Central Government issues notices to Wikipedia after Arshdeep Singh's page vandalized

The Central Government on September 6 (Tuesday) issued a notice to Wikipedia after a Khalistani slur appeared on the information page of the Indian pacer Arshdeep Singh.

The left-arm pacer had a good outing with the ball against the Pakistani side during the Super Four match of the 2022 T20 Asia Cup, but he dropped a crucial catch of Pakistani batter Asif Ali which played a vital role in the match as the Men in Green won the contest by five wickets. 

Netizens on several social media platforms also came down heavily on Arshdeep for dropping but things went a little too far when information on his Wikipedia page was changed to link him to the separatist Khalistani movement.

The Indian government on Monday summoned the Wikipedia representatives while Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to Twitter to slam such a move. "No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation (a)n(d) deliberate efforts to incitement (a)n(d) user harm - violates our govt's expectations of safe and trusted internet," he said.

The wrongful edits were removed within minutes by the volunteer community: Wikipedia to the Indian government

Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, in response said, "The Wikimedia Foundation has been made aware by the Indian Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology of the vandalism that took place on the Wikipedia page of Indian cricketer, Arshdeep Singh.”

"The Wikipedia page of the cricketer was vandalized with false claims on September 4, however, the wrongful edits were removed within minutes by Wikipedia's volunteer community. Right now, the article on English Wikipedia is semi-protected (which allows edits by only trusted users) to restrict further vandalism on the page," the foundation said.

According to the edit history of the cricketer's Wikipedia page, an unregistered user replaced the words "India" with "Khalistan" at several places on the profile and his name was changed to "Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa". But the changes were reversed within 15 minutes by Wikipedia editors.