Could I be the first to point out that government powers to ban disinformation and other
"harmful" forms of speech are exactly what led to the Wikipedia ban in Turkey,
and current threats against Wiki projects in Russia?Now look what else they're trying
to throw into the UK OSB: breaking E2E encryption.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/06/uk-could-force-messaging…
extremely careful what you wish for(and worse still, what you campaign for), unless the
law you're trying to make even stricter excludes nonprofits or community-moderated
projects. Especially when rights of redress under the Human Rights Act are being watered
down.Phil
-------- Original message --------From: Kyle Taylor <kyle(a)fairvote.uk> Date:
06/07/2022 09:22 (GMT+00:00) To: Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> Cc:
Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia <publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>, Matthew
Gallagher <matt(a)fairvote.uk> Subject: [Publicpolicy] Re: EU Policy Monitoring
Report: June 2022 Hi Alex!Apologies for my incredibly slow reply. I have Covid yet again
and it's gotten the best of me this time!In short, the broad view (of course not
speaking for everyone) is that the bill doesn't go far enough with dealing with
disinformation largely because of the exemptions, exceptions and exclusions but
secondarily because of the powers reserved to the Secretary of State to largely determine
what is disinformation and this Committee they're proposing, which doesn't report
for EIGHTEEN MONTHS. So it doesn't go far enough, I'm afraid. Within UK civil
society, Full Fact has down great work around this. A few of their
pieces:https://fullfact.org/blog/2022/mar/online-safety-bill/https://fullfa…
hope that helps a bit!Best wishes,Kyle---Kyle TaylorFounder and Director+44 7745 93 44
33https://www.fairvote.ukOn Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 7:11 PM Alex Stinson
<astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: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(a)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, MattP.S.
Please feel free to forward this on to additional orgs and individuals you think would
consider signing with matt(a)fairvote.uk cc'ed. Thank you! On Fri, 1 Jul 2022 at 13:05,
Eric Luth <eric.luth(a)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.Best Eric LuthProjektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project
Manager, Involvement and AdvocacyWikimedia Sverigeeric.luth(a)wikimedia.se+46 (0) 765 55 50
95Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.seDen
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!JanOn Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at
8:32 AM Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:Hi Demi and list?Is anyone
following the UK law
at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-bill-supporting-do… Curious
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(a)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[2]https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/politique-etrangere-de-la-france/diplomatie-numerique/actualites-et-evenements/article/le-rapport-sur-les-communs-numeriques-un-levier-essentiel-pour-la-souverainete[3]https://www.wikimedia.fr/pour-un-developpement-des-communs-numeriques-a-lechelle-europeenne/[4]https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/D6C5TA6FWDLA6JHLJHAT66C2BZ4AQ3XG/[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[10]https://www.agid.gov.it/it/agenzia/stampa-e-comunicazione/notizie/2022/06/16/open-data-consultazione-linee-guida.[11]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J7dvl4yEk6ScWIIypdI6Uq_7273T7G5i/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110641574264354613563&rtpof=true&sd=true[12]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N0ArQkgpZkQQcdpsidS_Yc-bS5liQsl5/view?usp=sharing
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-- Alex Stinson Lead 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