On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 at 00:29, rmackinnon@wikimedia.org wrote:
As I stated in the conversation hour [2], the Foundation urgently needs such a policy in order to meet our responsibility to protect members of our community from real, growing threats in the world. More governments are increasingly aggressive about trying to control and manipulate information spaces, including Wikimedia projects, and to threaten people who act to share knowledge, and govern free knowledge projects independently of their governments’ requirements. At the same time, as the Foundation globalizes and as the Movement works actively to increase participation across the world, a growing percentage of people who we are bringing into the projects are living in places where contributing to free knowledge projects is more difficult or dangerous than it is for people in North America or Western Europe or other places where the projects have the largest number of long-time volunteers. For this among other reasons, we believe it is urgent to have a policy that clearly articulates the Foundation’s responsibility to actively work to understand how our platforms and operations affect the rights of everyone who interacts with the projects, how we will work to mitigate threats and harms to members of the movement, and how we will work with people across the Movement to implement these policies over the coming years. We don’t believe that our responsibility to respect, protect and promote human rights is up for negotiation.
You and who's army? If one of the world's more questionable governments decides to target Wikipedians within its territory there's not a thing you can do about about it. You’re not France. You can’t threaten governments into submission (and if one of the most powerful states on earth can’t get Zara Radcliffe out you certainly can’t).
You’re not a mineral extraction company. You don’t have mercenaries on retainer to try and get your people out.
You policy is worse than useless. It doesn’t help at all but marginally increases the risk of being involved with Wikipedia as what can be seen as a harmless hobby writing about trains turns into being involved with a human rights campaigning organisation.
-- geni