Days after the ultra-leftist news portal The Wire withdrew its series of reports claiming that BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya had some superpowers to remove posts from Meta-owned Instagram, new developments are still emerging exposing how the entire story was based on lies, and how the portal had misquoted experts. After Meta had denied the claim, The Wire posted a screenshot of an email from a Meta official which seemed to prove that the allegations were true. When the official Andy Stone had said that the screenshot was fake, Wire had claimed that two independent experts had checked the email and certified them to be genuine.
Subsequently, both the experts, Kanishk Karan and Ujjwal Kumar, denied verifying the email, after which The Wire was forced to withhold the story. While initially, The Wire didn’t name Karan, they had named Microsoft employee Ujjwal Kumar, based in Singapore, and claimed that he had verified their fabricated email. However, soon after that, Ujjwal Kumar had denied doing DKIM verification of the email. The Wire had published a screenshot of a mail purportedly sent by Kumar certifying that the email is genuine. But Ujjwal Kumar said that he never sent an email.
And now, Ujjwal Kumar has revealed that even after he had issued the denial, Wire continued to lie that he had verified Andy Stone’s email. Taking to LinkedIn, the employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps for job seekers and employers, Kumar wrote a long post on Friday, October 21, showing how Wire continued to peddle lies even after issuing denials, before the reports were taken offline.
He wrote that he is providing this statement to clarify and certify that he does not have and has never had any involvement with The Wire’s reporting on Meta. Prior to the publishing of The Wire’s story on 15 October 2022, no reporter from The Wire reached out to him for any statement on or verification of, The Wire’s processes, Kumar said, adding that the email screenshot included in the report was not sent from his email account.
Kumar stressed in his statement that he had no participation in The Wire’s reporting on Meta at any point, and he chastised the portal for incorrectly attributing remarks to him. He added that after he issued the denial, The Wire had modified its report to falsely claim that had sent the email to Wire saying that he has verified the Meta email and found it to be true, but he does not want his name to be mentioned in the reports. Notably, initially Wire didn’t mention Kumar’s name, but later modified the concerned report to reveal his identity, after which tech expert Pranesh Prakash had contacted him, and Kumar had told Prakash that he didn’t send the email to Wire and didn’t verify the Meta email.
The statement issued by Ujjwal Kumar is as follows:
“Over the weekend, a publication erroneously attributed commentary to me. The investigations have proven that the claims are factually inaccurate, and I, have requested a correction to be published.
On 15 October 2022, The Wire had published a report titled, “Meta Said Damaging Internal Email is ‘Fake’, URL ‘Not in Use’, Here’s Evidence They’re Wrong”. I clarified to The Wire that I had not conducted verification of, or commented on the validity of The Wire’s processes and findings, as claimed in the report.
The email screenshot reproduced in the report was not sent from my email account and I had not even been approached by The Wire to make any verification before publication of The Wire’s report dated 15 October 2022.
Despite my denial, The Wire modified its report to falsely claim that while I had issued an email confirming validation of The Wire’s processes, I did not wish for the article to continue to carry my name.
The Wire finally took down the report dated 15 October 2022. The Wire has further acknowledged in its report dated 18 October 2022 that I have denied making assessments of The Wire’s processes.
It does not clarify that I have, in fact, not verified or validated The Wire’s reporting on Meta.
To put an end to the confusion, I am issuing this statement to clarify and confirm the fact that I do not have, and have not had, at any stage, any involvement with The Wire’s reporting on Meta. At no point of time, prior to the publication of The Wire’s report dated 15 October 2022, did any reporter from The Wire reach out to me for any statement on, or verification of, The Wire’s processes. The email screenshot reproduced in the report was not sent from my email account.”
Meta vs The Wire saga and how the latter dragged the Microsoft employee’s name in the entire fiasco
It may be recalled that recently the leftist propaganda outlet The Wire had published stories accusing Meta of being hand in gloves with the BJP and granting absurd superpowers to its IT Cell head Amit Malviya. In its reports, which are now withdrawn, The Wire claimed Meta official Andy Stone sent an email to his team expressing anger over how this was revealed and asked to put The Wire journalists on ‘watchlist’. After Andy Stone said that the email screenshot is fake, Wire claimed that Ujjwal Kumar, lead architect currently working at Microsoft Asia, and another expert verified the email sent by Stone. Founding Editor of The Wire Siddharth Varadarajan claimed that Ujjwal Kumar said that the mail ‘passed the DKIM test’.
Varadarajan shared a screenshot of an email sent by Ujjwal Kumar saying that he used the manual method and corroborated that the dkimpy, a library that implements DKIM (DomainKey Identified Mail) email signing and verification, uses the same algorithm.
Here is the email shared by Siddharth Varadarajan.
In another separate tweet, Varadarajan had claimed that he had consent from Ujjwal Kumar to share the email and his finding regarding the so-called mail from Meta and had shared the screenshot.
Hours after The Wire published the story and Varadarajan publicly shared the above screenshot of the mail, The Wire claimed that Kumar had backed down from putting his name public. It turned out, Microsoft had denied Kumar being involved in the circus and had said how the mail was not sent by him. In fact, amid all this, The Wire never admitted that Microsoft had reached out to them to deny Ujjwal Kumar’s involvement in this Meta saga. It came to the fore only after Pranesh Prakash said that Kumar has told him that he didn’t verify the email and that the screenshot of his email published by Wire is fake. Soon after, Newslaundry published a report saying that Microsoft had issued them a statement denying Kumar’s involvement in this.
The leftist portal withholds reports claiming Amit Malviya has special powers to block content on Instagram
On Tuesday, The Wire decided to “suspend the stories” on its claims against BJP and Meta after evidence debunking their preposterous claims piled up. They also promised “thorough internal review of all material and documents and sources”, an implicit admission that they have erred in the reportage.
They were forced to take down the stories after domain experts and independent researchers refuted its claims, and multiple experts quoted in the reports have refuted their involvement. The Wire had claimed that Kanishk Karan, a policy manager overlooking public safety on platforms, and Microsoft employee Ujjwal Kumar had verified the digital evidence provided by The Wire and certified them to be authentic.
But both Karan and Kumar came out to say that they didn’t do the verification of the evidence, including a purported email from a Meta official.
The Meta fiasco was not a one-off, not a mere error by The Wire. As we have documented over the years, the far Left portal has been peddling fake news and fake allegations habitually. They have sold lies on multiple occasions and with explicit editorial sanction. What has changed this time around is that they poked a tech giant and got burned in return.
Notably, OpIndia has laid down the ups and downs and back and forth in the long-running Meta vs The Wire controversy.
