Hi all
This Guardian article is interesting - I don't know how likely this is to
happen, but it suggests a new PM and Culture Secretary might kill off the
Bill:
Best
Lucy
On Fri, 8 Jul 2022 at 09:22, <publicpolicy-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Send Publicpolicy mailing list submissions to
publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/publicpolicy.lists.wikimedia.or…
You can reach the person managing the list at
publicpolicy-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Publicpolicy digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: EU Policy Monitoring Report: June 2022 (Phil Bradley-Schmieg)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2022 09:31:33 +0100
From: Phil Bradley-Schmieg <phil(a)postilo.org>
Subject: [Publicpolicy] Re: EU Policy Monitoring Report: June 2022
To: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia
<publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>, Alex Stinson
<astinson(a)wikimedia.org>
Cc: Matthew Gallagher <matt(a)fairvote.uk>
Message-ID:
<165709631752.822.1062563086547934420(a)lists1001.wikimedia.org>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="--_com.samsung.android.email_1973371729268130"
Could I be the first to point out that government powers to ban
disinformation and other "harmful" forms of speech are exactly what led to
the Wikipedia ban in Turkey, and current threats against Wiki projects in
Russia?Now look what else they're trying to throw into the UK OSB: breaking
E2E encryption.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/06/uk-could-force-messaging…
extremely careful what you wish for(and worse still, what you campaign
for), unless the law you're trying to make even stricter excludes
nonprofits or community-moderated projects. Especially when rights of
redress under the Human Rights Act are being watered down.Phil
-------- Original message --------From: Kyle Taylor <kyle(a)fairvote.uk>
Date: 06/07/2022 09:22 (GMT+00:00) To: Alex Stinson <
astinson(a)wikimedia.org> Cc: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia <
publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org>gt;, Matthew Gallagher <matt(a)fairvote.uk>
Subject: [Publicpolicy] Re: EU Policy Monitoring Report: June 2022 Hi
Alex!Apologies for my incredibly slow reply. I have Covid yet again and
it's gotten the best of me this time!In short, the broad view (of course
not speaking for everyone) is that the bill doesn't go far enough with
dealing with disinformation largely because of the exemptions, exceptions
and exclusions but secondarily because of the powers reserved to the
Secretary of State to largely determine what is disinformation and this
Committee they're proposing, which doesn't report for EIGHTEEN MONTHS. So
it doesn't go far enough, I'm afraid. Within UK civil society, Full Fact
has down great work around this. A few of their pieces:
https://fullfact.org/blog/2022/mar/online-safety-bill/https://fullfact.org/…
hope that helps a bit!Best wishes,Kyle---Kyle TaylorFounder and Director+44
7745 93 44 33https://www.fairvote.ukOn Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 7:11 PM Alex
Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:The meeting I was in yesterday as
part of:
https://caad.info/who-we-are/ -- highlighted how easy it was for
misinfo actors to get exemptions from the rules around disinfo: so it's
likely to be exploitable, and potentially a shelter for disinformation
actors from outside the UK. I am curious if we have a position on the
disinformation parts of the law? On Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 8:35 AM Rita
Jonusaite <rj(a)disinfo.eu> wrote:Hey all, If you have not seen re OSB in
the UK, the Fair Vote UK is circulatring a Global letter to the UK
Government on the loopholes in the UK's Online Safety Bill that they would
like other organisations to sign. The joint letter is nearing 50 signatures
already including Accountable Tech, Institute for Strategic Dialogue,
Global Witness and Global Project Against Hate and Extremism etc. I am
sharing with you their original message below and adding Matt and Kyle who
are leading the campaign in Cc if you have any questions directly. Deadline
is COB Friday (but they can go as late as Monday
to my understanding)!Best, Rita --ORIGINAL ASK--I'm Matt of Fair Vote UK,
and I'm leading within our organisation on an international coalition
campaign to voice global opposition to the loopholes currently written into
the UK's Online Safety Bill. I'm writing to ask for your organisation's
signature on a global letter to the UK Government, highlighting the
danger posed by this bill's exemptions, exceptions and exclusions – which
fundamentally undermine its purpose of making the internet safer. The risks
are international in scope as these loopholes could effectively allow for
harmful content and disinformation to be "laundered" in the UK. Please sign
if possible! Overview of the Letter: The UK’s Online Safety Bill, currently
making its way through Parliament, aims to make the UK “the safest place in
the world to go online”. Unfortunately, it falls far short of that
objective in its current form – to the extent that it could actually make
adults and children less safe online. The bill contains glaring loopholes
that could allow some of the actors most responsible for harm online to
avoid oversight and regulation. Media entities are exempt based on
incredibly lenient criteria which would allow nefarious actors to launder
harmful content. The democratic importance exemption would let politicians'
online speech stay up regardless of its vast reach and potential to cause
harm. Paid ads are left in scope despite their demonstrable role in
spreading disinformation and hate. All of this serves to create a
two-tiered system in which some of the most harmful actors are given
precedence, prioritising their freedom of speech over the regular user.
We’re demanding online regulation that protects all of our human
rights equally. These loopholes have severe implications not just for the
UK, but for the global community as well. If this new regime does not
address them, the UK could become the world’s “disinformation
laundromat”. We’re urging orgs and individuals from anywhere in the world
concerned with democracy, children’s safety, disinformation, public health,
climate change or other related causes to sign this letter to the UK
Government calling on them to close the loopholes and build a more robust
human rights framework that applies equally. In addition to this letter,
we’re kicking off a public advocacy campaign on July 4th with significant
digital spend behind it to further raise awareness about the OSB’s
dangerous loopholes. You can sign on by adding your name in the format
shown at the bottom of the document. Please let me know if you have any
questions or concerns! Many thanks, MattP.S. Please feel free to forward
this on to additional orgs and individuals you think would consider signing
with matt(a)fairvote.uk cc'ed. Thank you! On Fri, 1 Jul 2022 at 13:05, Eric
Luth <eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se> wrote:Hi everyone,Thanks for the summary,
Dimi. Interesting read on the Digital Commons, happy to see that the
Swedish government also supported.On Copyright reform, the Swedish
government has sent its proposal on copyright reform to the council on
legislation, which is the last step before it goes to parliament. We are
currently analyzing the proposal, and working with MPs to improve the worst
parts and safeguard the best.Best Eric LuthProjektledare engagemang och
påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and AdvocacyWikimedia
Sverigeeric.luth(a)wikimedia.se+46 (0) 765 55 50 95Stöd fri kunskap, bli
medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.seDen tors 30
juni 2022 kl 17:58 skrev Jan Gerlach <jgerlach@wikimedia.org>:Many thanks
for another great update, Dimi!Alex, the Foundation's Global Advocacy team
is tracking the UK Online Safety Bill and we have published our first
impressions on the text here. We're in touch with various allies of our
movement in the UK and plan to further engage on the bill when
appropriate.Thanks for your interest!JanOn Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 8:32 AM
Alex Stinson <astinson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:Hi Demi and list?Is anyone
following the UK law at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-bill-supporting-do…
Curious
if we are watching that in connection with other Disinfo/Content moderation
laws.Cheers, AlexOn Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 12:16 PM Dimi Dimitrov <
dimi(a)wikimedia.be> wrote:The French government has vowed to invest money
in the commons. Rub your eyes, read it again and then continue reading
below. ====================DIGITAL COMMONS====================It still
surprises us to be able to put “French government” and “investment in the
digital commons” together, but here we go: The French Presidency of the
Council of the EU came up with a plan how the old continent can compete
with dominant US tech companies. The plan is to have more “digital
commons”, which can be anything open source, including software, code
libraries, tools, repositories. The basic thinking is that if fundamental
tools and libraries are accessible to all players, this will level the
playing field. [1]—19 EU Member Countries and the Commission presented the
idea of digital commons at the Digital Assembly in Toulouse. They
acknowledge that there are many instances of working digital commons, but
also point out that oftentimes projects lack long-term, structural support.
The plan envisages financial help and a “one-stop-shop” to find government
support. [2]—Funds in the ballpark of tens of millions of euros are already
pledged, but the concrete details are still in the making. Thanks to the
leadership of Wikimédia France, our movement and a group of partners
(Europeana, Communia, OpenStreetMap) are part of this conversation from the
start. We especially want to show that governments can often help by
removing legal and administrative obstacles, not just by peddling money.
[3]======CSAM======We wrote about the proposal of the Commission to
regulate the online moderation of “Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)” in
last month’s report [4]. While it is a very important issue to tackle, we
do have great concerns with parts of the text, especially provisions that
would allow scanning all online chats on a given platform. We are still
analysing how exactly, if at all, this would impact Wikimedia projects. In
the meantime, we can offer a short briefing. [5]—On the legislative side,
the start feels very bumpy: The European Parliament probably won’t refer
the file to a committee until September or October, while ample criticism
is pouring in, including from the German government. [6]=========Net
Neutrality=========The European Commission plans to push out a new
legislative proposal after the summer that is expected to include
provisions forcing some service providers to pay for data traffic (think
Facebook and Netflix paying Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica). While this is
a classic example of a lobbying battle between very large
telecommunications companies and very large tech companies, it also would
violate some basic principles of net neutrality. A group of civil society
organisations, led by EDRi, sent a letter to the relevant Commissioners
outlining the main issues. [7]—On the bright side, BEREC, the EU’s body of
telecoms regulators, has updated its net neutrality guidelines to close
some loopholes and effectively ban zero rating of data for some
applications. [8]=============Disinformation=============The European
Commission has presented an updated Code of Practice on Disinformation. [9]
Wikimedia had not signed up the original Code, because we deemed it was
mainly focused on “follow the money”, hence where disinformation is spread
through advertising and paid reach. The version will allow researchers more
access to data of large platforms and again focus on advertising.—The Code
of Practice is a voluntary initiative for online platforms, but taking part
in it essentially removes some obligations under the newly created Digital
Services Act. =============Italian Dramas=============The Italian
government published new draft guidelines about public data (open
government) and opened a consultation. [10] They basically state that open
government and open data provisions don’t apply to institutions related to
culture, which is a very Italian thing. We wonder if this is in line with
the Public Sector Information Directive and will investigate with Wikimedia
Italia, which are also participating in the consultation. —The Italian
government has been on a roll. It also published the draft national
digitisation plan. It would establish an administrative fee for the
commercial use of all public domain digitisations of cultural institutions.
It essentially outlaws CC0 as a relevant license for most GLAMs in the
country and circumvents the public domain safeguard enshrined in the latest
copyright directive. There was a public consultation until 15 June which
Wikimedia Italy and partners participated in. Expect blog posts on Diff and
on wikimedia.brussels soon.=============Polish & Czech Copyright
Reforms=============The Czech copyright reform is in parliament. We have a
Czech language copy. [11] The Polish government published its proposal,
which will go to parliament very soon. We have a rough English translation.
[12] If you consider yourself a copyright geek, enjoy reading them. If you
want to help our national partners advocating on this, get in touch!
:)====END====[1]
https://twitter.com/AmbNum/status/1540657835427741699[2]https://www.diploma…
Wikimedia Belgium vzwBE 0563.775.480
- RPR BrusselAntwerpselaan 40 Boulevard d’Anvers 1000
Brussel/Bruxelleswww.wikimedia.beinfo(a)wikimedia.be_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list -- publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe send an email to publicpolicy-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
-- Alex Stinson Lead Program StrategistWikimedia FoundationTwitter:
@sadadsLearn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and
other Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors
through campaigns:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list -- publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe send an email to publicpolicy-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list -- publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe send an email to publicpolicy-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list -- publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe send an email to publicpolicy-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
-- Rita JonusaiteAdvocacy Coordinator | EU DisinfoLab +32 488 59 70
70 (WhatsApp/Signal) Subscribe here to our newsletterEU DisinfoLab 2022
Conference (Oct. 25-26): Register now!
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list -- publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe send an email to publicpolicy-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
-- Alex Stinson Lead Program StrategistWikimedia FoundationTwitter:
@sadadsLearn more about how the communities behind Wikipedia, Wikidata and
other Wikimedia projects create calls to action to invite new contributors
through campaigns:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campaigns