Hi everyone,
I'm Ziski from the Wikimedia Foundation's Global Advocacy team. I’m writing
with an update about how the Foundation and a group of Wikimedia affiliates
have engaged with the Global Digital Compact
<https://www.un.org/techenvoy/global-digital-compact>, which is 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 is similar to the UN’s Sustainable Development
Goals <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals> in that
it 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
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedia-global-digital-compact/>
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
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/17/contributing-to-build-an-open-free-and-secure-digital-future-for-all-through-the-global-digital-compact/>
the Compact. 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
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2024/04/23/open-letter-protect-wikipedia-global-digital-compact/>
. For more information about the Global Digital Compact and its potential
impact on Wikimedia, take a look at our Diff post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/04/23/wikimedians-have-some-advice-for-the-united-nations-help-spread-the-word/>.
You can also ask questions, leave comments, or get involved in our efforts
to shape the Compact on the collaboration page on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Digital_Compact_Wikimedia_Advocacy_Collaboration_2024>
.
Kind regards,
Ziski *on behalf of* *WMF, 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.*
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone