right, the more cards fell off the castle.
Now, as The Wire has stepped back and said they would not move ahead with the story per se and would keep trying to prove their evidence was true, no one can be sure if the whole matter will go under the rug or it will pop up during 2024 Lok Sabha elections with more “evidence.”
On Meta’s part, what was shocking to see that the tech giant did not go ‘all hell goes lose’ mode against The Wire, despite serious allegations. They initiated some internal investigation, but so far, no official case has been filed against The Wire if what they were saying was actually fabricated and false. Some of the experts who raised questions over The Wire’s expose also questioned Meta for being mum over the matter or for keeping everything hush-hush.
We, the spectators of the whole saga, can only sit back, relax, have some more popcorn, and see what is stored in the future if there is anything stored in the future anyway. Just to remind you, the winter session in the parliament may see the issue flaring up as TMC leader Derek O’Brian has already announced he will raise it in the house.
