Hi everyone,
For your information, Wikimedia France is working on opposing a French
proposed law that would require parental consent for U15s accounts on
"social networks". The text is currently using the definition of the DMA
without the exemptions provided. So, that could catch our projects and
especially Wikipedia.
Wikimedia France has developped a written brief and engaged with
parliamentarians. At the National Assembly, the Commission in charge of
the file has written in its report that the online encyclopedia should
not be concerned by this law. In France, the judge can refer to this
kind of document to make a decision, but it is not at all mandatory for
him. So, it is not a strong enough protection in our opinion.
We will then try, during the second reading in the Assembly, that the
exclusion of Wikipedia will be tabled by an amendment and will be
written concretely into the text. We are currently talking with some
senators to table an amendment to this effect. However, with the
national reform and the massive strikes currently in France, we do not
yet have the date when the text will be debated in the Senate.
Also, we provided some responses to a BFM journalist :
https://twitter.com/NaphsicaP/status/1639258248913223681 . Do not
hesitate to share that we could have even more visibility.
Have a great day,
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*Naphsica PAPANICOLAOU*
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*/+33 1 42 36 26 24/* <tel:+33142362624>
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*/-------------------------------------------------------------------------/*
*WIKIMEDIA FRANCE*
Association pour le libre partage de la connaissance
*/www.wikimedia.fr <http://www.wikimedia.fr/>/*
/28 rue de Londres, 75009 PARIS/
<https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1234174880>
Hi everyone,
Do you want to present at Wikimania 2023 <https://www.wikimania.org>?
Wikimania program submissions are open now until the end of day Tuesday 28
March, anywhere on earth <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1680091140>.
After the 2020 edition of Wikimania was postponed and the two following
online editions, Wikimania is now back with an *in-person*, *hybrid* and
*on-demand* event in Singapore, from 16-19 August 2023!
The theme for Wikimania 2023 is *Diversity, Collaboration, Future*. There
are 11 tracks to choose from: familiar ones like Community Initiatives,
Governance, GLAM, or Technology; and new ones like Open Data and Wild
Ideas. You can submit an interactive workshop or panel, a lecture, a short
lighting talk or a poster for our dedicated poster session. Making a
submission is easy and we have upcoming conversation hours on Sunday March
19 at 00:00 and 14:00 UTC to help you out. You can also reach out to us on
the talk page or on Telegram. All the information you need is available on
wiki <https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions>.
We all know a lot has happened in the past 3 years on the different topics
around copyright reforms, blocking and unblocking of access to our projects
and legislation in general. As outlined above, there are different tracks
proposed, among them being a dedicated *Legal, Advocacy, and Risks track*.
To explore suggested topics for the track, please see here
<https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions#Tracks>: to
browse through the already submitted proposals, please go to the Program
Submission category
<https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimania_2023_Program_submis…>
on the Wikimania wiki.
We welcome your session proposals. Read more on *Diff*
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/28/be-part-of-the-wikimania-2023-program/>and
start preparing your ideas!
Kind regards,
*Ciell*
On behalf of the Wikimania 2023 Core Organizing Team
Dear advocacy allies,
We're starting a new project and we want to hear from you. You may have heard about it already.
We are trying to map the copyright advocacy work that Wikimedians have conducted since roughly 2016. This project will help us learn about our movement’s shared copyright public policy priorities, the common obstacles that communities face, and the campaign materials (as well as other resources) that Wikimedians have created or are creating as part of these advocacy efforts. More information about the project and what we will do with these insights can be found in this blog post: <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/03/02/help-wikimedia-map-your-efforts-to-im…>
We've already reached out to some of you individually. Please let us know if we should have also contacted you, or if you know other people with whom we should connect. Feel free to share this project with others in your network!
Hope to hear from you,
Ziski
Hello, everyone! Almost two weeks ago online platforms released their user
numbers for the EU, including the Wikimedia Foundation, an obligation under
the DSA. Else, the Commission is running a consultation on… well… de facto
net neutrality. Meanwhile, the Parliament and Council are starting to think
hard about liability and security of software, including a potential
liability carve-out for free & open software.
=== Digital Services Act ===
The EU’s new content moderation rules have a number of special obligations
- transparency, annual risk assessment, mitigation plans, third-party
audits - for so-called very large online platforms (VLOP). A VLOP is any
platform that averages more than 45 million monthly active recipients
within the EU. Platforms had until 17 February to declare their numbers.
Here is a list of declarations: [1]. So far, 18 self-declared very large
online platforms and search engines. Among them, Wikipedia is the only
not-for-profit.
—
For the Wikimedia Foundation it was of utmost importance to produce
reliable user numbers without gathering additional data. Wikimedia records
only the number of unique devices, not actual users. The “EU DSA Userbase
Statistics” [2] uses the unique devices data and a conservative estimation
taken from the Cisco Annual Internet Reports on how many devices per person
there are. It is important that there is at least one VLOP out there whose
operator is demonstrating how one can comply while protecting fundamental
rights such as privacy. So far, there is no indication that the European
Commission intends to challenge the Foundation’s methodology.
—
The European Commission will soon officially designate VLOPs, after which
platforms will have a further four months to start complying with the
specific obligations, while all the other obligations that aren’t specific
to VLOPs will only apply from 17 February 2024. One of the challenges will
be to find a third-party auditing body that annually checks the risk
assessments and mitigation measures. It would be exciting to see
not-for-profit or community led initiatives here, instead of the The Big
Four [3] professional services firms dominating the field.
=== Cyber Resilience Act ===
The Cyber Resilience Act is a proposed regulation by the European
Commission aiming to introduce baseline cybersecurity requirements for
digital products and services. It includes such obligations as security
tests and security updates for up to five years after a product or even a
piece of software. [4]
—
The European Commission is proposing a carve-out for free & open source
software, which we welcome. However, the carve-out is only in a recital
(which is the “non-active” part of a EU law), instead in a proper article.
It also restricts the protection to “software developed or supplied outside
the course of a commercial activity”, which most programmers and lawyers we
spoke to believe is a very problematic wording. Many FOSS software projects
are usually developed and maintained by a mix of volunteers, contractors,
businesses or even incidental contributors participating in bug bounty
hunts.
—
Wikimedia is working on addressing the above mentioned weaknesses and
trying to coordinate with organisations such a the Free Software Foundation
Europe and Open Forum Europe on this. Our current thinking and suggestions
can be seen here: [5]
=== Net Neutrality ===
The European Commission, under the lead of Commissioner Breton, has
launched an “exploratory consultation” (i.e. not a regular consultation) on
what they call “Fair Share”. [6] It is essentially an idea by the French
Commissioner to have network operators charge data-heavy services, such as
streaming platforms. The idea is, of course, not new and has been heavily
discussed in the past under the banner “net neutrality”.
—
While it seems the initiative won’t get the necessary traction to make it
to an actual legislative proposal, we intend to participate in the
consutlation. Our thinking and public positioning on the matter can be
found in EN [7] and FR [8].
=== Data Act ===
The Data Act is a regulation proposal that aims to boost data sharing
in-between businesses and between businesses and governments. [9] It also
wants to make it easier to switch between cloud services. As such it
touches upon a myriad of data sharing issues, including the sui generis
database right and data protection.
—
The Council [10] and the Parliament [11] have written and agreed on their
negotiating positions and are expected to start trilogues in the second
half of March, when the parliamentary position is adopted in plenary.
—
Both houses agree with the Commission to de facto abolish the sui generis
database right when it comes to machine-generated data. However, the
European Parliament wording on Article 35 has fewer conditionalities
attached to it, which is why we will reach out to negotiators to voice our
preference for it.
—
Another part of the text we are working on, together with EDRi, is Chapter
V. It gives governments the right to request data from businesses in
emergency situations. This is so vaguely framed that it might not even
survive a legal challenge. The European Parliament added “no personal data”
to the text, which is welcome, we continue to be worried about the lack of
purpose limitation.
=== EEN ===
A somewhat weird challenge to Wikipedia’s prominence on search engines and
most importantly Google Search came from a group called the European
Encyclopedia Network. [12] In a letter to Danish Commissioner Vestager [13]
they claim that Wikimedia Enterprise is proof that Google is unfairly
upranking Wikipedia. A logic we can’t really follow.
—
Wikimedia Europe and Wikimedia Denmark have jointly written an open letter
to Commissioner Vestager [14] offering collaboration on making
encyclopaedia content more accessible and pointing out some criteria which
we know influence search rankings. We have also written to the EEN offering
to work together, as we believe we have much in common.
===
[1]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H89uABJZCg0BQlUdpDPE0XBpdtXWPGQbwLW…
[2]https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:EU_DSA_Userbase_Statistics
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms
[4]https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/cyber-resilience-act
[5]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GSO-WpA86vklStTIXpSJrqvppqQTyUfn90Q55EY…
[6]
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/consultations/future-electronic-co…
[7]https://wikimedia.brussels/net-neutrality-the-fair-share-debate/
[8]
https://www.wikimedia.fr/neutralite-du-net-et-partage-equitable-des-couts-l…
[9]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Act_(European_Union)
[10]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AtjIhK3dVqqgMyuHEuA0IzCCYoqvicLF/view?usp=…
[11]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n4HyPr2epR_lOrPjJefU2JuLCF6Yys28/view
[12]https://encyclopedianetwork.eu/
[13]
https://encyclopedianetwork.eu/sites/default/files/2023-02/Letter%20to%20th…
[14]
https://wikimedia.brussels/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Open-letter-from-Wiki…
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Wikimedia Europe ivzw