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policy to be withdrawn.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-restr…
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
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/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_faceb…
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-c…
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/06/wtf-is-going-on-with-section-2…
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_m…
Further reading:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/eff-dont-gag-imdb
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/california-enacts-law-requiring-imdb-…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/11/imdb-sues-california-to-overtu…
<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/11/imdb-sues-california-to-overturn-law-forcing-them-to-remove-actors-ages?CMP=twt_a-film_b-gdnfilm>
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
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/13/european-commission-copyright-leaks/>
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_…
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 <https://www.digitalasiahub.org/> 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_…
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(a)wikimedia.org.
All the best,
Stephen and Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org