Hi all,
It is a bit unfortunate that there is a palpable sense of resentment here
on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation towards DAWN and SMEX.
As far as Osama's and Ziyad's best interests are concerned, I would suggest
DAWN and SMEX's judgment should not be dismissed lightly. They have local
expertise and indeed say they have conducted "interviews with sources close
to Wikpedia and the imprisoned administrators".[1] I understand this to
mean that they have spoken to Osama and Ziyad, or people close to them.
Sarah Leah Whitson, the Executive Director of DAWN, spent over 15 years in
charge of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division.[2]
It's hard to think of someone more qualified to comment or advise on this
matter.
Wouldn't it be better to work together on doing whatever can be done for
Osama and Ziyad?
32 years in jail is a long, long time.
Also, the WMF posted a long statement on the Arabic Wikipedia that is worth
reading.[3] I append a Google translation below for those interested.
Andreas
[1]
https://dawnmena.org/saudi-arabia-government-agents-infiltrate-wikipedia-se…
[2]
https://dawnmena.org/about/who-we-are-2/sarah-leah-whitson/ and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Leah_Whitson
[3]
https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/ويكيبيديا:الميدان/منوعات#تحديث_من_مؤسسة_ويكيم…
Update from the Wikimedia Foundation
Hello all
We know the past few weeks have been difficult for the community. We also
realize that this situation remains confusing and worrying in light of the
media reports that have emerged. As an organization, we regret the distress
and concern this situation has caused the community. While we know we can't
answer all of your questions, we want to make sure you understand our
processes and the rationale behind them. We also want to ensure that our
actions are in the best interests of society to the best of our ability and
with the tools available to us. As mentioned, the measures were not linked
in any way to the recent media reports that are currently circulating, nor
in any way to the arrests. The Foundation has learned of the arrest of
Osama and Ziyad, and is actively following up on their conditions.
As we know that not everyone will have read all of the data, we would like
to reiterate that the process of reaching the decision to take action in
December 2022 was not easy or rushed. The investigation into violations of
the Terms of Use took a long time starting with the Persian Wikipedia and
moving on as new information emerged, and the final decision was guided by
multiple levels of review by several employees across different functions.
After consideration, it was unanimously agreed that the action is necessary
to keep the community and platforms safe. Proper implementation of this
measure was equally important in keeping the community and platforms safe,
and thus adhering to established policies and procedures.
We realize that media reports and recent actions in December 2022 make many
of you skeptical and perhaps even apprehensive about participating in the
projects. We want you to know that the projects are owned by all of us, and
most of all, that you are the creators and curators of the content. The
Foundation rarely gets involved in issues of content or administration on
the Site, in exceptionally problematic circumstances. No one should fear
that the Foundation will take action on unintentional mistakes made while
participating as bona fide editors.
As many of you already know, the Foundation fully supports community
autonomy and the principle of subsidiarity as part of our commitment to
respecting and promoting community autonomy. Not only do we feel this is
the right approach to our shared values, but it is the only approach that
can make these amazing projects work. To ensure we maintain this
commitment, we do not deal with general community or community member
disputes that might otherwise be addressed through existing community
actions, nor act as a means of appealing community policies and decisions.
If such situations arise, we look forward to working to help the community
members who need help, but most of the time, this assistance will consist
of guiding the community members to find the right community avenue that
will solve their problem.
On some occasions, the Foundation considers cases of abuse. This only
occurs when it has been brought to our attention that the local community
lacks the necessary processes to effectively address the situation, or when
the organization has a legal obligation as a platform provider to act in
the interests of the safety of users and the platform. When we get
involved, we are limited in the course of action we can take. Our
procedures are guided by the Office's business policies, which allow us to
issue global bans, event bans, issue warnings, interaction bans, and
advanced permission removal. While this responsibility rests with us, we do
not take our interventions lightly; These investigations take a lot of time
and effort and require multiple staff members across different departments
to ensure that we provide a comprehensive understanding of the matter
before we take any action. For the size of our communities, we have issued
very few centralized global bans. Collective global bans like the one we
issued in December 2022 are only put in place in the most extraordinary
circumstances, when the evidence strongly supports a serious threat to the
organization's terms of use that all contributors must agree to abide by
when editing projects.
Our December 6 office actions are the result of the Foundation's long-term
and multiple investigations as part of our commitments as a platform
provider. It was not related to the current circulating media reports.
While there are still limits to what we can disclose in order to protect
the safety and privacy of our users, we truly understand and sympathize
with the fact that this continues to be an upsetting situation and would
like you to know that we would not have taken this action if it was not
necessary.
We also want to acknowledge that media reports have created great doubt in
people's minds about the safety of participating in Wikimedia projects, due
to their direct connection to the events of the arrests of volunteers. It
is unfortunate that many organizations relied on incomplete facts and
indirect sources in their coverage, which directly contradicts our
principles. Regardless of the current situation, the Foundation is well
aware that such risks exist globally, and we want our community members to
be aware too - and work with us to take precautions to stay safe. Six
months ago, the United Nations published an article describing the rise of
disinformation as a "global disease".
In late May 2020, the Board included protecting projects and communities
from "misinformation and bad actors" in its Statement on Community Culture.
On August 23, 2021, we amended our Non-Disclosure Agreement to make it more
difficult to coerce rights holders, by restricting access to certain
high-risk areas to individuals who may be particularly vulnerable to
threats, themselves and their families. We continue to work to secure the
safety of those combating this "global disease" - disinformation - not just
through office actions but in terms of proactively encouraging safe
practices, as in our recent blog post on protecting online anonymity. This
assessment by external experts has identified a number of areas to support
our approach, the Board has issued a policy symbolizing our commitment to
this improvement, and our Human Rights team continues to work to provide
resources of information and support to users on the ground. We are also
working on making additional digital security resources available to
community members who feel unsafe online, which we will finalize soon.
We respect and realize that this action is a huge setback to the community
and that is why we are open to providing the community with the support
needed and what we can provide. If there is anything we can do to help the
community during this time, please feel free to let us know via
ca(a)wikimedia.org. As mentioned earlier, we are ready to provide you with
the required support to the best of our ability.
Best Regards,
Wikimedia Foundation Office WMFOffice (talk) 09:09, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 1:50 PM Wikimedia Trust and Safety <ca(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi all,
Following up on Gerard’s question here and providing a bit more context:
the photo is publicly available, so while we don't have a concern with its
existence on Commons, our guidance around publicity in such cases still
stands. We understand that every government and every situation is unique.
As has been pointed out by Amir, sometimes making noise is beneficial. But
in all cases, there must be a balance on how and in what ways we generate
attention–again, it should be done thoughtfully with the interests and the
wishes of both the volunteers and their families in mind. The recent media
attention, based on inaccuracies and a statement in which the Foundation is
named but had no part in, isn’t the way to do it. Feeding that narrative by
connecting our own efforts to protect our volunteers to what is in many
cases faulty and sensationalist reporting can cause more harm. In many
instances we have recognized and spoken out against government interference
in our projects. When volunteers face such situations due to their good
faith contributions, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Human Rights Team
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Team> can work to provide
support via local partners that will meet the best interests of the
individuals involved. Thank you again for everyone’s concern and attention
to this situation.
Best regards,
WMF Office/Trust and Safety
On Sun, Jan 8, 2023 at 12:41 AM Wikimedia Trust and Safety <
ca(a)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
<https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/%D9%85%D9%86%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA#Foundation_statement>
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(a)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
<https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/NJUOKYM2UTKFH53OKGIXW6OSEEDUI3AL/>.
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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Global_Ban_Policy#List_of_global_bans_placed_by_the_Wikimedia_Foundation>.
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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Confidentiality_agreement_for_nonpublic_information&diff=21925066&oldid=21609723>
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
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_Activities>
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
<https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people>.
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(a)wikimedia.org .
Best regards,
WMF Office/Trust and Safety
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