(putting my long-term volunteer of Persian Wikipedia hat on)
I first want to mention that out of 16 users banned by the office action, 10 were mostly active in Arabic Wikipedia and 6 were mostly active in Persian Wikipedia. I know it’s confusing but Arabic and Persian are completely different languages belonging to even different families and they only share the same script. An Arab person can read Persian but they won’t be able to understand anything except some loanwords. I’m saying this to emphasize they were basically two major office actions affecting different types of users. For example, the users banned in fawiki have mostly edited pro the Iranian government which meant they actually edited against the interest of the Saudis. I can’t comment if the 6 users were affiliated with the Iranian government or not.
I don't know about the users in arwiki but the reception of bans on fawiki has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen at least twenty different positive reactions, publicly and privately. And I personally welcome those actions and the only major criticism I got from most users of fawiki were that “it was overdue” or “user foo and bar are not banned”.
> We understand the desire to take action or speak out. Know that we need to act in the interests of any volunteer whose safety is under threat.
I’m not a communication or T&S expert. I don’t know the details of this case. So take what I’m saying with a mountain of salt. A mere suggestion. Iranian activists have been advising families of people arrested for political reasons in Iran to speak up. To make noise. To interview outside of Iran. In many cases it has actually helped those prisoners by increasing the international pressure. The lawyers appointed to Iranian activists have all been instructed by the government to tell the families “not to make a noise and it’ll all be fixed” and usually, the exact opposite happens and the families speak up after they receive the body of their children. Here is a grim example by Amnesty international. Again, this is a very specific case to Iran and I can’t really say what WMF should or shouldn’t do.
On the topic of communication:
But it seems WMF’s communication strategy here is to beat around the bushes. Press releases that deny very specific things that honestly don’t even need denying but by doing so if people don’t know specifics of the movement or don’t read it very very carefully, they might mistake it as denying all government interference. That is exactly what happens afterwards with many major media and WMF doesn’t try to correct the record.
For example, Here WMF has denied that the Saudi government tried to infiltrate Wikimedia’s staff. That is correct and doesn’t even need denying. But it doesn’t deny that the government tried to infiltrate the volunteer community or push or control content in Wikipedia. The thing is that most people are not aware of the staff vs long-term volunteer distinction. The result? The press responds with “WMF denied allegation of Saudi’s interference in Wikipedia” Here is an example from BBC Persian (a reputable source in Persian): https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/cprnv1np9y2o I can find many more.
Or the fact that these 16 users were related to the Saudi’s government. WMF denied that because at least 6 of them were related to Iran. That doesn’t negate the fact that *some of them* might have been affiliated with the Saudi government (to emphasize again, I don’t know if any of them did, I have no access to the cases. And to be honest I don’t want to know). The result? Press goes “these 16 banns were not related to the Saudi government at all”.
IMHO, this is causing harm. For example, the Ars has released: “It's wildly irresponsible for international organizations and businesses to assume their affiliates can ever operate independently of, or safely from, Saudi government control”. This also makes us (the movement) look very naive. A government that kills dissidents in its consulate or (in case of Iranian government) rapes people in prison as a scare tactic, tries to interfere with Scotish indepence referendum, or makes 92 fake news websites in US to spread disinformation would not try to interfere with Wikipedia and consider it untouchable.
I can give another example, In October 2019, Persian media ran an article on interference of the Iranian government in Persian Wikipedia. WMF released this: “The allegations of government interference in these media articles were examined by Persian Wikipedia volunteers and Wikimedia staff, but were found to be unsubstantiated.” That statement denies the allegations made in the original article but doesn't deny any government interference. You can guess what happened next. Major press in Persian (outside of Iran) went with (emphasize mine) “WMF said they researched but couldn’t find *any* interference by the Iranian government” (Iran international, I can find more). WMF didn’t try to fix the mistake of the press. That action by WMF Comm felt like a slap on the face of me and many others and what we all went through.
Sorry for the long email.
Hoi,I know the license... is it wise to use these pictures? What is it that the WMF advises?Thanks,GerardM_______________________________________________On Sun, 8 Jan 2023 at 14:38, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:Dear all,Fjmustak (Farah Jack Mustaklem, a recent candidate for the WMF board) has uploaded a picture of the two jailed Wikipedians, Osama Khalid (User:OsamaK) and Ziyad Alsufyani (User:Ziad), to Commons:Andreas_______________________________________________On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 12:41 AM Wikimedia Trust and Safety <ca@wikimedia.org> wrote:Hello everyone,
We would like to thank you, Nanour, for the suggestion and apologize that the suggestion was necessary. We have now translated our message to the community into Arabic and posted a further update there, as we were made aware that much of the erroneous information spreading in the press and on social media is causing a lot of distress within our Arabic Wikipedia communities. Here is the updated text:
Our investigation and these bans are not connected to the arrest of these two users. The ban decision impacted 16 users, not all of whom were administrators, from Arabic and Farsi Wikipedia. As stated below, we have no reason to believe that these individuals are all residents of Saudi Arabia; on the contrary, this seems extremely unlikely. Further, we imagine you are all aware that editors are volunteers, not paid by the Foundation, and that the Foundation does not have offices or staff in Saudi Arabia.While, as stated, the December office action is unrelated to the arrests of two Wikimedians in Saudi Arabia, the safety of Wikimedia volunteers always remains our utmost concern. We understand the desire to take action or speak out. Know that we need to act in the interests of any volunteer whose safety is under threat. As indicated in yesterday’s message, additional publicity around such cases can cause harm, as can speculation and misinformation. We are confident that everyone values the safety of their fellow volunteers and can understand the constraints this might create.
Best regards,WMF Office/Trust and Safety_______________________________________________On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 7:26 PM Wikimedia Trust and Safety <ca@wikimedia.org> wrote:Hello everyone,
Over the last couple of days, there have been several media reports about the Foundation’s most recent office action, taken on December 6. More are certain to follow. These media reports are based on a release from SMEX and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) that contains many material inaccuracies. Some of the errors will be obvious to our community - for perhaps the most obvious, the report states that the 16 users are all based in Saudi Arabia . This is unlikely to be the case. While we do not know where these volunteers actually reside, the bans of any volunteers who may have been Saudi were part of a much broader action globally banning 16 editors across the MENA region. Indeed, many of them are not active in the Arabic language projects. These organizations did not share the statement with the Foundation, and “sources of knowledge” as cited in their release can get things wrong. In addition, we do not have staff in the country named and never have, contrary to a message put out by the same groups on social media.
As we noted in December in our statement, we are unable to discuss Foundation office actions in detail. The Foundation always lists accounts banned as a result of its investigations. It is our goal to be as transparent as we can be within essential protection policies, which is why we do not ban in secret, but instead disclose accounts impacted and (when large numbers are involved) have disclosed the rationale.
The roots of our December action stretch back over several years. We were initially contacted by outside experts who made us aware about concerns they had about Farsi Wikipedia. We can’t comment on that report right now, but it will be published by that organization soon. This report not only contributed to our August 23, 2021 modification of our non-disclosure agreement to make it harder for rights-holders to be coerced, but led to further evaluation of issues across MENA. The December bans were the culmination of those evaluations.
Wikimedia is, as mentioned above, an open knowledge platform, and it thrives on open participation. Investigations and global bans are not things that any of us take lightly, but the Foundation is committed to supporting the knowledge-sharing models that have created so many valuable information resources in hundreds of languages across the world. Our first line of defense of our Terms of Use are our volunteers themselves. Where issues present a credible threat of harm to our users and to the security of Wikimedia platforms, we will do the best we can to protect both.
We trust and hope that our communities understand that misinformation about this action has the potential to cause harm to the individuals involved. We believe in the incredible value produced by our volunteers across the globe, but even so we recognize that being found in contravention of a website’s Terms of Use — even in a manner that organization finds serious enough to warrant a ban — is not the equivalent of being convicted of any crime. Accordingly, we ask you to please be conscious of the real people involved, in the spirit of our long established respect for living people on our sites. We realize that it is tempting to speculate, but we do ask you all to recall that people’s employment options, their relationships, and even their physical safety may be compromised by speculation.
If anyone feels unsafe on Wikimedia projects, please use the local community processes or contact us. The Foundation and community will work together or in parallel to enhance the safety of all volunteers. To contact the Trust & Safety team please email ca@wikimedia.org .
Best regards,WMF Office/Trust and Safety
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