The Wire, an independent news outlet based in India, apologized for publishing a story that accused Meta of granting an Indian politician special permission to remove posts. According to an update posted on Sunday, The Wire decided to withdraw its report after certain discrepancies emerged in its evidence.
It is not yet possible for us to take a conclusive view about the authenticity of the sources with whom a member of our reporting team says he has been in touch over an extended period of time. We are looking into the possibility that it was intended to deceive The Wire.
According to The Wire, the external investigators it's using can't verify the email from Andy Stone that it presented as proof in its original report. They can't verify an email from Ujjwal Kumar, an independent expert who signed off on some of the outlet's investigative work, and who denied sending an email to The Wire.
You can read our explainer if you aren't caught up with the story yet. According to a report by The Wire, an Indian politician's satirical image was wrongly flagged and removed by the social media platform. The post was removed at the request of the head of the information technology cell at India's ruling party.
Malviya was able to get away with removing the post because he was part of Facebook's crosscheck system, which allows certain high-profile users to avoid the platform's moderation policies. The outlet said it had evidence to back up its claims, which included videos of the internal system used by employees.
The alleged email from Andy Stone can't be verified by The Wire's investigators.
Meta discovered an account on its workplace tool that appeared to support The Wire's claims, after saying the evidence had been fabricated. Users pointed out inconsistencies in the reporting. The Wire suspended access to its stories and announced that it would conduct a review of the source material used in the story after resisting Meta's denials and users' findings.
The Wire may have been tricked into believing a false narrative, but the outlet isn't ruling it out. The Wire took down a previous story from one of the original story's co-authors, who was the sole person in contact with the alleged source.
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