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,
We have now settled on the dates for this year's Big Fat Brussels Meeting,
the regular European advocacy focused gathering for Wikimedians. It will
take place on the *29 and 30 September* (a Sunday and a Monday).
In order to assess how many people are interested, we have prepared a form
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrzdN79d-bJva0p1SQZJXQjZzkY6kiE8X…>.
*If you would like to participate, please fill it out.* Also, due to the
resources available and to make the most of the workshops, there will be a
maximum of 25 participants this year.
Cheers,
Dimi
--
Dimitar Dimitrov
Policy Director
Wikimedia Europe
mobile: +32497720374
Rue Belliard 12 Belliardstraat, Brussels
https://wikimedia.brussels
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Hello!
A new European Parliament was elected and while there was a shift to the
right, the majorities that controlled the decision-making so far haven’t
changed. They are slimmer, however. Which may make the votes of other
groups more important, like the ECR (where the current Italian and Czech
Prime Ministers' parties sit) or the Greens. Meanwhile, we are monitoring
the composition of parliamentary committees and the likely re-organisation
of some units within the European Commission
Dimi & Michele
=== CSAM ===
It’s not all pure politics and posts, though. One file
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240408IPR20311/child-se…>,
on fighting child sexual abuse materials online, is still being worked on
by the Belgian Council Presidency. They made a last effort to get a
negotiating position in the Council. Unsuccessfully.
—
The latest Belgian compromise attempt
<https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/06/20/will-eu-agree-to-scan-all-your-onl…>
suggested that interpersonal messaging services scan personal
communications for suspected child sexual abuse materials only after users
have agreed to opt into such a system. However, if users don’t agree, they
wouldn’t be allowed to share images, videos and links. In the end, there
was no majority for such a deal, so it wasn’t put up for a vote. We know
that Germany, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic
disagreed with this approach. France used to be sceptical about the
scanning on interpersonal communications, but seemed to shift its position
lately.
—
Even if the Council eventually agrees on a negotiating position, it would
have to hammer out a joint version of the text with the European
Parliament, which has adopted its own negotiating position a while ago. The
parliament's amendments are much more privacy oriented and would only allow
monitoring of specific accounts or networks and only after a judicial
order.
=== Digital Policy in the Next Commission ===
The European Commission’s briefing books have “leaked”. These are documents
prepared by the services for the incoming Commissioners. We have taken a
deeper dive into the digital policy briefing book
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IxCbxEoVravXMMjGVUII_oEdztsVfrE8/view?usp=…>
prepared by DG Connect. It is essentially a set of suggestions for the next
commissioner who will be responsible for the digital portfolio.
—
The key message seems to be that the Commission needs to assert itself as a
regulator of the main legislative files from the last mandate, in
particular the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. However,
the paper also suggests that some gaps and missing pieces can be tackled,
like online media, influencers and advertising.
—
The one certain reform is the recast of the Audiovisual Media Services
Directive (AVMSD), which governs the EU-wide coordination of national
legislation on all audiovisual media — traditional TV broadcasts and
on-demand services. The report suggests that a less fragmented national
landscape for streaming services would be welcome.
—
On copyright the briefing recommends that the Commission gathers evidence
and assesses the necessity of any intervention in the area of researchers’
access to scientific publications and the role of copyright law in research
more broadly. Possible regulatory measures are the secondary publication
right or other measures facilitating access to copyright protected content.
—
NB: Copyright Unit: There are rumours that the copyright unit of the
European Commission could be moved from DG CNCT (the digital directorate)
to DG EAC (Education and Culture). Reminder: Two mandates ago the unit was
moved from DG MARKT (Internal Market) to CNCT.
—
The document proposes to invest in open architectures, spanning from
hardware to software, in order to increase competitiveness.
—
Specific measures are needed, the document says, to allow start-ups and
smaller companies to comply with, and fully exploit the new regulatory
framework. They must be empowered to play an active part in shaping the
next generation of smart technologies within a diverse and open European
innovation ecosystem. A well-functioning European ecosystem of digital
commons, based on open technologies and driven by European values, and a
thriving culture of collaboration and social innovation are also essential
for ensuring sovereignty, trust and user empowerment.
=== Public Media and AI ===
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which is the European association
gathering public service media, published its position paper on generative
AI and media
<https://www.ebu.ch/news/2024/06/ebu-announces-its-strategic-asks-on-generat…>,
which is one of their strategic priorities. The paper identifies three main
points: 1) the possibility for media to decide if and how their
data/content can be used and to negotiate remuneration; 2) AI generated
content should properly attribute and display the sources of the content
used; 3) giving prominence to reliable media content, adopt solutions to
verify content and remove the illegal content.
—
We are currently talking to EBU to explore possible common initiatives and
projects that can help foster the spread of reliable information as both
organisations aim at serving the public interest. In this sense, we are
trying to expand and internationalise the German project Wiki Loves
Broadcast, which has a lot of potential in tackling disinformation and
promoting reliable content of general interest.
=== 102 TFEU ===
Article 102
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_102_of_the_Treaty_on_the_Functioning_…>
of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union prohibits abuse of a
“dominant position” in the internal market, including unfair pricing and
unfair contractual obligations.
—
The European Commission may issue guidelines as to how articles are to be
applied in practice. It is now running a consultation
<https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust-and-cartels/legislation/a…>
on new guidelines for Article 102. There was a call for evidence and the
new draft guidelines will be published soon, after which everyone will have
a chance to comment.
—
We may engage in the upcoming feedback round, as 102 TFEU works together
with the Digital Markets Act and will be a factor in how the EU and
national regulators handle online services. It is interesting to observe
the slight shift of European competition law towards an approach that moves
away from a narrow economic approach and looking at more factors how
monopolies or dominant services influence society.
=== Artists and Performers on Copyright ===
According to a study
<https://www.aepo-artis.org/streams-and-dreams-2-shows-the-ineffectiveness-o…>
published by the association of European performers’ organisations,
AEPO-ARTIS, three-quarters of musicians don't receive information from
streaming services that they are legally entitled to and need to claim
their rights and negotiate contracts.
—
The Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive was a major piece of
legislation adopted in 2019 and one of its main premises was to ensure
“fair remuneration” for online uses. While we don’t expect another
full-blow copyright reform during the upcoming legislative mandate, smaller
interventions as well as preparatory work for a future reform are very
likely.
===END===
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Hi everyone.
Some might remember the 2019 recast of the EU PSI Directive (which is now
also called Open Data Directive) which has a nice round number EU/2019/1024
(https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1024/oj). As a directive, it has
been transposed in EU member states and is also transposed/about to be
transposed into the EFTA states.
I was involved in the 2019 recast as a member of the staff of MEP Felix
Reda who wrote the opinion in the IMCO committee of the European Parliament
(the leading committee was ITRE:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2018-0438_EN.html#_sectio…
)
The Directive has both a general principle on the reuse of content but also
paragraph about how to process requests for re-use.
Germany transposed the PSI-OD-Directive into the "Datennutzungsgesetz" in
2021 but left out the processing part for requests for re-use. I spoke to a
civil servant in the responsible ministry who was involved in the drafting
process and she stated that this was by design. Since the "general
principle" on re-use applies, there would be no use for requests any more.
This idea has been rejected by academic literature which still claims that
the possibility for requests remain embedded in the law
Long story short: After reading the literature, the directive and the law,
I believe that Germany has introduced a law that would allow liberating
content for re-use under license terms compatible with Wikimedia projects.
For a few weeks now, I have put this theory to the test and I have applied
for usage rights for various government documents, pictures etc. This has
been largely successful, but not without hickups. People in the
administration are usually confused by these requests and it takes them a
while to process them.
I would be interested to learn if anyone else in any other EU/EFTA state
has ever used the PSI-OD-Directive (and the transposed law) to force
government entities to release content under a free license.
This was the most concise way of describing this for me. I left out many
details in order to not turn this into a long paper. I am happy to
elaborate on details if requested.
Mathias
(there are some exceptions in the directive. GLAM institutions are not
fully within the scope of all parts of the directive and it is not as
simple to simply go to a museum or a library and tell them to give you a
license for stuff they own. Public broadcasting it also out of scope)
Hello everyone,
As Wikimedia Deutschland, we have been part of the *"Bündnis F5" - F5
Alliance for digital policy for the common good <https://buendnis-f5.de/>*
since 2021. We founded this digital policy alliance with AlgorithmWatch,
Society for civic rights, Open Knolwedge Foundation Deutschland and
Reporters Without Borders to jointly develop more political weight for our
shared objectives. The core of our work is a structured dialog with
policymakers on digital policy issues, such as framework conditions for
free access to information, privacy, open data, transparency and hate
speech online.
As alliance F5, we have compiled political positions on the EU elections.
They show what measures and laws we believe are needed to realize the
vision of an open, free, reliable, sustainable and secure internet. The
positions were sent to EU candidates and selected officials, such as
European and international digital policy officers, as well as advertised
on social media and form the basis for related discussions.
*You can find them on Wikimedia Commons here:*
Political positions on the EU elections (English)
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Positions_of_the_F5_alliance_on_the…>
Political positions on the EU elections (German)
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Positionen_des_B%C3%BCndnis_F5_zur_…>
...and as pdf attached.
*The central points of our demands paper are:*
- Platforms: Regulate and restructure
- Artificial intelligence: Fair and sustainable
- Open source software & open hardware: Foundation of the future
- Strengthen privacy, protect journalists
- Digital Knowledge Act: A new era of free knowledge
Wikimedia has focused on the 5th point of the Digital Knowledge Act, in
line with the demands of Wikimedia Europe. Please do not hesitate to
contact us if you have any questions on this.
A recommendation in this context: Last week, re:publica
<https://re-publica.com/de>, Europe's largest conference on digital rights,
took place in Berlin. We were lucky enough to have Rebecca MacKinnon there
to discuss the Global Digital Compact on a high-level panel:
- Renata Dwan (Special Adviser Office of the UN Secretary-General's
Envoy on Technology), Rebecca MacKinnon (Vice President, Global
Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation), Jens Matthias Lorentz (Head of Digital
Politics and AI in Foreign Policy Group, Ministry of Foreign Affairs),
Jeanette Hofmann (Director at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for
Internet and Society and Professor of Internet Policy):
*Who cares about international digital policy? What do we expect from
the UN Global Digital Compact 2024
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxMmt4XCYro> (English)*
best regards
Lilli & team politics and public sector at WMDE
--
Lilli Iliev *(sie)*
Leitung Politik und öffentlicher Sektor
head of public policy and public sector
@lilliiliev@eupolicy.social
-----------------------------
Bleiben Sie auf dem neuesten Stand! Aktuelle Nachrichten und spannende
Geschichten rund um Wikimedia, Wikipedia und Freies Wissen im Newsletter: Zur
Anmeldung <https://www.wikimedia.de/newsletter/>.
------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
http://wikimedia.de Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an
der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann.
Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland — Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Charlottenburg, VR 23855 B.
Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207. Geschäftsführende Vorstände: Franziska
Heine, Dr. Christian Humborg.
Dear friends,
I hope you’ve all had a lovely week.
This email contains key takeaways from the WMF Global Advocacy team who
attended a series of high-level digital rights events in Geneva.
At the end of May, experts on technology, online platforms, human rights,
and disinformation representing governments, industry, and civil society
descended upon Geneva, Switzerland for a week of important discussions
impacting the long-term future of our movement and projects. The Wikimedia
Foundation sent staff members to cover three concurrent conferences and to
both learn and represent our movement throughout. Below is our recap of the
discussions that took place and their implications for our movement.
*Key Takeaways*
- Wikimedia's involvement in international processes like the Global
Digital Compact
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Digital_Compact_Wikimedia_Advocacy_C…>is
appreciated, important, and should continue (even beyond the GDC
discussion).
- The Foundation's Human Rights Impact Assessment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Human_Rights_Impact_As…>
and Child Rights Impact Assessment
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Child_Rights_Impact_As…>,
as well as publications on disinformation, are VERY compelling and
concrete assets we can use in discussions to prove our commitments and
signal our value in digital governance discussions. The same is true of the*
WikiforHumanRights* campaign and how the movement increases the amount
of human rights-related information on-Wiki, particularly in non-English
languages (flagging for @Winnie Kabintie <wkabintie-ctr(a)wikimedia.org>).
As a movement we don't just talk the talk, we do the hard work to implement
our values too, and we lead by example here compared to other major
platforms. More movement members should point to and use these materials in
public policy discussions.
- Wikimedia has essential strengths that we bring to the table for
important discussions. These include: (a) protecting and supporting
journalist and promoting awareness that information is a public good ; (b)
avoiding an internet that is dominated by the English language and a
handful of US companies, a challenge that we counter with a vision of
linguistic and cultural diversity and representation, driven by bottom-up
community content governance. AI is part of these discussions.
- A lot of civil society and even government officials still haven't
noticed that we are a 'very large online platform' (VLOP) under the EU
Digital Services Act (DSA)
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/05/04/wikipedia-is-now-a-very-large-online-…>
, which poses a risk to us if they are advocating for enforcement
processes and mechanisms that don't take Wikimedia projects into account at
all.
____
Reflections from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20
Forum High-Level Event 2024 and the AI For Good Summit
Session: "To share or not to share: the dilemma of open source vs.
proprietary Large Language Models"
Industry experts from the Linux Foundation, Meta, the Future of Life
Institute, Google, and the Wikimedia Foundation engaged in a deep dive into
the complexities of open-sourcing large language models (LLMs). The
conversation was framed around the benefits, challenges, and ethical
considerations of open source versus proprietary AI models.
Chris Albon of the Wikimedia Foundation spoke about the role of open source
language models in expanding access to knowledge. He emphasized the
importance of credit and sustainability for volunteer-driven platforms like
Wikipedia and the value of transparency and adaptability in open source
models. Albon also shared concerns about the potential for AI-generated
content to disconnect users from the original sources of information. [image:
💡] You can watch Chris’ talk here
<https://www.youtube.com/live/oZJmBbuiYzc?t=13519s>.
Session: “Milestones, Challenges, and Emerging Trends in Freedom of
Expression and Media Development.” This session sought to look back over
the years at how the international community is doing to advance a WSIS
commitment made back in 2003 to essentially promote a responsible,
pluralistic media landscape. What surprised me is how, in looking back at
the original commitment from 2003, what many of those of us who attended
came to discuss - AI, disinformation at scale, social media, digital
platform governance, digital activism, etc. - were hardly imaginable when
the commitment was first drafted. Takeaway: [image: 💡] Despite the vast
changes in the media landscape in the past 21 years, there was a consensus
among participants that in order to protect the supply of reliable
information for citizens around the world, the international community must
work to protect and support journalists, debate platform governance, and
promote awareness that information is a public good. The Wikimedia movement
is, of course, well positioned to not only participate but to lead in these
areas and there are many allies out there for us to engage still. Flagging
for @Patricia Diaz <patricia.diaz(a)wikimediachile.cl> as you raised this
recently.
Session: “Unpacking and Expanding Multistakeholderism in Practice.” This
session focused largely on multi stakeholder participation in the Global
Digital Compact and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Panelists agreed
that now is a pivotal moment for multistakeholderism as internet governance
discussions, as the mandate for the IGF is up for renewal. A key component
of multistakeholderism is, one panelist noted, capacity building among
civil society organizations to participate effectively, particularly in the
global majority. The same panelist lamented that (I’ll paraphrase) “we’ve
been talking about capacity building for decades, so why the hell are we
still having to talk about it? There’s still a need for it and now is the
moment, so we need to get it right and get it right quickly.”
Takeaway: [image:
💡] This made us think about our own efforts to build the policy advocacy
capacity of Wikimedia affiliates- such as the workshops and Chile and the
skills building workshops we’ve been developing around Wikimania - and
convinced us that this is an important focus of our work and will help us
to amplify our impact in these discussions.
Session: “Technology and Opportunities to Promote Human Rights.” This
session was hosted by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR), Google, and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR).
During this session, the Global Advocacy team highlighted our human rights
policy
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/transparency/2022-1/human-rights-comm…>
and human rights
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Human_Rights_Impact_As…>
and child rights impact assessments
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Child_Rights_Impact_As…>,
as well as the work our team does to shape policies that uphold human
rights online proactively by engaging with policymakers and civil society
organizations. We also shared information about the WikiforHumanRights
campaign and how the Foundation works with volunteers to increase the
amount of human rights-related information on-Wiki, particularly in
non-English languages. Takeaway:[image: 💡] This was an excellent
opportunity to demonstrate our values and hard work to new stakeholders so
that we can increase the number of allies we have supporting us in these
spaces.
Reflections from the Freedom Online Coalition Strategy and Coordination
meetings:
About: The Wikimedia Foundation is part of the advisory network of the
Freedom Online Coalition <https://freedomonlinecoalition.com/> (FOC), a
partnership of 39 governments that work to advance Internet freedom. WMF
also co-chairs the FOC task force on Information Integrity
<https://freedomonlinecoalition.com/task_forces_and_wg/task-force-on-trustwo…>.
Flagging for @Justice Okai-Allotey <owulakpakpo(a)gmail.com> and @Olushola
Olaniyan <olaniyanshola15(a)gmail.com> as I know you were interested in FOC
work after DRIF.
The FOC organizes strategy and coordination meetings, usually twice a year,
to bring together the Freedom Online Coalition's member states and the
members of the FOC Advisory Network (AN), including the Wikimedia
Foundation. 2024 is a pivotal year for the governance of digital
technologies, marked by actions that could either strengthen or undermine
human rights online as well as existing global commitments to the
multistakeholder approach to Internet governance. [image: 💡] Therefore,
it was crucial that the Foundation attended and brought its perspective on
the future of Internet governance.
We had a chance to discuss two of the main processes in discussion this
year and, more in general, the future of the WSIS process, which comes to a
close next year, and whose future is under discussion at this time. The
meetings focused in particular on the Freedom Online Coalition’s own
activities, but also on this year’s Internet Governance forum, as well as
on the Global Digital Compact’s process with which the Foundation has been
highly involved (see our open letter
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikiped…>
).
____
I hope you found this useful! Have a great weekend,
Ziski & WMF GA Team
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
If you'd like to register your interest in the event, please use this link
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDwoDvQx4d-Fo_tKr36n3BexFDq4A6kh6…>
.
Dear All,
Creative Commons <https://creativecommons.org/>, Open Knowledge Foundation
<https://okfn.org/en/>, Open Future <https://openfuture.eu/>, and Wikimedia
Europe <https://wikimedia.brussels/> are hosting a day-long side event to
Wikimania 2024. The event will take place in Katowice, Poland, on 6 August
2024, the day before Wikimania kicks off on 7 August 2024.
The event is prepared in coordination with the Wikimedia community related
advocacy event, so that it is ensured that you can participate in both
without any conflict. The detailed programme will be published soon.
Our goal is to establish relationships needed to design a shared advocacy
vision that, over time, can result in stronger, collaborative advocacy
work. To this end, the event will focus on three topics:
1. Legal and Policy issues
2. Communication and Global Campaigns
3. Community activation and Sustainability
If you'd like to register your interest in the event, please use this link
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDwoDvQx4d-Fo_tKr36n3BexFDq4A6kh6…>
.
We're hoping to see you at Wikimania and its day 0!
Warmly,
Anna
--
Anna Mazgal
Executive Director
Wikimedia Europe
https://wikimedia.brussels
@a2na
mobile: +32 487 222 945
12 Rue Belliard
BE-1040 Brussels
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
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
Hi all,
I would like to share with you this very interesting training opportunity
on disinformation and public policy. Participation is free of charge for
all selected attendees.
"Fundación Maldita.es is organizing an online course for CSOs on* the
basics of Disinformation and Regulation* which consists of five 90-minute
training sessions and a final roundtable. The programme is attached to this
email along with basic information on schedules.
Here is the link to register: https://forms.gle/Yndj9JjcjdhXUNmC9 *(Deadline
- Wednesday, June 12)*".
All the best,
Michele
*Mr Michele FAILLA*
Senior EU Law & Policy Advisor
*Wikimedia Europe*
Rue Belliard 12
1040 Brussels
Mobile/Signal: +32 492 865 590
https://wikimedia.brussels
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.*
Wikimedia Europe ivzw