“Don’t Blink”: Protecting the Wikimedia model, its people, and its values in September 2025

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, X (formerly Twitter), and Bluesky; and, sign up for our quarterly newsletter or Wikimedia public policy mailing list.

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Publishing the Foundation’s Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Human Rights Impact Assessment
[Learn more about the report in our blog post and read the full report on Meta-Wiki]

The Foundation recently published a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) focused on how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) interact with the Wikimedia projects. As a part of our commitment to protect and uphold the human rights of all those who interact with Wikimedia projects, the Foundation has conducted several of these impact assessments, including an organization-wide assessment and one which addresses children’s rights. Our latest HRIA report analyzes the impacts, opportunities, and risks emanating from the use of AI and ML technologies in the Wikimedia ecosystem.

The report does not identify any actual observed risks and harms that have resulted from the use of ML or AI technologies on Wikimedia projects to date. It does, however, consider several potential risks associated with generative AI (GenAI) that could happen in the future—including the risk that GenAI could increase the scale, speed, and sophistication of harmful content generation, which could be used to spread disinformation in many languages on the projects and/or attack individual Wikimedia volunteers or communities. It also considered risks that could result from content from Wikimedia projects being used to train GenAI models, including the risk of those models being used to cause harm downstream of our projects. Finally, the report also considered the Foundation’s own development of AI tools, concluding that they could have a positive impact on rights such as freedom of expression and to education, while cautioning that such tools may still present risks similar to those associated with any AI/ML-enabled tools.

The report contains recommendations for addressing the potential risks it identifies and notes that the Foundation and the Wikimedia community have already implemented a number of strategies and processes to mitigate these risks.

Learn more about the report in our blog post and read the full report on Meta-Wiki.

Supporting libraries, archives, and museums by signing a statement to protect memory institutions
[Read the Digital Rights Statement and the Internet Archive’s blog post about our support]

The Foundation recently signed a statement as a part of the “Our Future Memory” campaign led by the Internet Archive, which supports the legal rights of memory institutions to continue preserving and sharing important information online. Memory institutions—that is, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM)—provide a vital public service, preserving and providing access to important cultural, artistic, and scientific knowledge. However, as the work of these institutions has partially or wholly moved online, the protections that allow them to do so offline have not fully extended to the digital world. The Digital Rights Statement calls for policymakers to recognize the value of these institutions by making sure the legal environment protects and encourages their ability to: collect materials in digital form; preserve digital materials; provide controlled access to digital materials; and cooperate with other memory institutions by sharing and/or transferring collections.

Read the Digital Rights Statement and the Internet Archive’s blog post about our support.

Representing Wikimedia and free knowledge at important international forums
[Learn more about the United Nation General Assembly’s WSIS+20 review and read more about the role of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance]

This September, members of the Global Advocacy team attended two important events dedicated to international cooperation and dialogue around pressing internet policy: the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the European Union-Latin America and Caribbean (EU-LAC) Digital Alliance Political Dialogue.

The 80th Session of the UNGA provided an opportunity to share Wikimedia’s experience and insights as a community-led, public interest platform with representatives from governments and key international bodies. It also marked an important anniversary that will affect the future of internet governance: 20 years ago, the World Summit on Information and Society (WSIS) brought together UN Member States to draft a recommendation for global development online. Throughout this year, 2025, the UN is conducting a review of these recommendations— called WSIS+20—with the aim of adapting them to a changing world and technological landscape. It is crucial that civil society input is considered in this review, and we were thankful for the opportunity to provide that input on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation and volunteer communities at the UNGA. We will continue engaging with the WSIS process until its completion, in December 2025.

The EU-LAC Digital Alliance is a collaboration between Latin American, Caribbean, and EU countries that aims to harmonize digital policies and regulations. Its most recent Political Dialogue brought together representatives from these states, along with representatives from regional organizations and civil society, to discuss priority topics around digital cooperation. At the dialogue, we emphasized the importance of creating a legal environment that fosters the growth and success of community-led projects, and advocated the inclusion of open source models and human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) in the Latin American AI Index used to assess the development of artificial intelligence in the region. 

Learn more about the United Nation General Assembly’s WSIS+20 review and read more about the role of the EU-LAC Digital Alliance.

Sharing how AI can support free knowledge at the Open Technology Institute’s 15th anniversary celebration
[Watch Tajh Taylor’s talk on YouTube]

The Open Technology Institute (OTI) recently marked its 15th anniversary with an event celebrating the past 15 years of shaping technology policy and imagining what the next 15 years might bring. The event featured lightning talks addressing cutting-edge issues in the fields of technology and policy, including artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving privacy expectations online.

Tajh Taylor (Special Advisor to the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation) presented a lightning talk titled “AI in Defense of Free Knowledge,” where he shared some of the risks and opportunities that AI presents to the free knowledge ecosystem. Tajh described how AI makes the production of disinformation easier while not reducing the burden of fact-checking that information. He also explained the Foundation’s approach to AI, which centers on people, developing tools to help volunteer contributors to perform their work more effectively and devote more time to offering their local expertise to the content on Wikipedia.

Watch Tajh’s talk on YouTube.

Celebrating “Wiki Week” at the University of Illinois Chicago
[Learn more about Wiki Week]

The University of Illinois Chicago celebrated “Wiki Week” this past September, an event dedicated to celebrating the connection between the Wikimedia projects and universities. At the event, Stan Adams (Lead Public Policy Specialist for North America) and Costanza Sciubba Caniglia (Anti-Disinformation Strategy Lead) spoke on a panel titled “Information (and) Justice: How Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation shape Knowledge Equity.”

In their talk, Costanza and Stan explained the Foundation’s approach to public policy and the legal challenges that Wikimedia projects face around the world. They also highlighted how the Wikimedia communities of volunteers work to promote information integrity and reduce systemic bias, and discussed opportunities for researchers who work on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This event was an important celebration of the relationship between the Wikimedia projects and educational institutions, emphasizing how the world can benefit from these collaborations dedicated to free and open knowledge.

Learn more about Wiki Week.

Appealing a Portuguese lawsuit to the European Court of Human Rights 
[Read our blog post about the case]

After a long and complicated legal process, the Foundation has been handed a disappointing result in the César do Paço lawsuit in Portugal, which we intend to contest in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). We believe this case is something called a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), meaning that it is an attempt to use the courts to censor information that is important for the public. Since 2023, we have been fighting a preliminary order in this case that sought to delete information from the English and Portuguese versions of the Wikipedia articles about do Paço as well as reveal information about the volunteers who contributed to the articles so do Paço could sue them for defamation.

Most recently, the Portuguese Constitutional Court rejected our request to suspend the order that required these deletions and disclosures on procedural grounds. This decision left us with no further avenues of appeal within Portugal, which meant we needed to comply with the order. However, this is not the end of the do Paço case. The preliminary order was meant to prevent harm to do Paço’s reputation while the courts considered the case. The case still needs to proceed to a main trial where the main trial court will fully determine whether the content of the articles is accurate and whether Paço’s rights were violated. We have also decided to lodge a complaint to the ECtHR about the case, arguing that the order violated the rights of Wikipedia users and that the procedure did not adequately respect our right to a fair hearing. We hope that the ECtHR will recognize the need for stronger protections against SLAPPs like this, especially those that seek to identify good faith volunteer contributors sharing well-sourced information.

Read our blog post about the case.

Check out the latest issue of the Global Advocacy quarterly newsletter! 
[Read the newsletter and subscribe for quarterly updates]

The seventh issue of our Global Advocacy newsletter features the Wikipedia Test, a tool that can help policymakers, civil society, and platforms hosts consider whether a proposed law or regulation can cause an unexpected negative impact on online spaces that serve the public interest. Among various topics, the newsletter also provides an update on our legal challenge to a part of the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA), explains the continued stalemate with our application to be an official observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and celebrates the volunteer contributors from across the world who were recognized as Wikimedian of the Year at Wikimania 2025.

Read more in the newsletter and subscribe for quarterly updates!

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