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Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Stefan Krause, Germany, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons

Markus Trienke, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Michael S Adler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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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.

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Geo-Blocking & Audiovisual Content: Why we need to achieve a truly connected digital single market

An image depicting a Netflix account being blocked due to Geo Restrictions. Image by mikemacmarketing, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The 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.


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Eight requirements: Making digital policy serve the public interest

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.

Net Neutrality & the Fair Share Debate 

Structure of the Internet Diagram by User:Bwenk, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

A debate focused on “big tech” & “big telco”

Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market wants major online platforms to contribute to the cost of telecommunications infrastructure. The distribution of wealth and added value, especially when talking about dominant and gatekeeping companies, is a fair debate that Europe clearly needs to have. However this debate makes a very unfair omission: It focuses only on “Big Tech” and “Big Telco”, while forgetting about the commons, alternative competitors, online communities and rural communes.

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Debate: AI and the Commons – solutions to be found only beyond licences

Robot face by Ralf Steinberger under CC BY 2.0

While we surely must not shy away from looking at what develops with and around Open Content and for solutions of harmful effects we must seek beyond the licensing level. We shouldn’t try to leverage copyright as a prohibitive means unless we are willing to sacrifice the idea of the Open Content altogether.

Read the introduction to the debate

Read Anna Mazgal’s take on the issue

New technologies mean new dark sides

The breathtaking potential of automated systems includes a breathtaking danger of abuse. One might argue, however, that facial recognition is not actually an application of artificial intelligence technology, but a rather sophisticated method of pattern recognition combined with an instance of deep learning mechanisms. We should widen the scope to the digital content used for enhancing autonomous systems or automation in general – the term Automated Decision-Making, ADM, comes to mind. 

Nobody interested in digital technology, the internet, and fundamental rights should disengage from the debate around such systems and how to regulate them. At the same time we have to be quite precise about the types of content we are talking about. It’s not only because the property of being open (in the meaning of the open definition and the definition of Free Cultural Works) is key here. Also because the possible means for regulation differ according to the content in question.

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Debate: AI and the Commons – sharing is caring

Funny rice cooker face is sick by epSos.de under CC BY 2.0

The old principle that knowledge is power has been proven true in the online space in a way precedent only by the innovation of print. Free knowledge is designed to be shareable and shared online. It is evident that as the custodians of one of its flagship projects, Wikipedia, we should always consider if we could afford disengaging from conversation about the power that is created with it. This reflection is especially relevant in any global movement whose collective actions weigh enough to make a difference globally.

Read the introduction to the debate

Read John Weitzmann’s take on the issue

Match made in (online) heaven

Emergence of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other such projects wouldn’t have been possible without reliable, standardised mechanisms of controlling creative outputs by ceding rights to them. Creative Commons licences are a societally recognised tool to do just that. Of course Wikipedia could have gone with any tool of a release of rights. But because of the diffusion of Creative Commons licences and the community behind it willing to translate, improve and finally use the licensing it makes sense that CC licensing is present on Wikipedia to such an extent.

It is a joyous feedback loop – Wikipedia has many contributors so the intake of CC licensing is massive. Then the images and materials licensed in that way start functioning in other contexts and projects. The two ideas: of a tool and of a knowledge-building practice are mutually reinforcing. No wonder that there is a significant personal overlap between two communities of contributors.

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