“Don’t Blink”: Protecting the Wikimedia model, its people, and its values in November–December 2024

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A collage of images featuring: a photograph of Wiki Movimiento Brasil volunteers; an image of ivy on a wall; an illustration of a crowd watching the launch of Jean-Pierre Blanchard's balloon at The Hague in 1785; a photograph of Rebecca MacKinnon, Vice President of Global Advocacy, speaking at an event; a photograph of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil at night; and, a photograph of Rebecca MacKinnon and other speakers at an event.
Image collage for the November–December 2024 issue of ‘Don’t Blink.’ Image by the Wikimedia Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Welcome to “Don’t Blink”! Every month we share developments from around the world that shape people’s ability to participate in the free knowledge movement. In case you blinked last month, here are the most important public policy advocacy topics that have kept the Wikimedia Foundation busy.

The Global Advocacy team works to advocate laws and government policies that protect the volunteer community-led Wikimedia model, Wikimedia’s people, and the Wikimedia movement’s core values. To learn more about us and the work we do with the rest of the Foundation, visit our Meta-Wiki webpage, follow us on LinkedIn or on X (formerly Twitter), and sign up to our quarterly newsletter or Wikimedia public policy mailing list.

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Protecting the Wikimedia model
(Work related to access to knowledge and freedom of expression)

Reflecting on Wikipedia’s survival and resilience on The Open Mind
[Watch the interview]

Rebecca Mackinnon (Vice President of Global Advocacy) was interviewed on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) show “The Open Mind” about the challenges that the Foundation has and will continue to face in supporting the community of Wikimedia volunteers and projects through a changing regulatory and technological landscape.

In the interview, Rebecca explained that the role of the Foundation is to support the community to do what it has always done: edit, curate, and govern the Wikimedia projects. Discussing potential obstacles to this community-led model, she highlighted that the rise of generative AI has made it easier to create and spread harmful disinformation, and also that threats of censorship around sharing facts online are likely to continue to escalate as Wikipedia’s reach and influence grows.

Finally, Rebecca shared how US law currently protects and enables community content moderation through Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), and described some challenges to that law that we have seen coming out of certain US states.

Watch the interview for more.

Joining the TAROCH (Towards an Open Cultural Heritage Recommendation) Coalition 
[Learn more about the TAROCH Coalition, and read our reflections about joining]

We are excited to announce that we have joined the Creative Commons-led TAROCH Coalition, which advances public policies about access to open culture and knowledge. The coalition is made up of representatives from a diverse global community of organizations and institutions engaged in the preservation of cultural heritage, which are interested in defining open standards to enable that work and protect that birthright. Its mission is to encourage United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Member States to develop and adopt a recommendation or some other non-binding instrument, creating an international standard that proactively promotes and encourages open solutions that remove barriers to access to cultural heritage in the public domain.

The core tenets of this initiative were developed in 2024 through several dialogues, where the Wikimedia Foundation was an active participant. Creative Commons also led a discussion about the initiative at Wikimania 2024, asking Wikimedians to share their experiences encountering barriers to accessing cultural heritage. Several Wikimedia affiliates have joined the Coalition as well.

Learn more about the TAROCH Coalition, and read our reflections about joining.

Wiki Movimento Brasil hosts panel about the Global Digital Compact at the G20 Social Summit
[Read Wiki Movimento Brasil’s summary of the event]

Wiki Movimento Brasil recently shared reflections from their attendance at the G20 Social Summit, an event held before the meeting of global leaders at the G20 Summit in Brazil. The Wikimedia affiliate hosted a panel called “Reforming Global Governance: The Global Digital Compact in the Context of Free Internet,” which discussed their advocacy efforts to ensure Digital Public Goods (DPGs) were recognized in the Global Digital Compact.

The panel talked about the open letter written by the Wikimedia affiliates and the Foundation and the subsequent campaign to collect signatures calling for the Compact to protect Wikipedia and other public interest projects and communities. They highlighted the commitments in the final Compact text—which consider DPGs and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPIs) to be “key drivers of inclusive digital transformation and innovation” and call for their dissemination, promotion, and safeguarding—and emphasized the importance of now translating these commitments into action.

Wiki Movimento Brasil also contributed on the theme of global governance reform in the process of developing the G20 Social Summit final declaration (.pdf file), advocating the promotion of public interest projects and DPIs to enhance opportunities for meaningful social participation. 

Read Wiki Movimento Brasil’s summary of the event.

Advocating Digital Public Goods (DPGs) at the International Digital Dialogues Conference
[Learn more about the event]

Recently, Rebecca MacKinnon gave the keynote address at the International Digital Dialogues Conference in Berlin, hosted by the German government. In the keynote, called “Digital Public Goods for Global Knowledge in the Age of AI,” Rebecca explained how Wikimedia communities in the Global Majority world work on language preservation projects and share locally-relevant content. She also discussed more generally how Digital Public Goods (DPGs)—which include open-source software, data, AI models, and standards—can enable knowledge sharing for historically underrepresented communities. Finally, Rebecca concluded by reiterating our appreciation at seeing the support for DPGs in international agreements like the recent Global Digital Compact.

Learn more about the event.

Monitoring Brazilian Federal Supreme Court case about platform liability
[Read our concerns about the outcome of the case

The Federal Supreme Court of Brazil is close to reaching a decision in a case that could have important implications for the future of content moderation and community governance online. The case concerns the constitutionality of Brazil’s bill of rights for the internet, called the Marco Civil da Internet, and in particular, its Article 19, which protects platforms from liability for content posted by third parties. Several justices have already voted to declare Article 19 unconstitutional, a decision that has some troubling implications for the Wikimedia projects and volunteer communities.

Making platforms liable for third-party content can interrupt community-driven models like that on Wikipedia. In this example, the Foundation as platform host could be sued for every upload or edit made by volunteers. More widely, this would create a climate of legal uncertainty that would not only create significant financial burdens for small or nonprofit organizations like the Foundation, but could also limit the freedom of expression and participation of contributors to the projects. Other platforms and civil society organizations have spoken out about the decision, calling for the remainder of the Supreme Court to reconsider its current trajectory in deciding this case. We will continue to monitor this case and provide updates as it develops.

Read our concerns about the outcome of the case.

Contributing to roadmap of digital policy priorities in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
[Learn more about the EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogues and the 9th ECLAC Ministerial Conference]

In November 2024, Amalia Toledo (Lead Public Policy Specialist for Latin America and the Caribbean) attended two events aimed toward establishing priorities related to digital policy for the Latin American and Caribbean region. The first event, the EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence (AI), explored the impact of AI on economic development. The dialogue discussed the importance of multilingualism in developing large language models (LLMs), and emerging initiatives to apply AI to more public sector work. At the event, Amalia shared the Foundation’s perspective: Development must support people in their work generating knowledge, and not replace them.

The second event took place at the 9th Ministerial Conference on the Information Society for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). This conference focused on creating the region’s digital agenda for the next two years, called eLAC2026. This agenda was approved at the conference, and will be implemented over the next two years through a series of working groups that we hope will include the participation of interested civil society. 

Learn more about the EU-LAC Digital Alliance Policy Dialogues and the 9th ECLAC Ministerial Conference.

Protecting Wikimedia’s values
(Work related to human rights and countering disinformation)

Discussing how media freedom, Wikipedia, and AI connect at the United Nations (UN) Forum on Business and Human Rights 
[Learn more about the event]

At the recent UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, Rebecca Mackinnon (Vice President of Global Advocacy) spoke on a panel about media freedom with fellow panelists Riia Salsa-Audiffren (Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN in Geneva), Fiona Crack (Deputy Director of BBC Global News), and Iain Levine (Director for Human Rights Policy at Meta). The panel focused on best practices for protecting media freedom online, responding to restrictions on freedom of expression, and combating online harm. 

Rebecca highlighted Wikipedia’s increasing centrality to the broader media ecosystem, given that it has become one of the biggest sources of training data and information inputs for generative AI and large language models. She discussed how the Wikimedia projects depend on independent journalism and research as source material, and how this symbiotic relationship is even more important when it comes to fighting disinformation in the age of AI. Finally, Rebecca emphasized that the fight against disinformation cannot succeed unless governments and companies protect the people who share reliable knowledge online, like Wikimedians who contribute to the projects.

Learn more about the event.

Sharing how to combat toxic online speech at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) Think Tank
[Learn more about the workshop]

Miguelángel Verde Garrido (Senior Editorial Project Manager) recently participated in a multistakeholder workshop run by the TUM Think Tank called “Joint Effort Against Toxic Online Speech.” The two-day workshop brought together representatives from governments, academia, technology companies, and civil society to explore how these different stakeholders can work together to combat toxic speech online, including disinformation and hate speech.

Following the keynote address about the moral duty of platforms, users, and governments to moderate wrongful content, delivered by academic Jeffrey Howard, Miguel spoke on a panel together with representatives from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice and from Microsoft. He shared recent challenges to the community-led model of content moderation on the Wikimedia projects, including the increased prevalence of AI and propaganda aimed at the projects and their volunteers. Miguel also discussed the differences between the EU and the US regulatory approaches to platform liability and content moderation.

The workshop gave us an opportunity to connect with researchers interested in the impact of community-led content moderation, and to plan future trainings for journalists and youth about the Wikimedia projects, volunteer community, and model.

Learn more about the workshop.

Announcements from our team

Publishing the end-of-2024 issue of our quarterly newsletter!
[Read the newsletter and subscribe for more from our team in 2025]

In the most recent issue of our newsletter, we focused on our positive vision for the future of the internet, and how regulations and government actions can enable or hinder that vision.

We reflected on a year of compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA) in the EU, and how its emphasis on human rights, transparency, and accountability makes it less likely to harm Wikipedia and other public interest platforms and services. We also shared stories of the Foundation’s experience with strategic litigation aimed to confront lawsuits seeking to deter speech online, and how legislation can help curb these types of legal cases.

Finally, we shared some of our priorities for 2025, which include a focus on child rights and artificial intelligence, and announced English Wikipedia’s most popular articles of 2024.

Read the newsletter and subscribe for more from our team in 2025. 

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Follow us on LinkedIn or on X (formerly Twitter), visit our Meta-Wiki webpage, sign up for our quarterly newsletter to receive updates, and join our Wikipedia policy mailing list. We hope to see you there!

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