India’s elections over the next 18 months will shape its future. But as focus on voters starts to rise, a scandal has reiterated the fallibility of the media.
In October 2022, Delhi news platform The Wire thought it had a scoop. Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — had supposedly given special online privileges to members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The story came from a freelancer who had previously brought The Wire a year-long investigation into a so-called “master app” called Tek Fog that could crack social media accounts and influence trends. Although sceptics doubted the reporting, The Wire initially backed it.
