From: Stephen LaPorte <slaporte@wikimedia.org>
Date: April 21, 2018 at 17:26:15 GMT+2
To: Alice Backer <alice.backer@gmail.com>, Rob Fernandez <wikigamaliel@gmail.com>, Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com>, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih@gmail.com>, Katherine Maher <kmaher@wikimedia.org>, Megan Wacha <megan.wacha@gmail.com>, Eileen Hershenov <ehershenov@wikimedia.org>, Joshua Weinberg <jweinberg@wikimedia.org>, Peter Meyer <peter.meyer@wikidc.org>, Kevin Payravi <kevinpayravi@gmail.com>, Chuck Roslof <croslof@wikimedia.org>, dalesio.3@buckeyemail.osu.edu, Jan Gerlach <jgerlach@wikimedia.org>
Subject: Continuing the U.S. Net Neutrality conversation

Hi folks,

Great conversation today about Net Neutrality in the United States, and the importance for Wikimedia. 

A few action items we discussed:

• To do: Talk with other US Wikimedia organizations to get their opinion on a Wikipedia banner (or blackout) support Net Neutrality.
• Rob is putting together a list of US Wikimedia groups for conversations—Can you share the link?
• To do: Share some resources on Wikimedia's position on Net Neutrality and the timeline. Please see below for some documents from the Foundation.
• To do: Decide how (and if) to present the position of the US Wikimedia organizations for community consensus on a banner or other community action. You can see the previous discussion from last year here.
• To do: Decide if you want to meet with Senator Wyden, to share what the Wikimedia community is doing, and also to start building a relationship and asking for other support for Wikimedia (great suggestion from Josh). If you don't want to, or if you don't think it's feasible to meet this short timeline, "no" is also fine.

Some resources from the Foundation:

• More information here (more detail here) is available on the pending resolution to CRA resolution. The resolution may need a Senate vote before the end of May, so if the Wikimedia community plans to take action, a decision is likely necessary within the next two weeks.
• In August 2017, the Foundation to the FCC (here) commenting on its proposal to deregulate ISPs and urging it not to roll back the net neutrality rules that had been in place since 2015.
  
• In December 2017, the Foundation published a blog post (here) in which we explain that the ability to freely connect and find information online is important for access to knowledge and online collaboration. We urged the FCC again not to roll back the net neutrality rules.

I took a few notes during the meeting on great suggestions:

• There was general interest in the room for a banner of some sort, but it may be worth proposing other bolder options too.
• It's useful to have a clear statement about how an issue like Net Neutrality affects the Wikimedia community. Keep it simple. Have good talking points.
• Consider how to appeal to Spanish-speaking populations in the United States. If the community supports a banner geolocated to the US, should it include both Spanish and English Wikipedia?
• Color of Change has a good explanation of Net Neutrality as an equity issue. (If someone can find or share that link with the group, it would be helpful.)
• If you want to work with (or just talk to) any activist organizations, please reach out to Jan and me, and we'd be happy to make introductions.
• It's good to have a list of other high priority issues that US Wikimedians want to discuss in DC (the Librarian of Congress and Copyright, defending CDA 230, and more).

Please share this email with other Wikimedians for coordination, or move it into Rob's Google Doc if that is easier. Also please feel free to share your notes from the meeting or any other ideas.

Thanks for sharing all your ideas this afternoon. I'm looking forward to hearing what you decide.

Best,

Stephen

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Stephen LaPorte

Legal Director

Wikimedia Foundation

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