Online news publication The Wire released a statement on Monday putting a full stop to the ongoing exchange of words with the social media giant Meta (formerly known as Facebook) over one of its reports on Instagram’s ‘XCheck’ programme.
The Wire’s statement said, “We are not prepared to play this game any further.”
The Wire said that Meta’s consistent claims that the articles are ‘baseless and fabricated’ even after producing solid proofs point to an ‘unhealthy arrangement that is bad for democracy.’
“Once again Meta has made wild claims about the evidence The Wire has made public., in the hope that we will feel obliged to seek and publish further information that could be more easily traced back. We are not prepared to play this game any further,” The Wire‘s statement said.
The Wire added that it intends to work with its trusted sources, report and publish on important Meta-related stories “at a pace that is mutually compatible.”
The statement concluded that it is committed to safeguarding its sources in Meta.
“We are, ofcourse, still trying to develop, with recognised experts, a transparent method for the independent verification of Andy Stone’s email – and to secure the consent of our sources for this, as it would involve sharing a document that would reveal their identity,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, ALt News co-founder Pratik Sinha has expressed his concerns over the issue. Tweeting about it, he said, “If Wire has got it wrong, and the screen-recording they were provided by the ‘source’ was indeed of a trial account, and not an internal FB system, then that should be acknowledged.”
However, he did not dismiss the fact that Meta has a huge role to play in polarising the world on the basis of religion, caste, race etc. “Yes, Meta is hugely responsible for many things happening around the world. In my day-to-day experience of dealing with the platform, I can say with certainty that FB/Insta/Whatsapp have been weaponised to push hate against Indian minorities, with Meta looking away,” Pratik tweeted.
Background of The Wire’s Meta article
On October 10, The Wire exposed Meta’s XCheck programme where it accused the social media giant of giving the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell president Amit Malviya exclusive rights of allowing to flout the company’s privacy rules by taking down any post which is bad press for the party.
In its defence, Meta ferociously denied any such claims and slammed The Wire for publishing two stories, which, according to Meta (formerly Facebook) Chief Information Security Officer Guy Rosen were “outlandish and riddled with falsities.”
“These stories are fabrications. The stories are simply incorrect about the cross-check programme, which was built to prevent potential over-enforcement mistakes. It has nothing to do with the ability to report posts, as alleged in the article,” Rosen posted on Twitter.
