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JohnDarrochNZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Stefan Krause, Germany, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons

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

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

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

Benh LIEU SONG (Flickr), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sergey Pesterev / Wikimedia Commons

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

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Wikimedia

Report on opportunities and threats for openness in a new technological era

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The report “Open Movement’s Common(s) Causes” maps the current threats and opportunities facing the open movement, based on the ongoing work of the organisations behind the Common(s) Cause event, which took place in Katowice, Poland; as a pre-conference event for Wikimania 2024 on 6 August, 2024. The meeting was organised by Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Future, and Wikimedia Europe in collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation. The goal of the meeting was to create links between different advocacy efforts so that a shared advocacy strategy for the Knowledge Commons can be created. One of the calls that jumped out for us was a call for defining new open principles – principles that could clarify what openness means in the context of today’s digital space and ensure its pro-public, democratic potential. Formulating such principles could help against several challenges, e.g. open washing. Another clear call is the one confirming the assumptions behind the Common(s) Cause project: it is the call for a shared advocacy agenda, which could help ensure that Knowledge Commons are treated and sustained as critical digital infrastructures. The event gathered over 55 participants from 20 countries, most of whom travelled to Katowice to attend the Wikimania conference. The majority of attendees were from open advocacy communities. The event not only enabled the organizers to build stronger working ties with one another, but with the many other organisations who were represented at the event.  Participants acknowledged that the power of the open movement is only as strong as the bonds of the people working to advance an open, equitable agenda, and collective impact can only be achieved through individuals from different organisations working closely together. The report identifies a few common causes that can be found at the intersection of open movement organisations’… Read More »Report on opportunities and threats for openness in a new technological era

Prepped to the nines: Wikimedians gathered in Brussels to prepare for public policy advocacy challenges

Communications workshop. People sitting around a large table and looking at a presentation.
Communications workshop at Big Fat Brussels Meeting. Author: Camille Françoise. License: CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

The first Big Fat Brussels Meeting, held in 2013, established a tradition for Wikimedians to congregate in Brussels for a two-day gathering on advocacy and policy issues. Last month, the ninth edition of the meeting took place, bringing together almost forty Wikimedia volunteers and staff. 

The basic goal was to prepare for the challenges in the legislative landscape that we expect in Europe, regardless of whether at the EU, national, or Council of Europe level. We discussed Issues that would affect our projects, like “How to protect children online without gathering user data?” and “Will artificial intelligence (AI) change the way copyright works?” 

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Wikimedia Europe Partners for Research into Wikipedia’s Practices on Information on Elections

Panel debate in the European Parliament
DEM-Debate Kick-Off Panel. Author: Camille Françoise: License: CC-BY 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )

1.1 million— the number of times the 2024 European Parliament election article on English Wikipedia has been viewed from May to June 2024. With another 37 language versions and additional millions of views globally, this page exemplifies Wikipedia’s role in informing the public about major political events. Yet, Wikipedia’s impact extends far beyond that. As a widely used repository of knowledge, its content is frequently cited by other media outlets, amplifying its reach and embedding its information within broader public discourse. This means that any inaccuracies or disinformation on Wikipedia could have significant consequences on the public discourse, especially when it comes to sensitive issues like elections.

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Open letter to protect Wikipedia and other public interest projects in the Global Digital Compact

Wikimedia Europe has signed an open letter, penned by the Wikimedia Foundaiton, that calls on UN Member States to protect Wikipedia and other public interest projects in the forthcoming Global Digital Compact. The Global Digital Compact initiative is a unique and pivotal opportunity to shape our digital world in a manner that advances the public interest and supports sustainable development for everyone, everywhere.  UN Member States have the chance to embrace a positive vision for the internet’s future that supports and empowers diverse communities everywhere to build and operate free and open knowledge projects. The Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, provide the world with the largest free and open, multilingual, intercultural, universally accessible repository of educational materials ever created. The volunteer-run Wikimedia projects have formed a community-led ecosystem that champions information integrity. They serve as digital public infrastructure for openly licensed, neutral, encyclopedic content in over 300 languages. Wikipedia’s experience of over two decades has taught us that the internet needs to be open, global, interoperable, and inclusive in order to serve all of humanity. To that end, three essential commitments should be included in the text of the Global Digital Compact:

Wikimania 2024: call for submissions open!

Wikimania Singapore 2023 - Opening reception by Pedro J Pacheco under CC BY SA 4.0 source: Wikimedia Commons

The great celebration of everything Wikimedia will take place in Katowice, Poland, August 7-10 . Wikimedia Europe was asked to curate the track on Legal and Advocacy, which we are happy to support. As Wikimania 2024 gathers under the topic of the Collaboration of Open, we present under your consideration some ideas on how to align with this message.

You can submit a session proposal for Wikimania 2024 here.

Food for thought

In this time of global conflict, disinformation and digital authoritarianism, the Wikimedia movement offers a model for decentralised, grassroots governance of free knowledge. Our movement empowers communities to exercise their right to access knowledge, and to advance other fundamental human rights. The Wikimedia model offers inspiration on how to create connections between people of various backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. 

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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.

Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

An illustration used in a Wikimedia Deutschland workshop titled “Checking Information on the Web” — the caption reads “Communities: We find each other.” Image by graphicrecording.cool, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Since the advent of online platforms, which allow users to openly share content, the structure of the public sphere has been transformed. Until just a few decades ago, we were used to the fact that a significant part of public discourse would take place in publicly-owned and publicly-controlled spaces, be it town squares, parks, city halls, cultural establishments or public broadcasters. In the digital world, what we think of as public spaces are actually mostly private, for-profit, and/or data-guzzling platforms and services. The only very large online platform that is not-for-profit and is maintained by a thriving community of users is Wikipedia. This gives people on the internet agency and empowers them. We believe that the huge dominance of the for-profit, data driven model is a main reason for the greater vulnerability that our societies are experiencing in terms of polarisation, disinformation, and hate. We are confident that using versatile and diverse models of operation of online services and their underlying infrastructure will make society more resilient. It will make democratic, inclusive societies a harder target. For these reasons, we want a significant part of the online public discourse to take place on public or not-for-profit platforms, services, and infrastructure. To achieve the above objective, we suggest three areas of action. 1. Institutional Support Ensure funding for a network of publicly-owned and operated platforms that can host digital cultural heritage and public debates. Regardless of whether we are speaking of a regional museum, a small municipality, or public school, whenever these institutions and communities want to run a project online or share information, they rely on a few dominant, data-monetising services, even for the most basic action of hosting content. European digital hosting infrastructure for public service and cultural institutions is important for sovereignty and… Read More »Europe Needs Digital Public Spaces That Are Independently Moderated and Hosted

Update on Net Neutrality in the EU

Net neutrality logo "glow" by Camilo Sancez. License: Creative Commons Zero - Universal Public Domain Dedication

Net Neutrality in the EU seemed like a topic of the past. Something we dealt with, secured and could turn our attention to other issues now. Two significant recent developments show that it remains a dynamic policy field and that we mustn’t forget about it. After all, we want an information infrastructure that allows all users to have equal access not only to Wikipedia and its sister projects, but also to all the citations and sources.  

Bad news from the Commission

Very large telecoms companies have wanted to make very large online platforms pay for network use for a while. Now they seem to have found a like-minded EU Commissioner in the face of Margrethe Vestager. The argument of the Danish politician is a modern classic for the EU. It boils down to the fact that very large platforms are responsible for a bulk of the internet traffic, but according to telecoms companies are not paying their fair share to fund the infrastructure. 

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