The Wire's high-profile drama with Meta has come to an end.
The independent Indian publication has recently retracted two weeks' worth of reports about Meta due to the discovery of certain "discrepancies" in them.
The drama between the Indian publisher and the tech giant started when The Wire published stories with controversial claims of what happened before Meta took down a post made on a private Instagram account, per Engadget.
The Wire Article Retraction Details
The Wire had recently taken down its many reports connected to its earlier article that Meta removed a satirical Instagram post made by @cringearchivist as it allegedly broke Instagram's rules regarding sexual activity despite showing nothing of the sort.
The publication sent a statement to various publications saying that it is investigating the authenticity and bona fides of the sources its writer was in contact with to produce the articles in question.
It all began when The Wire published an article claiming that Meta had taken down @cringearchivist's satirical Instagram post at the behest of Amit Malviya, an official in India's BJP party who oversees the government's IT cell, per TechCrunch.
This meant that Meta gave Malviya an "unchecked ability" to remove content from Instagram and that Meta was not truthful in its public denials of the reporting.
However, it was at this point that the sources the writer credited became weird. On one article, it cited an internal email for Meta Communications Director Andy Stone, while in another article, it credited testimonies from independent security researchers that vouched for the authenticity of Stone's internal email.
Both Stone and the independent security researchers mentioned in the article have disputed the reports they were credited on.
The Wire began noticing "certain discrepancies" in the information used in the creation of the articles in question. These discrepancies became clear enough to see that Pamela Philipose, the publication's ombudsperson, said in a statement that the sources used either "didn't stand by what The Wire put out, or were misunderstood, or were wrongly quoted, or possibly had second thoughts."
Next Steps For The Wire
As of the writing of this article, The Wire has indeed taken down its reports regarding Meta's removal of @cringearchivist's satirical post on Oct. 23. The publication replaced these reports with a statement saying they have been suspended from public view while its internal review process is being conducted.
"We are still reviewing the entire matter, including the possibility that it was deliberately sought to misinform or deceive The Wire," the publication added.
The publication said it is working with independent security experts in its investigation to see whether its security had been compromised. Additionally, it had taken action against Devesh Kumar, one of the publication's reports who worked on the story, though it did not reveal what sanction it placed on its writer.
Meta has yet to address the retraction publicly, but it had @cringearchivist's post replaced while the tech giant and The Wire were hashing things out online.
