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EU Anti-SLAPP Directive: It is time for national governments to act in favor of the public interest!

Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

SLAPPs are “strategic lawsuits against public participation”: legal cases brought to the courts in order to threaten and/or silence journalists, activists, and academics, including Wikipedia volunteer contributors. This legal phenomenon risks causing a chilling effect, which may be particularly acute in the case of those people who contribute voluntarily to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects.

Read More »EU Anti-SLAPP Directive: It is time for national governments to act in favor of the public interest!

Community-Led Advocacy for a Fair Digital Space

First day of WMEU General Assembly in Prague 2024, Richard Sekerak (WMCZ), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As the EU rolls out the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pivotal moment unfolds for the future of online governance. While the regulation offers promising frameworks to enhance accountability and curb online harms, its implementation also reveals pressing risks. Over-moderation by platforms can undermine freedom of expression, legal uncertainties threaten community-led initiatives, and fragmented enforcement across Member States risks weakening the resilience of the EU’s information ecosystem. At the same time, the dominance and secrecy of proprietary platforms further complicate oversight and fairness.

Yet, there is a powerful counterbalance: community-led models like Wikipedia. Such alternative business models demonstrate a transparent, participatory approach to content moderation that prioritises reliability, verifiability, and pluralism. 

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Wikipedia Recognized as a Digital Public Good

adapted illustration by Jasmina El Bouamraoui and Karabo Poppy Moletsane for Wikipedia 20, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Europe is keen to share that Wikipedia has been recognised as a digital public good. It is an important recognition for community-led free knowledge projects, which will help our advocacy efforts. In these troublesome times for the information ecosystem, it is of utmost importance defending free knowledge and access to information through the safeguard of alternative platform models, like distributed and community-led online encyclopedias, that proved their resilience.

This post was originally published on the Wikimedia Foundation website and can be accessed here.

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Wikipedia and the Digital Services Act: Lessons on the strength of community and the future of internet regulation

adapted illustration by Jasmina El Bouamraoui and Karabo Poppy Moletsane for Wikipedia 20, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Written 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.

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A Joint Statement on the Use of Surveillance Spyware in the EU and Beyond

Gobierno Espía Ojo, Gibrán Aquino, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We 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 Beyond

Wikimedia Foundation defeats gambling magnate’s lawsuit in Germany

Aerial image of Justizpalast in Munich, by Carsten Steger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Written 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.

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Cyber resilience Act – it’s a wrap!

IoT Drawing, Author: Wilgengebroed, Source: Flickr, Licnese: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)

We 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. 

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Protecting youth online: Wikimedia Foundation publishes its first Child Rights Impact Assessment

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Computer Lab, Author: Denise Krebs, License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

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 Assessment