After a long, public back-and-forth with Meta, The Wire finally had to pull down its coverage on the company earlier in the week.
The Wire retracted the stories due to its inability to authenticate certain pieces of evidence. The Indian publication has issued a public apology and said that it was subject to "deception" from a member of its "Meta investigation team."
The public spat between The Wire and Meta began when the publication accused the company of bending to BJP IT Cell Chief Amit Malviya's will and removing a post from @cringearchivist on Instagram.
The Wire also said that the Malviya was part of Instagram's XCheck programme, which it was using to shield Malviya from standard content moderation.
Over the course of the week, The Wire found itself on shaky ground after all of its evidence was refuted or simply found to be counterfeit. Experts such as former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang simply did not find the evidence presented in the stories convincing or even authentic.
In its apology post, The Wire said that it was, "conducting a comprehensive editorial review of the internal editorial processes" and assured its readers that it was going to, "plug any and all shortcomings."
The publication admitted that it did not do enough to verify its evidence and has learned that, "complex technical evidence – whether brought by someone who is part of the newsroom or a freelancer – and all verification processes that involve technical skill, must be cross-checked by independent and reputed experts in the field."
The Wire also blamed the inauthentic evidence on "deception" it was subjected to by a member of its "Meta investigation team."
"This combination of not fully grasping the complexities of technology and a slippage in editorial assessment of tech-related matter resulted in the publication of stories which did not eventually hold up. For this we owe an apology to our readers," The Wire wrote in the post.
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