Our very own trusted source of all the information ‘Wikipedia‘ may soon shut down in India. The Indian government’s regulations are forcing the company to shut down in India. Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that hosts and operates Wikipedia informed.
The company said it would become difficult for the company to run the free knowledge-sharing platform if India passes the new internet regulation laws. As per the drafted provisions, internet companies will have to take down their online content within 24 hours on the government’s request. Once flagged, these companies will also have to even share crucial information within 72 hours to the government.
The regulations also ask companies to leverage automated tools to detect and remove any content which promotes illicit information. These new regulations would require Wikipedia to filter its content from time to time. The company said that removing content from one country and allowing the same in other ones doesn’t fit with their model.
Also Read: Google To Update It’s ‘Terms Of Service’ Next Month, Are You Aware Of That?
Another regulation that Wikipedia finds difficult to manage is setting up an office in India. As per rules companies having over 5 Million users from India to set up their offices in the country. Companies like Mozilla, GitHub, and Cloudflare have already raised concerns about the regulations. India is the 5th largest market for Wikipedia. The free knowledge and information sharing platform was visited 773 Million times by Indians in 2019
Inputs from Inc42
