The Wire has lodged a complaint with the Delhi police against Devesh Kumar, who was working in the capacity of a consultant, for allegedly providing fabricated details to the organisation for the story on Meta, Instagram and BJP's social media head Amit Malviya. The Wire's stories alleged that Malviya had special privileges under the controversial XCheck programme. Malviya too registered an FIR against The Wire for publishing "fake" stories against him, Meta and Instagram.
The complaint is said to have been sent through email and in person to the Special Commissioner of Police, Crime at the police headquarters in New Delhi. The complaint alleges that Kumar fabricated information it provided to The Wire, based upon which it had published the story that claimed that Malviya was part of the elite XCheck programme that whitelists high-profile users and protects them from the company's usual enforcement rules.
The Wire had said, after pushback from Meta and removing the stories from public view, that it would conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
What did The Wire's complaint say?
In its complaint, The Wire alleged that the investigation by independent and informed people revealed, Kumar had submitted false information to them. "Our review – done with the help of reputed outside experts – of the documents and material Devesh Kumar had provided clearly established that he had supplied us fabricated material – including the documents and emails and videos from Instagram and Meta, as well as the emails by two reputed experts purportedly vetting the Andy Stone email," the complaint read.
The Wire has said that Kumar did so with "malintent" towards The Wire, its editors and its staff. "He has done so either on his own or at the behest of other unknown persons," the complaint said.
It urged the police to investigate if there were others involved with Kumar in fabricating evidence.
Last week, The Wire, without naming Kumar, released a statement admitting gaps in its editorial process and saying, "Had we done this before publication rather than after the fact, this would have ensured that the deception to which we were subjected by a member of our Meta investigation team was spotted in time."
The Wire said that the person responsible for the investigation into Meta's XCheck programme was "no longer working with The Wire in any capacity".
Meta had vehemently denied it, but after initial pushback against Meta, The Wire was forced to take down the reports after independent tech reporters and analysts found holes in the editorial process. In last week's statement, The Wire said that while the process of review was on, it had learnt from the incident that all verification processes that involved technical skill, needed to be cross-checked by independent and reputed experts in the field.
Amit Malviya's FIR
Malviya, in his FIR, which accused The Wire of defamation and forgery, said that the publication used fabricated documents to publish false information. The FIR named founders Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, MK Venu, and its deputy editor and executive news producer Jahnavi Sen.
The Indian Express quoted Malviya's complaint as saying, "I am filing the present complaint for the offences of cheating, forgery for the purpose of cheating, forgery for the purpose of harming reputation, using as genuine a forged document or electronic record and defamation amongst other provisions of IPC."
Malviya alleged that he believed the publication "entered into a criminal conspiracy with the intent to malign and tarnish" his image, hence he was taking action against them.
In response to Malviya's FIR, The Wire said in a statement: "Journalists rely on sources for stories and do their best to verify material they receive. Technological evidence is more complicated and the usual due diligence may not always reveal the fraud perpetrated upon a publication. This is what happened to us. In the life of any publication, an occasion may come when it is misinformed. The moral test is whether the publication persists or speaks the truth. We chose the latter when we realised we had been given fraudulent information. Whether the person who brought all the material to The Wire deceived us at anyone' else's behest or acted on his own is a matter that will be subjected to judicial process in due course. The malintent to discredit The Wire is obvious."
