On September 5, following the vandalism of Indian Cricketer Arshdeep Singh’s Wikipedia page, the Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology (MeiTY) summoned Wikipedia executives in India. The ministry has sought an explanation of the incident where someone changed the entry to say that the young cricketer is associated with ‘Khalistanis’.
The changes were made following the India vs Pakistan match during Asia Cup in Dubai, where India lost by five wickets. In a nail-biting encounter, India lost by 5 wickets in the end thanks primarily to the partnership between Mohammad Rizwan and Mohammad Nawaz.
As per media reports, a high-level panel of the IT Ministry that is likely to be led by the IT Ministry secretary, will meet the Wikipedia executives and question them on the checks and balances in place to avoid such edits. It is notable that the changes that were made to the Wikipedia page were reverted within a couple of minutes.
The propagandists insinuated Indians blamed and ridiculed Arshdeep Singh for being a “Khalistani” as he had dropped a catch during the match. The people pushing the propaganda included the usual suspects like Alt News’ Mohammed Zubair, and Rana Ayyub, along with verified Twitter handles from Pakistan.
How Wikipedia page edits work
Wikipedia is not like the other websites where only the admins have the right to make changes to the content. Wikipedia is basically a user-generated content website that can be edited by anyone with an internet-connected device that has browsing capabilities. There are senior editors in Wikipedia that keep a check on the edits made by the users.
Though the website is heavily influenced by left-leaning editors and Wikipedia itself says it should not be referred to as a reliable source, Wikipedia pages show up on the top of Google results and have a notable impact on the information available in the public domain.