Hello everyone,
This is a friendly reminder that The Community Development team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Calls> at the Wikimedia
Foundation is hosting our second community call
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development/Community_Calls#How_t…>on
Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 from 15:00 - 16:30 UTC on Zoom
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/81408843170?pwd=OVcwblBrQjR6WXpNVFNmZHJYWEFadz09>
[meeting link]
In this call, we will have 2 speakers from the community talk about their
work within capacity building. At the end of their presentations, we will
secure time for questions and answers.
To join in the community call:
-
To attend the call, please find the link here
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/81408843170?pwd=OVcwblBrQjR6WXpNVFNmZHJYWEFadz09>
.
-
Please ensure you have zoom downloaded <https://zoom.us/download> on
your personal device prior to the call.
We are excited to see and hear from you in our community call! If you have
any questions, please feel free to email the Community Development team at
comdevteam(a)wikimedia.org.
Thank you,
The Community Development team
Cassie Casares
Program Support Associate
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation
ccasares(a)wikimedia.org
Dear free knowledge supporting friends, pals, aficionados!
The WMF Global Advocacy team is delighted to share a new monthly update with you: our "Don't Blink" blog post series <https://diff.wikimedia.org/?s=don%27t+blink>. Think of Dimi's EU Policy Monitoring Report, but tailored to the work of the Foundation's Global Advocacy Team.
Every month is a busy one when it comes to legislative and regulatory developments around the world that shape people’s ability to participate in the free knowledge movement. In case you blinked, this monthly retrospective will catch you up. We review the most important developments that have preoccupied us and the actions we’ve taken to advance fundamental rights online. We’ll also highlight the team’s work to protect the public-interest Internet, and our vision of an online ecosystem in which everyone can freely produce, access, share and remix information.
Our April recap was just posted <https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/05/03/dont-blink-public-policy-snapshot-for…>. Highlights include:
* Advocacy efforts that have protected access to knowledge for Russian people
* A major win for civil society in the Philippines
* The completion of trilogue negotiations over the Digital Services Act (DSA)...and what the outcomes mean for free knowledge online
* A new [not so] SMART Copyright Act in the USA
We hope you enjoy the new content!
Warmly,
Ziski & The Global Advocacy Team
Salut la liste !
The big event of the month was definitely the political deal on the EU’s
new content moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act. There are a few
new obligations in there for Wikimedia and we will take you through them.
Next month we are also organising a Wikicheese event in Brussels. You may
spread the word!
====================
DIGITAL SERVICES ACT
====================
Weird procedure: The French Presidency of the Council wanted to get a deal
done so badly, it pushed the Parliament and Member States to accept a
“political deal” putting the main cornerstones in place. However, a
“technical deal” is still being negotiated. Which means that a lot of
details can still change, and details are important. This is a highly
unusual procedure for Brussels. We expect the technical side to take
another month and then a final DSA version to be voted on by Parliament in
July.
—
Modération citoyenne: We welcome that during the deliberations lawmakers
began making a distinction between rules created and imposed by the
services provider and rules written and applied by volunteer editing
communities. It is a pity that “citizen moderation”, something the internet
needs more of, wasn’t recognised explicitly. But the definitions and the
articles make clear that the DSA is about the service provider activities
and shall not interfere with community content moderation.
—
Positive safeguards: Further positive safeguards for intellectual freedom
online include a ban on targeted advertising using sensitive information
and a ban on “dark patterns”.
We regret that the so-called “crisis mechanism”, a provision allowing the
European Commission to ask very large platforms to tackle certain content
in times of crisis, came as a last minute addition and was not properly
publicly deliberated. Its safeguards remain vague.
—
Crisis mechanism: A provision allowing the European Commission to ask very
large platforms to tackle certain content in times of crisis, came as a
last minute addition and was not properly publicly deliberated. Its
safeguards remain vague, but together with civil society partners we
managed to include a few:
*A majority of Member States need to approve the mechanism;
*All requests sent to platforms must be immediately public;
*A three month sunset clause;
*Fundamental rights and proportionality language;
*The way in which problematic content is tackled is with the service
provider.
—
Further reading: You are welcome to check out our analysis of the DSA
result from a Wikimedia perspective
<https://wikimedia.brussels/dsa-political-deal-done/>. Else, you may also
check EDRi’s rundown for a more general digital rights perspective
<https://edri.org/our-work/eu-negotiators-approve-good-dsa-but-more-work-is-…>
.
=====================
WIKICHEESE BRUSSELS
=====================
Cheese: Together with Wikimédia France and the French Digital Ambassador we
are organising a Wikicheese apéro in Brussels. Fingerfood, drinks and of
course we will be taking images of cheeses for Wikipedia. You can still
register <https://wikimedia.brussels/wikicheese-registration/> and come!
Also, you may spread the word!
=========
DENMARK
=========
Danish DSA?: the Danish government has put forth their own legislative
proposal for the regulation of social media independent of the DSA. The
gist of the law is that social media platforms, generally defined as
platforms with the purpose of creating a profile and browsing other
profiles and user-submitted content with over 80.000 yearly users in
Denmark, will be obliged to take down illegal content within 24 hours of
reporting, with two exceptions (7 days if a more thorough investigation of
the content is required and even more in special circumstances). The law
contains an almost verbatim copy of the encyclopedia carveout of the
Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive. WMDK’s Matthias Smed
Larsen <https://twitter.com/MatthiasSmed> is working on this and looking
closely at four main issues:
*The scope of the law and the carveout;
*The definition of illegal content;
*The general issue of a 24-hour limit creating an incentive to remove
borderline content which is actually legal;
*How community content moderation fits into this.
====
END
====
The French Presidential elections have certainly changed dynamics in
Brussels. The French Presidency of the Council is willing to accept
compromises in order to wrap up reforms and show progress. Critics say this
leads to technically half-baked solutions. Our wrap up of the month of
March at warp speed!
====================
DIGITAL SERVICES ACT
====================
After its sister project, the Digital Markets Act, has been agreed upon
(read below) all eyes are seemingly on this “content moderation law” now.
The Council, Commission and Parliament are meeting at both technical and
political levels every second week now.
—
Actual Knowledge: All three institutions are in agreement to improve the
initial language about when a notice sent to a service provider leads to
actual knowledge of illegal content. It is now clear to everyone only some
notices constitute such proof and very clear in the text that service
providers have the freedom to make a call. A win we advocated for.
—
Whose rules? The DSA defines terms “terms of service” as pretty much any
rules valid on a platform. We are asking the institutions to make it
explicitly clear that there is a difference between rules imposed by the
service provider and rules created and enforced by communities of platform
users. The Parliament has incorporated this change, but the Council is
still somewhat sceptical, mainly because they believe the original wording
already covers this implicitly. Negotiations continue on this point.
—
Who will regulate? In a late amendment, the Council took the position that
the European Commission should be responsible for regulating Very Large
Online Platforms (VLOPs), while national regulators will be responsible for
the rest. For Wikimedia, only Wikipedia would be a VLOP. Meaning that
Wikipedia would be European Commission competence while Wikimedia Commons
and Wikidata would be competence of a national regulator where the
Wikimedia Foundation decides to appoint a legal representative. To make
things even messier, some of the obligations that VLOPs must also comply
with (e.g. trusted flaggers & out-out-court dispute settlements) will be
shared competence between the national regulator and the Commission. We’d
prefer a clearer separation, but at least for these the Commission
decisions would overrule the national ones.
—
Who will pay? If a user takes a platform to an out-of-court dispute
settlement body (over a content moderation decision), then the platform and
the user will pay a fee, but if the user wins, the platform will have to
cover both fees. On the other hand, if the user loses, the platform won’t
be able to push the legal cost on them. We still don’t know what the fees
will amount to.
—
Who will pay? #2 Somewhat surprisingly the Commission is now taking the
position that if it is to be the regulator for VLOPs it will need to charge
a fee to them in order to cover the additional costs. Apparently this is a
principle that already exists in the financial sector. Lawmakers involved
in the negotiations haven’t seen concrete wording yet, but from three
independent sources we have confirmation that if this gets accepted the DSA
won’t mention any actual amounts, rather give the Commission the power to
set up a fee structure in a delegated act. We have reached out to the
Commission who have ensured us that they are well aware of the different
nature of platforms (including their purpose and tax status) and will make
this a factor in calculating the amounts. Still a lot of fog shrouding this
point.
—
“A War Clause”: We kid you not, this is what an 11th hour suggestion goes
by in the corridors and chat windows. It is a proposal that would let the
Commission, in extraordinary circumstances, ask platform providers to
moderate certain dangerous content very quickly. Now, a similar provision
already exists in other (e.g. Anti-Terrorist) regulations, so this is not
unheard of. But we worry a lot about this, together with many EDRi members.
At the very least we are asking for a much clearer definition on what
constitutes an extraordinary circumstance, who establishes it and for how
long. Further, we demanded safeguards against censorship and overreach.
That being said, rules allowing authorities and the service providers to
act very quickly in case of threat to life and limb already exist and work
well, so there is a way to handle this.
—
Targeted Ads: It looks like all EU institutions can agree that sensitive
data (e.g. religious and political preferences) and data of minors should
be prohibited for targeted advertising. Not the really big coup the
Parliament was envisioning, but a major step.
—
Nota Bene: We normally share plenty of links and sources in this monitoring
report. For confidentiality reasons and to protect sources we are unable to
do so in this case. If you like additional insight, please get in touch
off-list.
====================
DIGITAL MARKETS ACT
====================
Stick a fork in it, it's done! The EU law on competition rules for online
platforms is coming into force next year. Several major wins for civil
society and competition there. Pre-installed apps that can’t be deleted
will become illegal. We will be able to send messages from one instant
messaging application to another. However the interoperability win has some
defects. A humongous lobbying push by dominant platform providers has
convinced the lawmaker that things like group calls are extremely hard to
do across different services. Result is that such features will become
available at a much later stage, if at all.
Anna Mazga has the deep dive for you:
https://wikimedia.brussels/dma-heated-trilogue-negotiations-concluded-with-…
Let’s start with the unpleasant: The war in Ukraine has of course made it
to the top of everyone’s agenda, as it should. Work on files still
continues, but the energy is different and we expect the pace to slow down.
At the same time, this war is being played out on online platforms and
certain aspects are being picked up by lawmakers when discussing their
regulation.
====================
DIGITAL SERVICES ACT
====================
The DSA is in trilogue, i.e. the three main EU bodies have adopted their
respective positions and are now trying to hammer out a common version. Our
main headache in the original proposal was the notion of automatic
assumption of “actual knowledge” of illegal content upon receipt of a user
notice. The fix to that seems uncontested. We are still waiting for news on
the definitions article, where the Parliament added a differentiation
between content moderation by the service provider and users. Something we
asked for and supported.
-
Else, the dark pattern prohibition proposed by the Parliament (designs that
nudge users to accept tracking) seems to be welcomed by Member States.
-
On a more general note, we are seeing the Russian Invasion starting to play
a role in discussions about content moderation. Lawmakers were called out
<https://twitter.com/Gary_Machado_/status/1497668398519656450> for having
proposed a “media exemption” which would prohibit online platforms from
interfering with media content. Something they are currently asked to do
to stem disinformation about the war. There is also some interest in how
Wikipedia handles such fast-developing news and events. We plan to reshape a
great Twitter thread <https://twitter.com/sdkb42/status/1497407518968012807>
into a blogpost for lawmakers, in order to explain community content
moderation better.
====================
Data Act
====================
Last week the European Commission presented its Data Act
<https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/83521> proposal. A
Regulation that is mainly focused on business to business data sharing and
portability, but that also includes a few elements we care about.
—
It empowers users to have access to data a service or device has produced
and be able to port it (articles 4&5), which is welcome. It also would allow
governments to access business data in extraordinary circumstances, like a
global pandemic (Chapter V). Safeguards and limitations need to be
waterproof here.
—
Most importantly, though, the Data Act also contains “a revision” of the sui
generis database right (SGDR). A copyright-like additional layer on
non-original databases that we would like to see abolished. In Chapter X
the Commission “clarifies” that these protections can’t apply to machine
generated data. We think that doesn’t go far enough
<https://wikimedia.brussels/data-act-a-small-step-for-databasees-an-even-sma…>
and are drafting an amendment
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KvvYz06hUCs2Z2u4HLFXKIQKfWSFjb-LmYWPaww…>
to get rid of a much larger chunk of unwanted SGDR protection. Our
umbrella association Communia is also organising a Salon on the SGDR
<https://vimeo.com/webinars/events/065f5169-9a7a-40a8-8f87-9dcaa37ae7f2> on
2 March.
====================
The Digital Markets Act
====================
The conversation about imposing an interoperability obligation on
gatekeepers is stuck. The Commission is “looking for evidence” from
messaging services that interoperability is actually needed, while smaller
providers are insecure about it as too many details are still unclear.
In the meantime, civil society (including us) circulated an open letter to
the Commission, the French Presidency and MEPs on involving users in
enforcement procedures
<https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/21/BEUC-X-2022-023-open-…>
.
====================
Artificial Intelligence Act
====================
The AI Act that is now being mulled over in a number of parliamentary
committees
<https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?refere…>
deals with three instances of AI use: prohibited, high-risk, and one that
requires special transparency. That last category includes instances of
individuals interacting with an AI-based bot, when emotion recognition or
biometric categorisation is required, or in the case of deep fakes. We
don’t think that any artificial intelligence tools Wikimedia editors and
staff currently use are covered by the new obligations, but as lawmakers
start editing the proposal we need to stay on top of changes. The
discussion around deep fakes is of particular interest to us, as Wikimedia
content can be used for their creation, but also such content could become
a misleading source of information.
====================
Online Political Advertising .
====================
Normally this regulation
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52021PC0731>
should only do what its name says: set clear rules on political
advertising, especially during electoral campaigns. However, the definition
of political advertising has us somewhat worried, so we are running an
extra check on it:
*Article 2.2*
‘political advertising’ means the preparation, placement, promotion,
publication or dissemination, by any means, of a message:
(a) by, for or on behalf of a political actor, unless it is of a purely
private or a purely commercial nature;
or
(b) which is liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum,
a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour.
====================
Finland Copyright Reform
====================
The copyright reform in Finland was going rather well. User rights were
being enshrined and balanced exceptions drafted. But over the past months
collective management organisations (CMOs) in Finland have pushed very hard
and the lead civil servant was replaced essentially by a lobbyist hired as
a chief consultant to the Ministry. The Ministry has now redrafted the
document, but it refused to present the new version. Instead they just let
bits of information slip out. It seems like they are opting for a rewrite
that maximises CMO turnover and includes the bare minimum in terms of user
rights. For information on this Finnish drama we have only Finnish language
sources (ask a Finn or use deepl):
-
Electronic Frontier Finland complaint
<https://effi.org/lex-liedes-effi-kanteli-oikeuskanslerille/>
-
The presentation of the new version
<https://api.hankeikkuna.fi/asiakirjat/ea5be8e5-c718-4049-8836-5d7fa9589c18/…>
Hello everyone,
This is a friendly reminder that The Community Development team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Calls> at the Wikimedia
Foundation is hosting our first ever community call on Wednesday, February
23, 2022 from 15:00 - 16:00 UTC on Zoom
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758?pwd=b1ZFNTMyaFdJRCtxbzIyaU13OWlmUT09>
[meeting link]
We want to thank those who have expressed interest in speaking during this
call, we had an overwhelming response. Unfortunately we were only able to
choose 3 speakers from the community. We will be sending invitations to
those who have been selected to participate in the meeting shortly. At this
time sign ups for speaking during the call has closed.
To join in the community call:
-
To attend the call, please find the link here
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758?pwd=b1ZFNTMyaFdJRCtxbzIyaU13OWlmUT09>
.
-
Please ensure you have zoom downloaded on your personal device prior to
the call.
We are excited to see and hear from you in our first ever Community
Development community call!
Thank you,
The Community Development team
Cassie Casares
Program Support Associate
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation
ccasares(a)wikimedia.org
Hello everyone,
The Community Development team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development> at the Wikimedia
Foundation is hosting our first ever community call on February 23, 2022
from 15:00 - 16:00 UTC on Zoom <https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758>.
The purpose of the community call is to provide a space for volunteers to
meet the Community Development team. The five-person Community Development
team is responsible for developing accessible opportunities for volunteers
to grow critical capacities and leadership skills for movement
sustainability and growth. The community call is also a shared space for
all volunteers to hear or speak about projects related to capacity building
& leadership development in the Wikimedia community.
Our first call, Meet the Community Development Team will include a sign up
sheet
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIiyAlq7uKBp4eqmnbyVr9Zmi3LBjCQgZ…>for
those who would like to speak for 5-10 minutes about their
individual/community capacity building work.
If you would simply like to attend and listen, join the Zoom link at the
scheduled call time, please find the link here
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758>.
Although the primary language of the call is English, we are committed to
providing simultaneous translation to the best of our ability. Please use
the same sign up sheet
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIiyAlq7uKBp4eqmnbyVr9Zmi3LBjCQgZ…>
to indicate your language preference so that we can best accommodate
translation support as needed.
Some may be asking, what is capacity building and why is the Community
Development team supporting this work?
What is capacity building? Capacity building is any activity aimed at
developing a skill or capability in others; it can take many forms, ranging
from formal training through online self-study courses to individual
mentorship.
The “Invest in Skill and Leadership Development”
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…>
recommendation of the 2030 Wikimedia Movement Strategy
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recomme…>encourages
movement-wide capacity building as a necessity to achieve our strategic
commitment to Knowledge Equity. Capacity building has the ability to
encourage diversity, redistribute and share resources, welcome newcomers
and grow communities.
Community Development is launching this series to ensure we can hear
directly from volunteers who are interested in or who already are leading
capacity building work in their communities. This is one one way we plan to
create a space for direct conversations with volunteers about the different
contexts, challenges, and opportunities in capacity building across the
movement.
How do our projects relate to capacity building and leadership development?
Our team's portfolio is a curation of online and offline learning programs
and resources that aim to enable skill development and resilience in the
movement.
Some of our recent capacity building projects include the Wikilearn Online
Learning Pilot
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development/WikiLearn>, Board of
Trustees Candidate toolkit
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/Candidate_Re…>and
the 2021 Wikimania Speaker Series
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development/What_we_do>.
In order for us to continue building relevant curricula and programming, we
need to hear from the Wikimedia movement. Please visit the Community
Development team page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Development> to learn more about
our capacity building and leadership development projects.
Key Dates:
-
First community call: February 23, 2022 from 15:00 - 16:00 UTC on Zoom
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758>
-
Sign up
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIiyAlq7uKBp4eqmnbyVr9Zmi3LBjCQgZ…>
to speak at the first community call. The application closes on February
February 14th, 2022.
To participate in the community call:
-
To attend the call, please find the link to the call here
<https://wikimedia.zoom.us/j/84302371758>.
-
Please ensure you have zoom downloaded on your personal devicer.
-
Use the sign up sheet to confirm your interest to speak about your work
in capacity building here
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIiyAlq7uKBp4eqmnbyVr9Zmi3LBjCQgZ…>
We are excited to see and hear from you in our call!
Thank you from the Community Development team
Cassie Casares
Program Support Associate
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation
ccasares(a)wikimedia.org
Dear policy-interested friends,
Happy New Years (again!) and year of the Tiger - this time from the WMF Public Policy team!
At the start of this year we have fresh updates regarding the Human Rights Policy that the Foundation launched in December. As a refresher, here is the link to the Diff post about the policy:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/12/09/what-the-wikimedia-foundations-new-hu…
Our two updates related to the Human Rights Policy are:
(1) The FAQ has been expanded and is now available in 8 languages. You can find it here: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Human_Rights_Policy/Frequently…
(2) We are participating in the Conversation with the Trustees (formerly the Board office hour) event on February 17 at 18:30 UTC. Our team will share more about the Human Rights Policy and will answer any questions that community members have. This conversation will replace the conversation hours we had planned to host about the policy. For more information about the conversation and how to join, see this page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Community_Affairs_Comm…
As always, if you have more questions about the Human Rights Policy or the Public Policy team, feel free to reach out to me, Ziski (Fputz(a)wikimedia.org).
We hope to see some of you there!
~~ Ziski & The Public Policy Team
Let’s start with the basics: Happy New Year! Beyond that the most notable
piece of news is that the European Parliament has adopted its position on
the new content moderation rules, a.k.a. Digital Services Act and
“trilogues” are starting today. We will also give you an overview of what
to expect this year from the European Commission in terms of proposals.
—
Written by Dimi (dimi(a)wikimedia.be) & Anna (anna(a)wikimedia.be). Do get in
touch!
—
Now that we have our own blog, we will try to keep everything in this
letter *a bit shorter & with links*, so you can grab the updates here, but
still enjoy the in-depth reading elsewhere. Let’s go!
—
Digital Services Act trilogues begin, after the European Parliament has adopted
its position on 20 January
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0014_EN.pdf>.
During the committee votes MEPs had already made sure “notices” don’t
automatically oblige the platform to consider something illegal and
included language that distinguishes between service provider rules and
community made rules. We also have a “waiver” that could allow us to not
apply certain obligations on Wikipedia, such as out-of-court dispute
settlement mechanisms. During the plenary vote, solid language was added to
limit user tracking: “dark patterns
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern>”, targeted advertising based
on sensitive data (e.g. political and religious beliefs) and the targeting
of minors are to be banned.
—
Trilogue Sticking Points: The Council and the Commission have no language
on limiting or banning tracking and targeted advertising, while inside the
Parliament two large groups: EPP and Renew Europe didn’t quite embrace
those. On the other hand, the Council wants to make the European Commission
the authority in charge of overseeing “Very Large Online Platforms”
(Wikipedia is expected to be one), while the Parliament leaves this to
national regulators. We expect these to be the main sticking points. A
thorough comparison of the negotiating positions from a free knowledge
perspective is to be found on our blog:
-
Three Column Comparison
<https://wikimedia.brussels/the-eus-new-content-moderation-rules-community-d…>
-
Amendments that limit user tracking
<https://wikimedia.brussels/dsa-parliament-adopts-position-on-eu-content-mod…>
—
Commission to continue proposing regulations: The legislative frenzy that
is seeing files being proposed and passing at breakneck speed (by Brussels
standards) is not over. We expect:
1. The Data Act to be proposed on 23 February.
2. To see a new legislation on tackling child sexual abuse material online
on 8 March.
3. A presentation of something called the European Health Data Space on 22
June.
4. the unveiling of a right to repair initiative on 5 July.
5. A European Media Freedom Act on 13 July.
Hold on tight!
—
The Digital Markets Act is aiming at regulating competition among online
platforms. A quick deal is advertised by all sides, but fundamental
differences . A main issue is who will be designated a “gatekeeper”. The
European Parliament is suggesting tougher obligations on a smaller group of
services, the Council casts its net wider, but with fewer rules. This
tricky question should be discussed and decided first. A more detailed
analysis
<https://wikimedia.brussels/dma-votes-imco-vs-council-users-vs-member-states/>
is available.
—
The Data Act is expected to also reform the “sui generis” database right in
the EU. The results
<https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/public-consultation-data-act-summa…>
of the European Commission’s consultation were announced and aren’t very
conclusive. The majority (54%) agree that the ‘sui generis’ right should be
reviewed, in particular in relation to the status of machine-generated data
although almost half of these are unsure of the relation between this type
of data and the Database Directive.The main difficulty reported was
the lack of clarity of the ‘sui generis’ right (11% of
respondents to the section), but 20% also said they “experienced no
difficulties” (20%).
—
The Artificial Intelligence Act has finally found its home in the European
Parliament. The Civil Liberties (LIBE) and the Internal Market (IMCO)
committees will lead jointly, with MEPs Brando Benifei (S&D, IT) and Dragoş
Tudorache (RE, RO) at the helm. Plus, a well know face from the “copyright
wars”, Axel Voss (EPP, DE) will be at the helm of the Legal Affairs
committee (JURI), which got exclusive competence over provisions covering
information to users of high risk AI systems, transparency obligations,
codes of conduct and human oversight. One thing we are trying to figure out
is under which obligations a “anti-vandalism” bot written and maintained by
users on Wikipedia would fall. Expect more from us in the coming months.
—
Open Source Decision: The European Commission decided
<https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/documents-register/api/files/C(2021)8759_…>
that all software produced by it or on its behalf is to be open source and
freely reusable.
—
Copyright transpositions: While countries like Bulgaria, Greece, Romania,
Portugal and Czechia are still waiting for their parliaments to even start
dealing with the copyright reform, Estonia, Austria and Spain have now
updated their rules. All three implement the public domain safeguard, but
Estonia and Austria include a few more safeguards for making sure uses
under copyright exceptions are protected. Spain transposed the law by
“emergency decree”, so the parliament could still amend it. Follow the DSM
Implementation Contest <https://eurovision.communia-association.org/> here.
Will anyone get the full 12 points?
—
One year of professional advocacy at Wikimedia France: Our Paris based
colleague Naphsica looks back at her first year at Wikimedia in a
Retrospective:
a year of advocacy at Wikimedia France
<https://wikimedia.brussels/retrospective-a-year-of-advocacy-at-wikimedia-fr…>.
Bon Wikiversaire! :)
Dear friends,
We are reaching out with an exciting opportunity! The WMF Global Advocacy team is submitting a handful of session proposals for RightsCon 2022 (June 6-10, 2022). We wish to feature the work of the incredible volunteers behind the diverse Wikimedia projects.
To apply, please submit your rough proposal outline by January 10. Details about the process and proposal resources are included in the application form. Form link here: https://forms.gle/BcXAqYTFc3xJTnhEA
About RightsCon: RightsCon is the world's leading summit on human rights in the digital age. It brings together academics, experts, rights activists, and all kinds of wonderful internet humans to problem-solve, share ideas, and launch new projects. Learn more about RightsCon here: https://www.rightscon.org/
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Ziski Putz