[Advocacy Advisors] Use of this list as evidence of consultation

[Fæ]

On 15 May 2014 14:45, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org> wrote:
...
> The purpose of the guideline is to provide opportunity for community members
> to guide and provide feedback on the Wikimedia Foundation's advocacy
> positions. It is our internal guideline, not a binding policy or contract
> (see the FAQ for the guideline). If you have an issue with the Necessary and
> Proportionate principles or the WMF taking a stance against mass
> surveillance, you are welcome to raise it here or on Meta.

Hi Stephen,

I have already responded for a second time on the blog post in
question. That is awaiting moderation right now, so I am cautious
about discussing this in two places. However here is my point of view
from what I have discovered today:

As I understand it the WMF promises to do 3 things before publishing a
blog post like this:
1. "Advocacy Advisory Group (consultation)" - done
2. "RfC (consultation if time permits)" - not done
3. "General notice" - not done

Considering this is an important document in terms of global internet
politics and the role of the WMF in representing our community (this
is how the general public will see this action), I am puzzled as to
why any WMF manager would want to be seen to choosing to skip #2 and
#3.

The fact is that the policy in question has been worded so that that
sexual orientation and LGBT minorities are not explicitly covered. I
am sure that one can debate what the scope of "others" might be in the
text, however as a member of that minority group, I would have
absolutely no confidence that my right to privacy for my gay life
would have any protection were I, say, using Grindr in Turkey to meet
friends, even if the Telecoms companies in that country had agreed to
the Principles. Indeed just by using Grindr I might be endangering any
local LGBT people I talked to, who might later be prosecuted or
persecuted for their 'immoral activities' using data collected by
monitoring the application.

Had the WMF consulted more widely, I would have been able to put
forward examples and the community could discuss if they were
something to be concerned enough about, for the WMF to raise its own
questions or clarifications before fully supporting the principles. By
rushing ahead without consultation when there was plenty of time to do
so, my concerns have been unnecessarily ignored as I had no voice in
this process.

Fae
-- 
faewik at gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae