Dear free knowledge supporting friends,

I’m writing with an update about how the Foundation and a group of Wikimedia affiliates have engaged with the Global Digital Compact [1], an effort of UN Member States to develop a shared set of principles that aim to support an “open, free, and secure digital future for all.”

The Global Digital Compact will become the blueprint for how UN Member States shape their internet policies and develop regulation at the country level. Those policies and regulations will impact Wikimedia projects and will define what the internet will look like for decades to come. That's why today, twelve affiliates and the Foundation published an open letter [2] advocating for UN Member States to include three critical points in the Compact. We believe that the inclusion of these commitments will help protect community-governed, public interest projects like the Wikimedia projects into the future, both at an international as well as a national level. The open letter builds on efforts over the past two years from affiliates and the Foundation to help shape the Compact [3]. The three principles we emphasize in the letter are:

* Protect and empower communities to govern online public interest projects. * Promote and protect digital public goods by supporting a robust digital commons from which everyone, everywhere can benefit. * Build and deploy artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to support and empower, not replace, people who create content and make decisions in the public interest.

Read more about the full scope of these commitments and sign the open letter here [4]. For more information about the Global Digital Compact and its potential impact on Wikimedia, take a look at our Diff post [5]. You can also ask questions, leave comments, or get involved in our efforts to shape the Compact on the collaboration page on Meta [6].

Warm regards from the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum in Accra, Ziski, Wikimedia Georgia, Wikimedia User Group Nigeria, Wikimedia Ghana User Group, Wikimedia Chile, Wikimedians of the Caribbean User Group, Wiki Movimento Brasil, Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia UK, Wikimedia Europe, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Czech Republic, and Wikimedia Sverige. ___ [1] https://www.un.org/techenvoy/global-digital-compact [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedi... [3] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/17/contributing-to-build-an-open-free-and... [4] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedi... [5] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/04/23/wikimedians-have-some-advice-for-the-u... [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Digital_Compact_Wikimedia_Advocacy_Co...