Hello!
We are saying goodbye to the Polish Council Presidency and welcoming the
Danish. We expect they will make child protection a centrepiece of their
work on digital files. Meanwhile, both the Parliament and the Commission
are trying to alleviate the tension between copyright and AI, in a
non-legislative way for now.
Dimi, Michele and Iglika <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pelajanela>
(who is visiting us for the week in Brussels)
=== Age Verification ===
EU Age Verification: As per our latest count a total of 14 EU countries
have now expressed support for a “digital age of majority” and mandatory
age verification for accessing social media platforms. The group, however,
seems split along a very important fault line - the age limit. France,
Greece and Denmark want it to be at 15. Spain wants 16. Austria wants to
leave it up to the individual countries, while Belgium and Slovakia want it
harmonised.
—
Who should do it? As regular readers will know by now, the other major
debate is who should be obliged for age verification. The first part of
this question is who should perform the age verification: service providers
want app stores and operating systems to be in charge, app store providers
want services to be on the line. Google and Meta are having a very public
brawl
<https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/age-assurance-europe/>
over this. The second part of this question is which services should be
covered. One side wants only the highest risk services to be covered (adult
content and gambling), the other wants social media to be included as well.
There isn’t a political consensus on either part yet.
—
Italian Age Verification: At the national level, Italy is pushing to
introduce age verification
<https://www.senato.it/show-doc?leg=19&tipodoc=DDLPRES&id=1418922&idoggetto=…>
measures and a minimum age of 15 for the use of social media. The project
is still a draft, but Wikimedia projects would end up in scope if passed as
is. Wikimedia Europe and Wikimedia Italia are coordinating on informing
lawmakers about this, the consequences and the possible solutions. We
remind you that a while ago the French Loi SREN had a similar provision,
but thanks to the work of Wikimédia France
<https://www.wikimedia.fr/le-projet-de-loi-reguler-et-securiser-lespace-nume…>
the definition was changed to exclude Wikipedia.
—
Why it matters for Wikimedia: Mandatory age checks for public interest,
general knowledge projects like ours would constitute an additional barrier
to access to knowledge. It would also mean that more user data needs to be
collected, one way or another.
=== CSAM Fallback ===
The CSAM Regulation, the one mandating the scanning, reporting and removal
of child sexual abuse material, is solidly stuck in Council. Countries
can’t agree how to handle messaging services. Despite strong ambitions, it
does not look likely that the upcoming Danish Council Presidency will be
able to change this. Platforms currently make use of an exemption in the
form of a derogation to the e-Privacy Directive, as a stop-gap measure to
legally scan for CSA materials. But this derogation is set to expire in
April 2026. France, Ireland and Hungary are now proposing to extend it.
—
Why it matters for Wikimedia: The Wikimedia Foundation takes CSAM seriously
and has procedures to mitigate against it. So do many of our communities. A
change in the legal framework could require us to adjust our own actions.
Beyond that, it is an important topic for user safety and for the safety of
our projects.
=== Danish Council Presidency ===
The Danish Presidency of the Council
<https://danish-presidency.consilium.europa.eu/> is kicking off tomorrow
and their digital priorities are squarely on protecting children online. We
expect the Danish to consolidate and lead the group of 14 countries that
demand age verification for social media into some sort of initiative. When
it comes to CSAM, as explained above, they will be forced to work on the
stopgap extension if they don’t manage to flip the position of at least a
major country (e.g. Germany) on the issue of scanning direct messages.
—-
The Danish government also wants to work out a well-coordinated EU approach
to multilateral negotiations, notably on the open, secure and free internet
and the implementation of the Global Digital Compact, something our
movement has been actively involved
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Digital_Compact_Wikimedia_Advocacy_C…>
with.
—-
The Presidency will facilitate a discussion on the updating of the Audiovisual
Media Services Directive (something we are following, as for instance, not
all rules that apply to Netflix should also apply to Wikimedia Commons).
They are also organising a conference on artificial intelligence and
copyright in September in Copenhagen.
=== AI & Copyright ===
The European Parliament is working on the thorny issue of generative AI and
copyright in a non-legislative report. German conservative lawmaker Axel
Voss expected to publish his first draft in mid July. The final version is
expected in December. The file might go a long way in forming some sort of
political consensus, if that is at all possible. The one major question to
be answered is whether lawmakers see a need to re-open the EU’s copyright
rules. The European Commission doesn’t seem eager to touch this file this
legislative term, but Renate Nikolay (Deputy Director of DG CNECT
<https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive-agencies/commu…>)
said that “there might be a need to revisit the copyright rules” during a
meeting with lawmakers in the civil liberties committee.
—
We are expecting the AI Act’s code of practice for general-purpose AI
models to be finalised this week
<https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/ai-code-practice>. The
code of practice is supposed to be an additional agreed upon set of
high-level commitments and detailed measures to implement them. It will
have commitments on transparency and copyright. It will be interesting to
see if the rights reservation system under the EU’s text and data mining
exception is laid out in more detail.
—
Why it matters for Wikimedia:
Copyright laws define to a significant extent what content we can share on
our projects. Generative AI models have become a disruptive part of the
knowledge ecosystem. They use our projects and are used by our editors and
readers. We are part of this development and discussion, whether we like it
or not.
=== Danish Proposal to Extend Copyright to Faces ===
The Danish government is proposing
<https://kum.dk/fileadmin/_kum/1_Nyheder_og_presse/2025/Aftale.pdf> to extend
copyright protection to everyone’s own body, facial features and voice. The
idea, so the claim goes, is to put citizens in a better legal position to
fight against deep fakes.
—
According to Danish Wikimedian Matthias Smed Larsen “the purpose of the
proposal is to give it a statutory basis with the purpose of making it
easier to utilize takedown obligations under EU law. In my opinion putting
it in the Copyright Act is a misnomer.”
—
WMEU is reaching out to WMDK to see what could or should be done. In any
case, the draft legislation is not published yet and we are waiting to see
the actual text.
=== Wikipedia Test ===
The Global Advocacy Team at the Wikimedia Foundation has published The
Wikipedia Test
<https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/the-wikipedia-test-75b41bcc8583>. A
public policy tool to help ensure regulators consider how new laws affect
online communities and platforms that provide services and information in
the public interest. It can be used by Wikimedians when communicating with
lawmakers.
===END===
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Hi everyone,
I hope you had a good start to the week. This email is to help us schedule
our next advocacy network call.
*Action:* Please fill out this doodle poll
<https://doodle.com/group-poll/participate/b8KJ9Z2a> to help us select a
time and date for our next call by July 11th.
For those who could not join us this month for the call that included
information about our Strategic Litigation work, you can watch the recording
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Video1027055359.webm> and read the
notes
<https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Agenda_%26_Notes,_Global_Advocacy_Conversa…>.
Our next call already has an exciting tentative agenda planned including:
- Copyright campaign from Brazil
- Recap of advocacy day zero workshop at Wikimania
- Updates on our core working groups
All the best,
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Dear all,
I am pleased to invite you to join us in Nairobi for our *day zero advocacy
workshop*.
This event builds on similar events designed by WMF and the Wikimedia
Advocacy Network to bring together Wikimedians and free knowledge allies to
exchange skills and experiences in order to deepen our collaboration and
impact.
Register by Wednesday, June 11: https://forms.gle/8hTyjVT8C1PTM3NB7
*Event overview*
🗓️ August 5th, 2025, in-person only
📍Conference venue
🕜 9:00 - 14:00
This meeting is open to Wikimedians and allies outside of the Wikimedia
movement with prior experience in public policy advocacy. It will consist
of two main parts:
1. A *Public Messaging Workshop* during which members of the WMF Media
Relations team will share best practices on how to communicate effectively
with media, lawmakers and other stakeholders. We will tackle the challenge
of how to convey the overarching, global narrative our movement wants to
present and connect it with a specific, local ask.
2. A *Copyright & AI Workshop* will take participants on a journey
through the many questions AI poses for the knowledge ecosystem. How to do
we handle attribution? Which licensing makes sense? Is the current legal
framework adequate? How far does copyright extend? The goal is to arrive at
a point where we can start drafting a global policy position for our
movement and practice drafting policy positions more generally.
Hope to see you there!
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Dear Justice,
Dear all,
the IGF Ghana has reached out to IGF Germany - great seeing international
cooperation!
I would like highlightling the Ghana IGF in two days, thursday the 5th of
June 2025, together with the Ghana Children and the Ghana Youth IGF. (
https://igf.org.gh/).
Maybe you would want to join and see how a national IGF is working.
As you know, several documents highlight the meaning and importance of
national/regional IGF (which, by definition, are open for all and
multistakeholder).
Best regards
--
Friederike
Dear all,
The date and time for our next quarterly call has been set; thank you all
for filling out the Doodle poll.
The call will take place on Friday, *June 6 @ 13:30 - 15:00 UTC* (check
your local time <https://zonestamp.toolforge.org/1749216600>). The specific
agenda will be set collaboratively ahead of time. It will take place on
Zoom.
👉 Register for the call (and receive a calendar hold):
https://wikimedia.zoom.us/meeting/register/-gflb6_sTHufuTF3WZfG2g
See you there!
Ziski
___
**Call details:** The purpose of these calls is to collaborate on
priorities for the year, and to ensure that members of our movement can
share learnings and hone our outreach, advocacy, and impact on policy
efforts. The specific agenda will be set collaboratively ahead of time.
Our 2025 working groups are currently the following:
- Copyright
- Shared definitions of key terms and concept
- Policy Position Primers
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone