The meeting I was in yesterday as part of: https://caad.info/who-we-are/ -- highlighted how easy it was for misinfo actors to get exemptions from the rules around disinfo: so it's likely to be exploitable, and potentially a shelter for disinformation actors from outside the UK. I am curious if we have a position on the disinformation parts of the law?On Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 8:35 AM Rita Jonusaite <rj@disinfo.eu> wrote:Hey all,If you have not seen re OSB in the UK, the Fair Vote UK is circulatring a Global letter to the UK Government on the loopholes in the UK's Online Safety Bill that they would like other organisations to sign. The joint letter is nearing 50 signatures already including Accountable Tech, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Global Witness and Global Project Against Hate and Extremism etc. I am sharing with you their original message below and adding Matt and Kyle who are leading the campaign in Cc if you have any questions directly.Deadline is COB Friday (but they can go as late as Monday to my understanding)!Best,Rita--ORIGINAL ASK--I'm Matt of Fair Vote UK, and I'm leading within our organisation on an international coalition campaign to voice global opposition to the loopholes currently written into the UK's Online Safety Bill.I'm writing to ask for your organisation's signature on a global letter to the UK Government, highlighting the danger posed by this bill's exemptions, exceptions and exclusions – which fundamentally undermine its purpose of making the internet safer. The risks are international in scope as these loopholes could effectively allow for harmful content and disinformation to be "laundered" in the UK. Please sign if possible!Overview of the Letter:The UK’s Online Safety Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, aims to make the UK “the safest place in the world to go online”. Unfortunately, it falls far short of that objective in its current form – to the extent that it could actually make adults and children less safe online.
The bill contains glaring loopholes that could allow some of the actors most responsible for harm online to avoid oversight and regulation. Media entities are exempt based on incredibly lenient criteria which would allow nefarious actors to launder harmful content. The democratic importance exemption would let politicians' online speech stay up regardless of its vast reach and potential to cause harm. Paid ads are left in scope despite their demonstrable role in spreading disinformation and hate. All of this serves to create a two-tiered system in which some of the most harmful actors are given precedence, prioritising their freedom of speech over the regular user. We’re demanding online regulation that protects all of our human rights equally. These loopholes have severe implications not just for the UK, but for the global community as well. If this new regime does not address them, the UK could become the world’s “disinformation laundromat”.
We’re urging orgs and individuals from anywhere in the world concerned with democracy, children’s safety, disinformation, public health, climate change or other related causes to sign this letter to the UK Government calling on them to close the loopholes and build a more robust human rights framework that applies equally. In addition to this letter, we’re kicking off a public advocacy campaign on July 4th with significant digital spend behind it to further raise awareness about the OSB’s dangerous loopholes.
You can sign on by adding your name in the format shown at the bottom of the document.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
Many thanks,
Matt
P.S. Please feel free to forward this on to additional orgs and individuals you think would consider signing with matt@fairvote.uk cc'ed. Thank you!On Fri, 1 Jul 2022 at 13:05, Eric Luth <eric.luth@wikimedia.se> wrote:Hi everyone,Thanks for the summary, Dimi. Interesting read on the Digital Commons, happy to see that the Swedish government also supported.On Copyright reform, the Swedish government has sent its proposal on copyright reform to the council on legislation, which is the last step before it goes to parliament. We are currently analyzing the proposal, and working with MPs to improve the worst parts and safeguard the best.BestEric LuthProjektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and AdvocacyWikimedia Sverige+46 (0) 765 55 50 95Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.se_______________________________________________Den tors 30 juni 2022 kl 17:58 skrev Jan Gerlach <jgerlach@wikimedia.org>:Many thanks for another great update, Dimi!Alex, the Foundation's Global Advocacy team is tracking the UK Online Safety Bill and we have published our first impressions on the text here. We're in touch with various allies of our movement in the UK and plan to further engage on the bill when appropriate.Thanks for your interest!Jan_______________________________________________On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 8:32 AM Alex Stinson <astinson@wikimedia.org> wrote:Hi Demi and list?Is anyone following the UK law at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-bill-supporting-documents/online-safety-bill-factsheetCurious if we are watching that in connection with other Disinfo/Content moderation laws.Cheers,AlexOn Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 12:16 PM Dimi Dimitrov <dimi@wikimedia.be> wrote:The French government has vowed to invest money in the commons. Rub your eyes, read it again and then continue reading below.
====================
DIGITAL COMMONS
====================
It still surprises us to be able to put “French government” and “investment in the digital commons” together, but here we go: The French Presidency of the Council of the EU came up with a plan how the old continent can compete with dominant US tech companies. The plan is to have more “digital commons”, which can be anything open source, including software, code libraries, tools, repositories. The basic thinking is that if fundamental tools and libraries are accessible to all players, this will level the playing field. [1]
—
19 EU Member Countries and the Commission presented the idea of digital commons at the Digital Assembly in Toulouse. They acknowledge that there are many instances of working digital commons, but also point out that oftentimes projects lack long-term, structural support. The plan envisages financial help and a “one-stop-shop” to find government support. [2]
—
Funds in the ballpark of tens of millions of euros are already pledged, but the concrete details are still in the making. Thanks to the leadership of Wikimédia France, our movement and a group of partners (Europeana, Communia, OpenStreetMap) are part of this conversation from the start. We especially want to show that governments can often help by removing legal and administrative obstacles, not just by peddling money. [3]
======
CSAM
======
We wrote about the proposal of the Commission to regulate the online moderation of “Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)” in last month’s report [4]. While it is a very important issue to tackle, we do have great concerns with parts of the text, especially provisions that would allow scanning all online chats on a given platform. We are still analysing how exactly, if at all, this would impact Wikimedia projects. In the meantime, we can offer a short briefing. [5]
—
On the legislative side, the start feels very bumpy: The European Parliament probably won’t refer the file to a committee until September or October, while ample criticism is pouring in, including from the German government. [6]
=========
Net Neutrality
=========
The European Commission plans to push out a new legislative proposal after the summer that is expected to include provisions forcing some service providers to pay for data traffic (think Facebook and Netflix paying Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica). While this is a classic example of a lobbying battle between very large telecommunications companies and very large tech companies, it also would violate some basic principles of net neutrality. A group of civil society organisations, led by EDRi, sent a letter to the relevant Commissioners outlining the main issues. [7]
—
On the bright side, BEREC, the EU’s body of telecoms regulators, has updated its net neutrality guidelines to close some loopholes and effectively ban zero rating of data for some applications. [8]
=============
Disinformation
=============
The European Commission has presented an updated Code of Practice on Disinformation. [9] Wikimedia had not signed up the original Code, because we deemed it was mainly focused on “follow the money”, hence where disinformation is spread through advertising and paid reach. The version will allow researchers more access to data of large platforms and again focus on advertising.
—
The Code of Practice is a voluntary initiative for online platforms, but taking part in it essentially removes some obligations under the newly created Digital Services Act.
=============
Italian Dramas
=============
The Italian government published new draft guidelines about public data (open government) and opened a consultation. [10] They basically state that open government and open data provisions don’t apply to institutions related to culture, which is a very Italian thing. We wonder if this is in line with the Public Sector Information Directive and will investigate with Wikimedia Italia, which are also participating in the consultation.
—
The Italian government has been on a roll. It also published the draft national digitisation plan. It would establish an administrative fee for the commercial use of all public domain digitisations of cultural institutions. It essentially outlaws CC0 as a relevant license for most GLAMs in the country and circumvents the public domain safeguard enshrined in the latest copyright directive. There was a public consultation until 15 June which Wikimedia Italy and partners participated in. Expect blog posts on Diff and on wikimedia.brussels soon.
=============
Polish & Czech Copyright Reforms
=============
The Czech copyright reform is in parliament. We have a Czech language copy. [11] The Polish government published its proposal, which will go to parliament very soon. We have a rough English translation. [12] If you consider yourself a copyright geek, enjoy reading them. If you want to help our national partners advocating on this, get in touch! :)
====
END
====
[1]https://twitter.com/AmbNum/status/1540657835427741699
[3]https://www.wikimedia.fr/pour-un-developpement-des-communs-numeriques-a-lechelle-europeenne/
[5]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dD5AF8-uk2LFG7mu62AK7S80H4CrF1ftV7lheE6ZJBM/edit?usp=sharing
[6]https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/27/germany-says-hell-no-to-eu-proposal-to-outlaw-encryption/
[7]https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Q4d13xqr5UsPkoSMw7d_3YL-hZnq4cL/view?usp=sharing
[8]https://fossbytes.com/europe-bans-zero-rating-internet-offers/
[9]https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_3664
[12]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N0ArQkgpZkQQcdpsidS_Yc-bS5liQsl5/view?usp=sharing
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--_______________________________________________Alex StinsonLead Program StrategistWikimedia FoundationTwitter: @sadadsLearn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors through campaigns: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns
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--Alex StinsonLead Program StrategistWikimedia FoundationTwitter: @sadadsLearn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and other Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors through campaigns: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns