Dear all,
I am thrilled to share news of the launch of the *first issue*
<https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-newsletter-nov-2023> of the
new WMF Global Advocacy newsletter. You can sign up to receive future
newsletters at *this link*
<https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-policy-newsletter>.
This project is inspired by our desire to share the Wikimedia Foundation's
unique policy perspectives on pressing tech regulation issues with public
audiences, including policymakers, Wikimedians, and free knowledge
advocates. Our goal is to help these interested groups better understand
how we think about the internet and digital rights, and how laws and
regulations can and should be shaped to not only protect public interest
and community-led online spaces, like Wikimedia projects, but also to help
them flourish.
The newsletter will be emailed quarterly. Please feel free to share
the subscription
link <https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-policy-newsletter> with
your networks.
Happy reading!
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Hi all,
I wanted to share an invitation with you all to a conference Wikimedia
Sverige organizes, together with Swedish Library Association and the
Institute for Intellectual Property and Market Law at Stockholm University,
on 14 June. It will be a one-day conference dedicated to exploring the
intersections of Text and Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Copyright,
and Libraries.
The conference will take place in Aula Magna at Stockholm University (those
of you who attended Wikimania 2019 will know the place!) but we will also
enable remote participation and live streaming. Registration for the
conference is now open, and for those opting to participate remotely, the
link to access the conference will be shared closer to the event date.
Speakers include academics from Cambridge and Amsterdam, the Swedish
National Librarian, and a well-known name for many here, Teresa Nobre – as
well as many more.
More info on this link:
https://wikimedia.se/save-the-date-text-and-data-mining-and-artificial-inte…
Best
*Eric Luth*
Projektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and
Advocacy
Wikimedia Sverige
eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se
+46 (0) 765 55 50 95
Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.se
Dear all,
This is your annual RightsCon reminder! The call for proposals is open
until June 2, 2024 at 11:59 p.m PST. More details, resources, and ideas
below. ALL of you have interesting stories to tell that would make for
excellent RightsCon sessions!
*About*
RightsCon <https://www.rightscon.org/about-and-contact/> will take place
February 2025 in Asia. It will be a hybrid event. This is *the* digital
rights conference to attend. It is hosted annually by Access Now and brings
together business leaders, policy makers, government representatives,
technologists, academics, journalists, and human rights advocates from
around the world to tackle pressing issues at the intersection of human
rights and technology. Historically Wikimedia has had a strong presence at
RightsCon, with many people from this list having been speakers in previous
years.
*Resources*
There are additional resources to help with your proposals this year. There
are three more RightsCon office hour session
<https://www.rightscon.org/program/#support>s (May 16, May 22, May 28) as
well as a detailed guide to a successful proposal
<https://www.rightscon.org/your-guide-to-a-successful-proposal/>.
You can see the topics and session descriptions that have been successful
for Wikimedians in the past: here are details from 2023
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/25/wikimedians-will-be-at-rightscon-2023…>
and 2022
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/06/02/meet-the-wikimedians-promoting-free-k…>
.
*Ziski's tips*
- Tailor the topic to the region, either by involving allies from that
area or focusing on how lessons from your specific context could carry over.
- Collaborate with allies. Submit a session proposal with existing
partners, or with groups you want to work with more in the future. If you
do a Wikimedia only session, then you should at least include speakers from
other affiliates.
- Don't stick to panels. RightsCon is a fun conference because they
allow a host of creative session formats. We're a fun and quirky movement,
so those additional format options work well for us. Take advantage of them!
- Test ideas and run workshops. The RightsCon audience is always a great
group if you want to test a pitch or get feedback or ideas on a specific
project or challenge you're trying to tackle.
- Some areas where Wikimedians can bring a unique perspective:
- Work with indigenous languages (especially in the context of AI
discussions)
- Promoting and preserving cultural heritage in the 21st century with
open source tools so that communities can remain stewards of their
histories and cultures
- Epistemic justice / debates around knowledge rights and structures
of power, and how these need to be addressed in the digital age
- Data privacy practices
- Tactical experiences! What it takes to work in a global movement,
or build south-south alliances, or work with unlikely partners on a
campaign, or avoid burnout, or access useful grants, etc
- Using open data (WikiData!) to promote sustainable development goals
I am more than happy to review any proposals you want to send my way for
feedback.
Best,
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Hello!
With the European Parliament elections a week away we are keeping an eye on
the tech priorities candidates bring up. We are also taking the time to pay
more attention to national level developments and initiatives. Here, France
is once again a major preoccupation.
Dimi & Michele
=== France: Loi SREN ===
On 21 May 2024, the French Parliament adopted the final text of the law
aiming at securing and regulating the digital space (so-called SREN)
<https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000049563368>. The law is
the result of a compromise reached in the Joint Mixed Committee (Commission
Mixte Paritaire), a body that unites lawmakers from both chambers of
parliament.
—
The law had been postponed several times, as the European Commission
objected to it for contradicting the Digital Services Act. Formally, the
new law takes into account the remarks the European Commission sent to
France within the Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS)
<https://technical-regulation-information-system.ec.europa.eu/en/notificatio…>,
a notification procedure where Member States have to inform the European
Commission when “touching” EU law nationally. Wikimedia Europe, among
others, also contributed feedback as part of this procedure
<https://technical-regulation-information-system.ec.europa.eu/en/notificatio…>
.
—
Wikimedia's grievances
<https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/wikipedia-will-be-harmed-by-frances-pro…>
are versatile, but included impossibly short removal deadlines and a
provision to not allow already banned users to re-register, which would in
practice require to check all new users and hence collect more data on
everyone by default.
—
Before being promulgated, the Constitutional Court was seized by some MPs
and in result removed certain aspects of the new law. One little
improvement is that it censored the introduction of a new criminal offence
called “online contempt” (délit d’outrage en ligne), which could have been
used very elastically even by malicious actors.
—
As part of this procedure, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimédia France
submitted an amicus brief
<https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/sites/default/files/as/root/bank_mm/…>
to the Constitutional Court, but the majority of the remarks were not
examined by the judges. These included very tight deadlines (24 & 72 hours
of takedown orders), gag orders & reporting obligations to combat a list of
crimes, which goes far beyond the DSA.
—
Wikimedia Europe and the Wikimedia Foundation are working on providing
further feedback to the European Commission, as a follow-up to the TRIS
procedure. The Commission has several choices to make now. It could open an
infringement procedure against France if it believes the SREN law goes
against the new DSA rules and puts the internal market at risk. There are
also discussions in France on whether the Constitutional Court should be
petitioned again under a different procedure.
=== Switzerland: Parliamentary Event ===
Wikimedia CH is organising an information event
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TnF4dG-7czk1OKWCe8_NNDOxwNF7vJ0M/view?usp=…>
with Parldigi at the Swiss Federal Parliament in Bern on 3 June. The idea
is to present both WMCH, the Wikimedia movement and our projects to Swiss
parliamentarians and staff. Jenny Ebermann <jenny.ebermann(a)wikimedia.ch>
from WMCH and Dimi from WMEU will speak.
—
Parldigi <https://www.parldigi.ch/fr/> is a parliamentary group that
gathers members of parliament and stakeholder organisations interested in
digital sustainability. Wikimedia CH is a member and can thus more easily
organise such events.
=== Sweden: Public Consultation on Copyright Limitations ===
After being part of a public inquiry on copyright exceptions and limitations
<https://www.regeringen.se/remisser/2024/02/remiss-av-betankandet-inskrankni…>,
Wikimedia Sverige had the opportunity to provide input
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Sverige_Remissvar_SOU_202…>
on the proposed bill updating Swedish copyright law.
–-
In its input, Wikimedia Sverige focuses on a modernisation of the freedom
of panorama (FoP) provision, after losing a case around FoP in the Supreme
Court in 2016, and on a better legal environment for research and cultural
heritage institutions, among e.g. in regard to digitisation and AI
development.
===Wikimedia Foundation & DSA ===
The Wikimedia Foundation is required under the DSA to designate a legal
representative in one EU jurisdiction at which point the national regulator
will work alongside the European Commission to supervise the DSA compliance
of the projects. This month the WMF designated Verasafe Netherlands to act
in that capacity, which makes the Markets and Consumers regulator of the
Netherlands (ACM) <https://www.acm.nl/en/authority-consumers-and-markets>
the Digital Services Coordinator for the Wikimedia Foundation.
=== Ireland: Content Moderation ===
The Irish platform regulator, the Coimisiún na Meán has shared a draft
online safety code
<https://y3r710.r.eu-west-1.awstrack.me/L0/https:%2F%2Fdmp.politico.eu%2F%3F…>
for video-sharing platforms that have their EU headquarters in Ireland. The
future binding code would put into force rules from the DSA and the
Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). The European Commission now
has several months to react to it.
—
The draft foresees platforms to provide parental controls and use some sort
of age verification mechanism to control what content children can see.
YouTube is the largest video-sharing platform “based” in Ireland for EU law
purposes.
—
We are monitoring this, as age-gating is a complicated subject for our
projects, yet it is demanded by more and more lawmakers globally. Also, we
need to maintain in future legislations and reforms (the AVMSD will be
re-opened soon) that Wikimedia Commons is seen as a distinct category of
platform and not grouped with dedicated, commercial video-sharing services.
=== Bans in the EU ===
The Council of the EU banned the broadcasting
<https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/05/17/russia-s…>
activities of further four Russian channels, Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti,
Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
—
France banned TikTok in New Caledonia
<https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2024/05/17/la-quadrature-du-net-takes-legal…>
making use of the modified law on the “state of emergency”
—
While the former is covered by EU law, as confirmed by the Court of Justice
of the EU, its practical efficiency remains questionable. At the same time,
it raises some related questions, as to how these sources might still be
used, for instance for the purposes of criticism and historical
record-keeping. France’s ban is being challenged in French courts.
=== What to expect immediately after the EU elections ===
The first thing we will be following in Brussels is the strength and
constitution of parliamentary groups. There are always a number of national
parties that can join one or another group and hence shift weights. Will
Movimiento 5 Stelle of Italy remain non-inscrit (non-aligned) or join a
group? Where will a number of German and Spanish MEPs from smaller parties
join? Will the far-right group(s) re-group?
—
One question is whether the centre-right (EPP), the liberals (Renew) and
the social democrats (S&D) will have a comfortable, workable majority. If
their majority is slim, this will force them to work closer with either the
ECR (Georgia Meloni’s and the Czech Prime Minister's group, which is
further right, but not the far-right group) or the Greens group.
—
After the elections the Commission President will need to be elected by the
new parliament. There will be hearings. The President then gets two
candidates for Commissioner presented by each Member State government. She
or he can then assemble the Commission college (names and portfolios). Each
Commissioner is individually heard by the European Parliament and needs to
be confirmed by a vote. The Parliament has on several occasions rejected
candidate Commissioners, which force the respective national government to
nominate another candidate.
—
Another thing we will be listening for is committee assignments in the
Parliament and agenda-setting. We know that German christian democrat Axel
Voss wants to continue working on the AI Liability Act, while Danish social
democrat Christel Schaldemose wants social media not to allow users under a
certain age on their platforms. These are the kind of signals we take note
of.
===END===
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw