Projekt:Podcast/Avsnitt 205
Avsnitt 205
Inspelningsdatum: 3 december 2022
Publiceringsdatum: 21 december 2022
Lyssna:
Extern länk: https://wikipediapodden.se/episode-205-big-fat-advocacy/
Programanteckningar
Programledare är Jan Ainali.
Special episode
Interview with Dimi Dimitrov, Director of Public Policy at Wikimedia Europe, about the Big Fat Brussels Meeting VIII (where this episode was recorded).
Transcript
and now we are hiring the third person in Brussels. Now, this can be a bad thing as well, because I always thought we get a lot of credibility from lawmakers when we say, look, we are a small office. I'm alone. We're just two people trying to handle all of Europe for Wikimedia. This is Jan Ainali for WikipediaPodden in Brussels at the big fat Brussels meeting. I'm here with Dimi Dimitrov for Wikimedia Europe, I think it is now. Soon to be legally incorporated. And what is the Big Fat Brussels Meeting? It's a community and staff meeting that happens, well, used to happen every year. Now with the pandemic, we had a break. And that basically just makes sure that all people who are interested in public policy and advocacy work in Europe come together once a year, share with each other what they work on, and then also decide on some priorities or solve some questions together. Because there are quite a few questions around copyright, but also around privacy, where it would be good if we as a movement have sort of a joint principled position. And that's quite a lot of different kind of topics you touch on really there. How is the interest from the people participating? Are they unified or is it very diverse? It's diverse enough, especially you can see based on when people joined the movement, whether they are rather recent or rather old, that also the views on some things have changed and developed. Maybe it's a generational thing, who knows? I mean, we're approaching this time as a movement where we have different generations of Wikimedians. But I think the group is small enough. We are 35 people here today. It's small enough, and you can see that people can unite around what they want to achieve. So sometimes we argue about what's the best way to get there. So we argue a lot about tactics and about strategy, but I think the overarching vision is there, and we have it. How has this meeting, perhaps, or perhaps even Wikimedia advocacy, how has that evolved? You have been involved in this for many years now. How has this evolved from your viewpoint? Well, when we started, we were basically a Wikipedia fan club that cared narrowly about one single copyright exception, which, yeah, I mean, back then, maybe you remember, maybe many people remember. We had a lot of discussions. Do we even want to do advocacy and policy? And then there was the SOPA, PIPA, ACTA files that sort of pushed us over the line and where it became clear. Even if we don't want to be political, we need to have a position on some laws that will regulate Wikipedia. So it evolved in that sense that now we're looking at the internet and that knowledge sharing in a much more global way. So for instance, we have clear advocacy agendas when it comes to access to knowledge, but we also have a clear advocacy agenda when it comes to protecting our users, the Wikimedia Foundation users, that the Indian or the Iranian or the Chinese or any other government shouldn't just be able to come to us and ask us, tell me what this person read on Wikipedia. And this is basically not only happening in countries where you would expect it, like you get such requests also from the EU and in the US. So it's very important that the laws are in place so you can say, no, no, no. Without the judge order, we won't give you anything. And we are also looking at the infrastructure already basically because if we really want an equitable network, then everybody needs to be able to connect to it. And that is not very easy for us to advocate on. It's also not our top priority because we're not an internet service provider. But we can still have a position that, for instance, non-for-profit platforms should have an equal access to internet traffic and internet exchange points and that net neutrality is very important in order so also smaller and non-for-profit organizations get access to this global network. So yeah, it's very holistic by now. And of course, it started off with, I think I was one of the first people who got paid for advocacy, probably not the first one because there was already somebody in Berlin. But I started with a six-month part-time contract. And now we are hiring the third person in Brussels. Now, this can be a bad thing as well because I always thought we get a lot of credibility from lawmakers when we say, look, we're a small office. I'm a loner. We're just two people trying to handle all of Europe for Wikimedia. That came with some sympathies. Now, when we say, yeah, we have somebody employed in Stockholm, in Prague, in Berlin, in Brussels, and in Paris, and in DC doing globally advocacy, we cannot play the card that we're this small underdog organization anymore. But maybe we don't have to. Maybe it's us from the, let's call it, the non-for-profit community-driven internet is completely underrepresented in all discussions. It's mostly like rights holders and big tech companies and some legislators arguing with each other. So maybe this can be our role when it comes to political discussions or policy discussions, rather, that we need to represent this portion of the internet that wants to have a community, its citizens, its internet citizens in the driving seat and not just be a private structure. And for the meeting that is here now, is there any specific topic that you see the participants are excited about or feel is urgent? There are quite a few things. I just participated, I think, an hour ago in a session on privacy. And I found that there was a very complicated question for us to answer and something that is already a problem for us, but also for the Wikimedia Foundation legally and that will increasingly become so. Many, many jurisdictions introduce rules where you need to check whether the user is under or over 16 years old. Theoretically, I mean, it's a bit unclear whether the GDPR already introduced that or not. Depending on the lawyer, they might give you different questions. But regardless of the GDPR, such legislation is coming up in Australia and the UK and the US. So it won't stop now. And it is a real question that we need to answer. Because we agree we want a safe space for all our users, including children. But we also agree as a principle that we don't want to collect the data on our users. And suddenly, when it comes to age verification, it's like, in order to do this, we need to collect more data, which would make us collect more information about our users, which we don't want to do. But we also want to protect children. So here, I think, is an opportunity for us without being these people. I mean, because we like privacy laws. We don't need to go out and say, hey, let's abolish the GDPR. No, but I think there is space in the political debate for a very sane voice and an organization and the movement that says, hey, we're trying to do things right. But currently, the law is set up in a way that there is a conflict. Because in order to be respectful of people's privacy and security, we need to collect more about them. And I think this is a role we should play. And hopefully, this will lead to a better political discussion in Brussels and not just the extremists taking over. Oh, yes. Very interesting topic, yeah. Finally, what do you hope that the participants go home and take with them and what they're doing next? Not what's happening on your plate, but what do you hope that others will do after this? First of all, I think what many of the participants need after not having been together physically for quite a long time is that the participants, they just need to get energized again. They need to be in a room for two days with people who think like them or that they can exchange ideas with in order to feel like, yeah, I'm really part of a group and I really want to do this. Because we've seen that over the past two, three years, many people who are active, they just don't have the energy anymore. And I feel like I would like them to be re-energized. And then we were also discussing that doing public policy and advocacy, there is this very clear standard legislative side to it where you look at laws and suggest amendments, simply put. But there is also this image-making side to it. So you need to be in a position where people listen to you. And for this, we need more what we called hearts and minds events and initiatives, basically showing that making people just see what Wikipedia is and see that it's fun. And it can be a Wikichese event that we organized here in Brussels. It can be other initiatives. So for instance, many Wikipedia have special rules during elections in their countries. I don't know how it's in Sweden, but for instance, in Bulgaria, we lock politicians' articles during the official election campaign, which is one month, the last four weeks before the election date. Why? Because we're like about 100 active people, probably, at any given time. And during an election campaign, there are literally thousands of PR professionals who are going around the internet and trying to improve the image of their clients. And it's impossible for us to stop it in this short amount of time. So we tend to log these articles. I'm sure many other language versions have such special rules. I know for the Spanish Wikipedia that they have such a rule. It would be interesting if we could sort of map this out and see which Wikipedia has which rules, because this then would also be very interesting for politicians to look at, because now in every single country, they're discussing disinformation and how to assure credible information, and also discussing campaign rules, and advertising rules, and online content moderation rules. I think without advocating directly for one or another procedure, just by mapping this out into saying, hey, here, this is how 27 Wikipedias do it differently or do it the same, that would just be something interesting that people can read. So I mean, this would be something that I would love to see. So if anybody's listening and would like to work with me on such a project, please get in touch. Oh, great. Thank you for taking the time, Dimi, for talking to this. And thank you for organizing the Big Fat Brussels meeting. Thank you. This was actually a lot of fun. Thank you. This was Jan Ainali interviewing Dimi Dimitrov in the first of three episodes from the Big Fat Brussels meeting. You'll find upcoming episodes under the tag Big Fat Brussels meeting on wikipedia.se. You can also find more episodes in English there under the tag English. Both are, of course, linked in the show notes. And I'll see you next time.