Hello everyone,

For your reading pleasure, here is our fifth issue of our newsletter. It’s a short one.

Firstly, in our next update, we would love to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere. If you have any feedback or want to let us know about an issue, please fill out this form or follow up with Jan by email at jgerlach@wikimedia.org.

Thanks for reading!

Policy issue highlights

Initiative against upload filters

As we have written in a previous update, Art. 13 of the EU proposal for a new copyright directive, which could require content detection systems, is getting a lot of pushback because of its negative implications for collaboration and freedom of expression. One initiative that we wanted to bring to your attention is an open letter titled “Stop the censorship machine!” that was signed by several organizations from Europe and the United States who advocate for digital rights, including Wikimedia Deutschland.

Read the open letter:

https://stopthecensorshipmachine.net/

Proposed law against hate speech in Germany

We are also closely watching developments around a law that was recently proposed by the German government to tackle online hate speech and “fake news”. The law aims to force large for-profit social networking sites to swiftly remove illicit content from their platforms, but does not include adequate safeguards for free expression. Wikimedia Deutschland has signed a declaration that calls to protect freedom of expression through principles of judicial review, democracy, and constitutionality.

Read the declaration:

https://deklaration-fuer-meinungsfreiheit.de/en/

Amicus brief in Hassell v. Bird

As announced recently on this list, we have signed an amicus brief advocating for freedom of expression online and intermediary immunity. In Hassell v. Bird, which is now before the California Supreme Court, Yelp was forced to take down reviews without having been given the chance of participating in the underlying case about the content in question. We believe that the lower court’s decision runs contrary to the protections of the Communications Decency Act and that internet platforms should be protected from liability for user-generated content so freedom of expression online can continue to thrive.

Read the amicus brief:

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Amicus_Brief_of_WMF_et_al_in_Hassell_v_Bird.pdf

Read more background on the case:

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/06/yelp-forced-to-remove-defamatory-reviews-hassell-v-bird.htm

https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/08/16/hassell-v-bird/

Events

RightsCon

From March 28 through 31, we participated in RightsCon, a conference about digital rights and the future of the internet. The conference, that was held in Brussels this year, was structured in 20 thematic tracks ranging from algorithms, to business and human rights, to digital security. The Wikimedia Foundation’s policy team contributed a lightning talk about the importance of protecting the hyperlink, encouraging people to think outside of the policy silos of copyright, privacy, defamation, etc. In collaboration with Creative Commons and Mozilla, we also organized a panel on European copyright reform with an introduction by MEP Julia Reda and participants from civil society, industry (a Czech search engine and a Spanish news portal), libraries, and Dimi.

We wanted to use this opportunity to point out that Dimi also gave a fun (and on point) lightning talk about the need to safeguard the public domain that he illustrated by bringing a framed copy of a painting of Richard Wagner, over which a legal dispute is still ongoing.

Watch Jan’s Lightning Talk:

https://youtu.be/Z9D5RMcOApI?t=13m8s

More information around RightsCon:

https://www.rightscon.org

More information about the legal dispute around photographs of works in the public domain:

https://blog.wikimedia.de/2016/06/21/erklaerung-zum-fall-reiss-engelhorn-museen/

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