Dear all,
I am thrilled to share news of the launch of the *first issue*
<https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-newsletter-nov-2023> of the
new WMF Global Advocacy newsletter. You can sign up to receive future
newsletters at *this link*
<https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-policy-newsletter>.
This project is inspired by our desire to share the Wikimedia Foundation's
unique policy perspectives on pressing tech regulation issues with public
audiences, including policymakers, Wikimedians, and free knowledge
advocates. Our goal is to help these interested groups better understand
how we think about the internet and digital rights, and how laws and
regulations can and should be shaped to not only protect public interest
and community-led online spaces, like Wikimedia projects, but also to help
them flourish.
The newsletter will be emailed quarterly. Please feel free to share
the subscription
link <https://mailchi.mp/wikimedia/global-advocacy-policy-newsletter> with
your networks.
Happy reading!
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Hello!
Things are becoming quieter on our side. The Artificial Intelligence file
is done. We have been to Strasbourg with Ivo Kruusamägi from Wikimedia
Eesti to talk to government reps and potential allies about SLAPPs.
As timing goes, the last parliamentary plenary will take place on April
22-25. This is also the last chance to pass legislation during this
mandate. Everything unfinished might be continued by the next parliament,
but this is not a given.
Dimi & Michele
=== AI Act ===
Member States needеа to vote on a “take-it-as-is-or-leave-it” proposal
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2014_2019/plmrep/COMMITTEES/CJ40/AG…>
by the Belgian Council Presidency. Germany, France and Italy criticised the
proposal over “over-regulation” of general purpose AI models (a.k.a. large
language models). But finally, a sufficient number of Member States agreed
to the deal and the three big ones decided to fall in line.
—
What's in it: The one important thing to understand is that the AI doesn’t
simply regulate the technology, but often regulates specific use cases. In
other words, an AI system that adds funny backgrounds to your videos won’t
have the same obligations as systems that handle admissions into
educational institutions, help with recruitment processes or are used as
part of essential public services. The latter fall in a “high-risk”
category. Their deployers will be liable to ensure human oversight, data
quality, keep documentation and assist potential injured parties and
authorities. They will also have to report known issues. None of the AI
systems used by or on Wikimedia projects appear to be “high-risk” under the
regulation’s definitions.
—
The AI Act also means to prohibit certain uses. The bans include systems
aimed at influencing behaviour (manipulative or deceptive AI-aided
techniques) or the use of biometric information to figure out a person’s
race, sexual orientation, beliefs or trade union membership. Social scoring
is also explicitly prohibited. The law in theory also doesn’t permit the
use of real-time facial recognition, although there are significant law
enforcement exceptions to that.
—
Another category in the AI Act is “general purpose AI” (a.k.a. Large
Language Models). Think ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. Developers of such
systems will be obliged to keep detailed documentation and assist anyone
deploying their models in understanding the systems’ functionality and
limits. Furthermore they will need to provide a summary of the copyrighted
material used to train the models, which in practice includes freely
licensed content. Don’t ask how this got in there, but be happy instead
that that’s the only place copyright gets dropped in the file :P
—
The relevant committees approved the text. Next up is a plenary vote that
is expected in April.
=== anti-SLAPP ===
On the 5 and 6 january Wikimedia Europe and Wikimedia Eesti (WMEE) took
part in the in-person CASE (Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe) meeting in
Strasbourg. On the first day, we attended an event at the Council of Europe
hosted by the UK delegation (the CoE is working to adopt a Recommendation
<https://www.coe.int/en/web/freedom-expression/msi-slp#%7B%22114418796%22:[]…>).
Ivo from WMEE briefly presented his case
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/Is_suing_Wikipedia_…>
and made delegates aware that also Wikipedians can be SLAPPed.
—
On the second day, the focus was on the future works of the Coalition:
Member States will indeed have two years time to transpose the EU
Anti-SLAPP Directive
<https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_6159> once it
enters into force. This was the occasion to establish contacts, make other
partners aware of the circumstance that we want to engage more on the issue
of SLAPPs and give our inputs. In particular, we established contact with
Matthew Caurana Galizia (the son of Daphne Caruana Galizia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia>), who is one of the
founders, and main driving force, of the Coalition.
—
As for the Directive, it was adopted on Tuesday 27 February by the European
Parliament Now the text needs to be voted in Council and then published in
the Official Journal before entering into force.
=== DSA & Disinfo Guidelines ===
The European Commission wants to publish guidelines
<https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/redirection/document/102290> by the end
of March to instruct Very Large Online Platforms (so including Wikipedia)
on how to deal with integrity of electoral processes, including next
European Parliament Elections that will take place in June.
—
There is a call for feedback
<https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-gathering-views-dr…>
which the Wikimedia Foundation will participate in.
=== CSAM ===
The Child Sexual Abuse Regulation
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2022%3A209%3AFIN>
file will not pass. Council still can’t agree on a position. To save the
situation, the European Commission is suggesting to make things like
deepfakes of kids or livestreaming of child sexual abuse and the sharing of
pedophile handbooks online a crime across the bloc.
—
All this comes as a proposed update to the 2011 Directive tackling CSAM
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32011L0093>
(which was supposed to be replaced by the regulation. As time has run out,
it will be the next European Parliament, together with theCouncil, that
will be working on this.
=== Cyber Violence Law ===
EU legislators reached a provisional deal (vulgo: trilogue agreement) on
rules to combat gender-based violence and protect its victims, especially
women and victims of domestic violence.
—
Broadly speaking, the Directive
<https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?refere…>
wants to tackle things such as nude deepfakes, revenge porn, cyberstalking
and online harassment . It will force EU countries to be more stringent in
punishing abuse against women, including through an obligation to introduce
new criminal offences (if they are not on the national books yet) and by
setting minimum standards.
—
Don’t hold your breath, though! Member states have until 2027 to introduce
the changes needed in national law.
=== Polish Copyright ===
Poland is finally, finally moving ahead with implementing the EU’s
Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (remember that?!). Poland
is the only country that hasn’t transposed
<https://eurovision.communia-association.org/> the new rules yet. There has
been a public consultation, which our Polish community (Maciej and Szymon)
participated in. Here’s a rundown of their contribution in Polish
<https://medium.com/@nadzikiewicz.maciek/wdrozenie-dsa-w-polsce-poczatki-a13…>
and the machine translated version in English
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YPDYj2cXqRXgFb2vzHpGZsNpsRMxHnV-J4YXn49…>
.
=== EU Elections ===
Ahead of EU elections European party groups have usually publish documents
called manifestos that outline their main proposal. Last month we covered
the Social Democrats and the Greens. This time we have ALDE (the
pan-european liberal party that shares a parliamentary group with Macron’s
MEPs). Their manifesto <https://www.aldeparty.eu/manifesto2024> is
technically still at a drafting stage, but it is almost finalised.
—
No surprisingly, ALDE tackles digital transitions by making “investments
and innovation” a priority. The party also wants to help services scale up
by removing existing barriers.
—
On the topic that seemingly no one can avoid these days - artificial
intelligence - the liberals reiterate that they want to fully use the
potential of this new technology but are keen on “human-centric innovation”.
—
Another sexy-sounding approach is the proposed “digital first principle”
for legislation and rules. What this should mean in practice, however,
remains somewhat unclear.
=== Transparency and targeting of political advertising ===
On Tuesday 27 February Parliament adopted the final text
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240223IPR18071/parliame…>
of the regulation, which now needs just to be voted by Council before being
published. The new rules will enter into application after 18 months from
the adoption of the regulation. This practically means that they will not
be in place for the future EU elections foreseen in June 2024.
===END===
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Dear all,
Congratulations on almost making it to the end of the week! This email
contains three useful resources related to copyright reform, legal trends
that concern our movement, and how to register for an exciting digital
policy conference (remote attendance). Grab your beverage of choice and
enjoy clicking through these resources...
*What legal trends are relevant to the Wikimedia Movement?*
Wikimedia has a lot to contribute to digital policy and internet governance
discussions beyond Copyright. Our Associate General Counsel, Jacob Rogers,
just published a great essay on the trends he's observed in his tenure at
Wikimedia and what they mean for us going forward. Read the full essay
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/A_changing_legal_world_for_free_k…>,
or synopsis on Diff
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/02/15/a-changing-legal-world-for-free-knowl…>
.
*Let's Connect clinics on Copyright Reform*
Peer learning clinics on Copyright Reform have now concluded. Members from
Wikimedia Colombia, Italy, Sweden and Indonesia shared their unique
experiences advocating for copyright reform - what worked, what *really* did
not, and why they've continued to be active on public policy advocacy on
topics far beyond copyright. You can access the video recordings and slide
decks on the Let's Connect page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Knowledge_Sharing/Connect/Calendar>.
Additional resources that were popular during these sessions, like how to
describe the Wikimedia Model or access Copyright campaign examples can be
found on our Resource Center
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Public_policy/Resources>.
Courses on copyright reform can be found under "Copyright" on our
"Documentation"
tab
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Public_policy/Documentat…>
.
*Register for the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum (DRIF)*
DRIF is taking place from April 23-25th in Accra, Ghana. This is a major
regional forum in which digital policies and internet governance in Africa
are debated and shaped, and we're showing up big with four sessions.
Wikimedians
will be representing the valuable insights our movement has to share on the
conference theme of "fostering rights and inclusion in the digital
age." Registration
is now open <https://whova.com/portal/registration/draif_202404/>. We hope
you'll attend virtually for one or all of these sessions:
1.
Faire résonner les voix : l'inclusion des Femmes ouest africaines dans
lesProjets Wikimedia
2.
Connect the Unconnected: Strengthening Women’s Access to Rural Broadband
Connectivity in Africa
3.
An Internet for and by the people: What we gain when we treat the
internet as a shared public good
4.
Fostering Trust Online in the Year of Democracy: Lessons on Combating
Disinformation on Wikipedia
Have a wonderful end to your week and even better weekend,
Ziski
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone
Dear Wikimedia friends,
Welcome to 2024! I hope it's been a nice journey so far.
I'm delighted to share that some of the people on this list will be running
workshops on *January 30 & February 21 *about their public policy advocacy
work on copyright reform. An overview of both is below. These workshops are
hosted via Let's Connect [1], a peer learning program for and by
Wikimedians.
You will need to register, but the link is not yet available. Please save
the date if one of these options interests you.
*January 30: Copyright Reform Advocacy *
- Date & Time: January 30th @ 16 - 18:00 UTC
- Presenters: WM Colombia & WM Italia
- Topic: This clinic will inform participants about creative, impactful
solutions to potential issues with copyright policy. Wikimedia Colombia
will describe their experience participating in a government-initiated
copyright reform process and the tactics, such as working with allies,
that helped them be successful in this process. Wikimedia Italia will
discuss what happens when the government is not interested in copyright
reform, and how the chapter has deployed creative ways to demonstrate the
value of copyright reform.
*February 21: Awareness + Education as tactics for Copyright Reform*
- Date & Time: February 21 @ 15 - 17:00 UTC
- Presenters: WM Indonesia & WM Sweden
- Topic: It's possible to push for copyright reform as part of other
ongoing initiatives, without immediately trying to change legislation. This
clinic will show some creative ways of raising awareness and start engaging
in activities to raise awareness and participate in policy discussions
around copyright issues. WM Sweden's story will demonstrate how the chapter
turned a massive defeat into a source of strength, while WM Indonesia will
cover how their ongoing education initiatives can support their public
policy advocacy plans.
Hope to see you there!
Ziski
---
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Knowledge_Sharing/Connect
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone