An increasing number of volunteers became the target of SLAPPs, particularly due to the widespread reach of Wikipedia. In the last ten years, more than a half of the reported SLAPP cases involving Wikipedians have taken place in Europe.
Read More »The worrisome phenomenon of SLAPPs in Europe: the new 2024 CASE ReportWhat we can expect for community-governed knowledge-sharing projects.
Read More »Deep Dive: The new von der Leyen CommissionWritten by Jacob Rogers, Associate General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. Here, you may find the link to the original interview.
We share some considerations about the application of the recently adopted Digital Services Act (DSA), which lays down a new set of rules for online platforms. Under these new rules, Wikipedia has been designated as a VLOP and therefore bears some specific obligations. After one year of formal application, a first preliminary evaluation can be done. In this sense, the interview highlights Wikipedia’s specific characteristics, analyses the compliance burdens for the Wikimedia Foundation and offers some guidance for the future in order to preserve the Wikimedia model.
Read More »Wikipedia and the Digital Services Act: Lessons on the strength of community and the future of internet regulationWe took stance against the use of spyware in the EU and beyond. This pervasive technology poses significant threat to European fundamental values, such as democracy and rule of law, and risks severely infringing fundamental rights to privacy and data protection as well as freedom of expression. Alongside with other civil society and journalists’ organisations we called on the new EU Institutions and Member States to take swift action and ban the use of such a technology. We need to protect citizens, including Wikimedians, and their fundamental rights from undue interference and arbitrary behaviours. Here below you can read the statement with the specific calls for action.
Read More »A Joint Statement on the Use of Surveillance Spyware in the EU and BeyondWritten by Phil Bradley-Schmieg and Jacob Rogers.
The Munich Regional Court acknowledged that the contested Wikipedia article (Tipico) contained relevant public information and was correctly sourced. This is very good news also for Wikimedia Europe, which closely followed the adoption of the anti-SLAPP Directive and will advocate for its ambitious and effective transposition in the different Member States.
Read More »Wikimedia Foundation defeats gambling magnate’s lawsuit in GermanyWe finally have a deal on the Cyber Resilience Act.
It is a EU regulation thought up to make internet-connected products safer. With other words, it tackles the IT security and software maintenance of your smart toaster and AI-powered fridge. The tool originally chosen is to create obligations to manufacturers and/or vendors. We were involved in these negotiations because the newly proposed obligations could have seriously messed up the free & open software ecosystem.
Perhaps not intended, but the initial proposal and some of the interim versions didn’t clearly protect free software and would have risked that individual, volunteer contributors of code to free software projects are liable and have to comply with the same stringent obligations as large companies.
Read More »Cyber resilience Act – it’s a wrap!Originally posted on 17 January 2024 by Richard Gaines on Diff.
The Wikimedia Foundation has published an independent assessment to understand the impacts, risks, and opportunities posed to children who access and participate in Wikimedia projects.
Read More »Protecting youth online: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its first Child Rights Impact AssessmentThe European Parliament’s resolution offers the opportunity to clarify Wikimedia Europe’s position on the practice of geo-blocking and its impact on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
On 30 November, Eric Luth at Wikimedia Sverige was invited to give a speech on Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and copyright at an interdisciplinary IP symposium in Stockholm. This is his speech.
What do the European AI Act, the European Commission’s Data Strategy, the proposed US Digital Platform Commission Act and the German Digital Strategy have in common? They all name the public interest as a key objective. For good reasons, it is increasingly en vogue for digital policy to be designed as to foster the common good and serve the public interest. But what should public-interest digital policy look like? Wikimedia Deutschland has developed eight requirements against which digital policy projects must be measured if they are to serve the public interest. Transparency and effective participation are needed. Fundamental rights must be protected and damage to the community must be prevented. Digital policy should mitigate inequality, its outcomes must be open and accessible, and it must be collaboratively managed and renewed.
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