Insta
New Twist In Wire-Meta Saga: Both Experts Quoted By Portal In 15 October Report Appear To Dissociate Themselves From Story
Swarajya Staff
Oct 18, 2022, 02:56 PM | Updated 03:48 PM IST
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
The Wire, in its pursuit to prove that BJP is imposing internet censorship along with big tech, seems to have tied itself in knots.
The latest revelation in the saga can potentially bury the story for good.
Here's some context.
On 10 October, The Wire published a report alleging that the BJP’s National Information and Technology Department Head, Amit Malviya enjoys special privileges with respect to Instagram.
The underlying implication here, of course, is that the BJP government is hand in glove with big tech and is unleashing unprecedented censorship on Indian citizens.
Andy Stone from Communications at Meta dismissed The Wire story on Twitter. He went on to claim that the screenshots shared by The Wire appear to be fabricated.
To defend itself, The Wire posted a screenshot claiming they had accessed an internal mail that Stone had purportedly sent to his team. In the image shared, the ‘sender’ is seen asking how an internal Instagram report got leaked.
The story snowballed into a major controversy for The Wire after Meta made damning allegations in response. As per Meta’s statement, both email ids visible in the screenshot are fake.
The Wire rebuts Meta’s claims and asserts that both the mail and the 10 October report are genuine.
In the latest update in the story, Pranesh Prakash, who runs the handle @pranesh on Twitter has claimed that one of the experts who is supposed to have verified The Wire's verification process of Andy Stone's email id, has said that he never undertook any such task for The Wire.
Prakash says in his tweet that the identity of this expert was shared with him by Wire editor, Siddharth Varadarajan himself.
Additionally, Prakash also claimed that another expert who The Wire referred to in its article of 15 October has asked for all references to him to be deleted.
To simplify:
The Wire purportedly runs a DKIM verification and says that Andy Stone's email id, as shown in its article, is genuine.
It attaches screenshots of two domain experts who apparently verified The Wire's process.
Today, however, one of the experts has virtually dissociated himself from the story and the other has apparently claimed that he is not associated with the story at all.
Read Swarajya's detailed report here.
Save & read from anywhere!
Bookmark stories for easy access on any device or the Swarajya app.
Introducing ElectionsHQ + 50 Ground Reports Project
The 2024 elections might seem easy to guess, but there are some important questions that shouldn't be missed.
Do freebies still sway voters? Do people prioritise infrastructure when voting? How will Punjab vote?
The answers to these questions provide great insights into where we, as a country, are headed in the years to come.
Swarajya is starting a project with an aim to do 50 solid ground stories and a smart commentary service on WhatsApp, a one-of-a-kind. We'd love your support during this election season.
Click below to contribute.