Dear all
Some of you may have read about the case *Cross v. Facebook*, which is
before the Court of Appeal for the State of California, First Appellate
District. The case concerns the provision in the United States’
Communications Decency Act, Section 230 that protects online intermediaries
from liability <https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/liability/> related
to user-generated content. There are two good blog posts that explain the
case here
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160606/00343634630/another-bad-ruling-c…>
and here
<http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/06/wtf-is-going-on-with-section-2…>
.
Section 230 immunity is an important cornerstone of the internet, and it's
an important part of the legal background that allows the Wikimedia
projects to operate neutrally. We are preparing to file an amicus brief in
this case to educate the court about the importance of intermediary
liability protections for freedom of expression and free knowledge.
We will keep you updated about this when we have more information to share.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Hello everyone,
We want to start this second issue of our public policy newsletter by
wishing you a great start into the new year! The past 12 months have been
quite eventful for everyone and many of you may have been looking forward
to 2016 coming to an end. Taking stock, we can state that a lot of exciting
things have happened for public policy at Wikimedia and we look forward to
working with you to continue to promote and protect free knowledge in 2017.
But first, please let us briefly summarize what has happened recently:
Public Policy Highlights
NSA hearing
Earlier last month, a hearing in Wikimedia Foundation v. National Security
Agency took place before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond,
Virginia. The case, in which we challenge the Government’s “Upstream”
surveillance program, had previously been dismissed on procedural grounds.
However, we appealed because we believe in the importance of protecting our
users’ privacy and freedom of expression. In this latest hearing,
represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, we argued that the lower
court had misunderstood several important technical aspects of the
surveillance program and the scope and scale of the United States
government’s searches of private internet communications. The Government
argued that the plaintiffs do not have standing because the details of the
“Upstream” program remain classified. During the hearing, the court seemed
skeptical of the Government’s arguments at times. We expect a ruling from
the panel of the appeals court in a few months and will keep you updated.
Our own post about the hearing is on the Wikimedia Blog here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/09/wikimedia-v-nsa-hearing-fourth-circui…
Further reading:
https://policy.wikimedia.org/stopsurveillance/https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/
Participation in the Internet Governance Forum 2016
In early December, we attended the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in
Guadalajara, Mexico. IGF is the UN platform that facilitates a
multi-stakeholder debate about governance issues related to the Internet.
Besides an increasing concern over content removals and their threat to
freedom of expression, one large topic that people were addressing
throughout the conference was the significance of human rights online in
countries with authoritarian regimes or weak systems of checks and
balances, for instance in Venezuela. There was a concern that policies in
the US and Europe, including those affecting freedom of expression, may be
copied by other countries without including proper human rights protections.
During IGF, we were given the chance to voice some of Wikimedia's concerns
in a meeting with a delegation from the European Parliament, during which
we explained that Wikimedians are a global movement with large communities
in Europe who contribute to the digital preservation of European culture.
We used the opportunity to talk about threats to the public domain in
Europe and about proposed new rights for traditional rightsholders in the
proposed Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Finally, we
pointed out that the current proposal to force platforms to implement
automated content detection will interfere with our communities' ability to
self govern and create an infrastructure that can be abused to chill free
speech.
Further information:
http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/
Read the transcripts and watch recordings of the public sessions at IGF
here:
http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2016-transcripts-and-vi…
See our first assessment of the proposal for a new EU Copyright Directive:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/13/european-commission-copyright-leaks/
Further reading:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/26/european-copyright-more-freedom/https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/05/27/future-copyright-europe/
Participation in the first Global Internet & Jurisdiction Conference
Our Interim General Counsel Michelle Paulson participated in the Global
Internet & Jurisdiction Conference in Paris, along with stakeholders from
various sectors, to discuss the issues around conflicts of jurisdiction
online and address tensions between the cross-border Internet and national
jurisdictions. The conference had three working groups to begin developing
frameworks for international jurisdiction questions about data, content,
and domains. The conversation around content and jurisdiction online was
mostly focused on takedown requests by governments and revealed that
protections from intermediary liability differ from one country to another.
We strongly support balanced policy for removals that protects freedom of
expression through proportionality of measures and due process that
includes an appeals process. We expect the group, driven by the
Secretariat, to develop a roadmap for further collaboration on these issues
over the coming year.
Further Reading:
http://www.internetjurisdiction.net/event/2016-global-internet-and-jurisdic…http://www.internetjurisdiction.net/news/videos-from-the-2016-global-intern…
Katherine Maher’s op-ed about global removals of search results
The Globe and Mail, a major Canadian newspaper, published an op-ed by
Executive Director Katherine Maher addressing the problems around forcing
search engines to remove search results globally. In Google v Equustek, the
Canadian Supreme Court has to decide whether Google can be ordered to
remove search results with worldwide effect. Since such forced removals
would set a bad precedent and have negative implications on people’s
ability to find and access information as well as on their freedom of
expression, we have intervened in the case.
Read the op-ed here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/when-search-engines-omit-results-our…
See also our blogpost about our own intervention in the case:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/10/14/intervention-google-v-equustek/
WMF and WMFR partner on opinion piece discussing the Right to be Forgotten
On November 25, a joint op-ed
<http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/11/25/le-droit-a-l-oubli-ne-doit-p…>
signed by Jimmy Wales and Emeric Vallespi, Chairman of Wikimedia France,
was published in Le Monde. The op-ed outlines our concerns regarding the
implementation of the Right to be Forgotten
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten> (RTBF) in France, as
ordered by the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_nationale_de_l%27informatique_et_d…>
(CNIL), the French data protection authority. The op-ed encourages
lawmakers to consider the importance of public access to knowledge in
administering the RTBF, and asks for government or court oversight of the
search engine companies evaluating the requests. The Legal team would like
to thank Wikimedia France, as well as the Wikimedia Communications team,
for their hard work on the piece.
Read the op-ed in Le Monde here (in French):
http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2016/11/25/le-droit-a-l-oubli-ne-doit-p…
Further reading:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/10/19/petition-right-to-be-forgotten/
Misc.
Update to public policy portal complete
We have updated our public policy portal with the edits that we had
proposed on Meta. As previously announced, we will continue to periodically
update this text on a regular basis and you are welcome to continue to
provide suggestions beyond this first refresher of the site.
The Policy Portal:
https://policy.wikimedia.org
See the suggested updates at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_policy/Updatehttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Public_policy
All the best for 2017
We would love to hear from you! If you have any feedback or would like us
to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere,
please follow up directly with Jan Gerlach at jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org.
Thanks for reading this newsletter and for being an active part of the
Wikimedia community. We hope you have had a great start into 2017!
Stephen and Jan