Hello everyone,

We are excited to send you the third issue of our newsletter. Here is what has happened in public policy in January and February 2017 (so far):

Policy Issue Highlights

Knowledge knows no borders

Last week, the U.S. administration issued an executive order that restricts travel and immigration from certain nations, and limits admission for many refugees. Since the Wikimedia Foundation is headquartered in the U.S. and its operations can be impacted by the order and potential expansions of the order, our Executive Director Katherine Maher made a statement urging this policy to be withdrawn.

On February 6, we joined more than 120 organizations in an amicus brief filed in Washington State v. Trump, a case that challenges the executive order. The amicus brief underscores how the executive order does not meet basic constitutional and statutory requirements and reflects our belief in the open exchange of ideas, information, community, and culture as an essential part of our vision.

Read the Katherine Maher’s statement:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/

Read the blogpost about the amicus brief:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restrictions/

Further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769  

Amicus Brief in Cross v. Facebook

We joined Electronic Frontier Foundation, Engine, GitHub, Snap, Yelp, and others in an amicus brief in the case Cross v. Facebook, which is before the Court of Appeal for the State of California, First Appellate District. The case concerns the provision in the United States’ Communications Decency Act, Section 230, that protects online intermediaries from liability related to user-generated content. We joined the brief because the lower court’s reasoning was inconsistent with well-established rules to protect online speech. Section 230 immunity is an important cornerstone of the internet, and it's an important part of the legal background that allows the Wikimedia projects to be a platform for sharing knowledge. The brief urges the court to uphold the immunity granted to intermediaries that enables robust freedom of expression and has become a fundamental pillar in the architecture of the internet.

Read the amicus brief:

https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/10/eff_et_al_amicus_brief_-_cross_v_facebook.pdf

See our blogpost:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/10/cross-v-facebook/

Further reading:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160606/00343634630/another-bad-ruling-california-threatens-to-massively-undermine-section-230-exempting-publicity-rights.shtml

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/06/wtf-is-going-on-with-section-230-cross-v-facebook.htm

Amicus in IMDb.com, Inc. v. Harris

A new law in California, AB 1687, would require websites that offer employment services to remove information about an actor's age or birthday upon request. One such service, IMDB.com, is now protesting the law's restriction on freedom of expression, arguing that it limits their ability to share truthful information.

While this law would not apply to a website like Wikipedia directly since we do not provide employment services, we are still concerned with the breadth of the law and important principles of freedom of expression that underlie this case. Restricting websites' ability to write and host factual information about notable people will make it harder for Wikipedians to do research and write articles.

We joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an amicus brief that explains these issues around freedom of expression. This case is still in a lower court, so it will likely continue and we will keep you informed about new developments.

Read the amicus brief:

https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/13/026-1_amicus_curiae_brief_of_eff_fac_mlrc_wikimedia_foundation_and_cdt_1.12.17.pdf

Further reading:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/eff-dont-gag-imdb

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/california-enacts-law-requiring-imdb-932330

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/11/imdb-sues-california-to-overturn-law-forcing-them-to-remove-actors-ages

The Value of the Public Domain

We contributed a blogpost about the value of the public domain to Copyright Week. In the post, we highlight the importance of a healthy public domain by explaining that freely licensed content and content that is not or no longer protected by copyright can be added to Wikipedia. The post discusses how material enters the public domain in three different ways: 1) copyright on works expires after a certain term; 2) works produced by the US government (like edicts of government at all levels) automatically enter the public domain by law; 3) authors choose to dedicate their works to the public domain using licenses such as CC0 or let others reuse them under an “attribution share-alike” license.

We are concerned about current and upcoming copyright reforms that threaten the public domain. In the proposed changes to the Copyright Directive currently in the European Parliament, we want to have strong safeguards for the public domain and not add new rights that lock away public works. In future copyright reforms, we want to make sure the public domain is not threatened by extensions of copyright terms that make culture inaccessible for decades.

See the blogpost here:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/16/public-domain-copyright-week/

Further reading:

https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek

Inspire campaign on gender gap

Part of the Foundation’s work on access to knowledge includes efforts to improve gender diversity in the Wikimedia movement. About two years ago, the Community Engagement team launched an Inspire Campaign that asked for ideas to improve the representation of women within Wikimedia projects, both in its content and as contributors. This month, they presented the final report about 11 funded projects. It finds that over 12,000 articles were created or improved, including 126 new biographies on women. The project successfully engaged women as project leaders, volunteers, experienced editors, and new editors while also addressing gender-related biases within Wikipedia articles.

The report finds that the majority of participants in funded projects were women. They joined trainings, came together to improve content, and built mentorship programs. The report highlights the importance of privacy protections for many of the project participants. We want to congratulate the project leaders for their efforts to improve gender diversity and make Wikipedia a better place to participate in knowledge for everybody.

Read the blogpost:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/12/inspire-campaign-final-report/

The full report:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Inspire_Campaigns/Gender_gap

Events

Free Open Shared: a conversation about privacy in Asia with Malavika Jayaram

On Feb. 2, Malavika Jayaram visited our office to give a talk about privacy in Asia. Malavika is the inaugural Executive Director of the Digital Asia Hub in Hong Kong, and spoke about different concepts of privacy and identity in Indian and larger Asian contexts.

A practising lawyer and then academic, her most recent research interests cover biometrics, identity and data ethics, and emerging questions around AI. Her work also links privacy and anonymity online with questions around freedom of expression, assembly, and autonomy. Malavika has previously been a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center and is on the Advisory Board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

The talk was streamed and recorded.

Video-stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZmcvwY_GU

More info about the series:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Open_Shared_events

Misc.

Wikimedia Resource Center

To make it easier for volunteers to find information concerning their work, including contact information and documentation of Wikimedia Foundation policies, a single hub for resources and support materials has been set up. The Wikimedia Resource Center also contains information around issues such as the Wikimedia trademarks, copyright policies, etc. The team behind the Wikimedia Resource Center is currently asking for feedback. Please help improve the hub by submitting comments.

The Resource Center:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center

Blogpost:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/19/new-wikimedia-resource-center/

Grants to work on harassment

Last week it was announced that the Wikimedia Foundation will receive a total USD 500,000 from Craig Newmark Foundation and craigslist Charitable Fund to launch a community health initiative. The goal is to develop more advanced tools for volunteers and staff to reduce harassing behavior on Wikipedia and block harassers from the site.

This initiative seeks to address the problem of harassment, which can prevent some people from safely participating in free knowledge and has been shown to decrease participation in the Wikimedia community.

Blogpost about the grants:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant/

Harassment survey:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Harassment_Survey_2015_-_Results_Report.pdf

Our previous blogpost about interaction principles:

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/20/interaction-principles/

Your Input

We would love to hear from you! If you have any feedback or would like us to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere, please follow up directly with Jan Gerlach at jgerlach@wikimedia.org.

All the best,

Stephen and Jan

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Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach@wikimedia.org