Wikipedia has passed its first audit required due to its designation as a Very Large Online Platform under the EU's new Digital Services Act (see prior Signpost coverage). The audit was conducted by an outside entity, named Holistic AI, for the Wikimedia Foundation, as reported by Holistic's press release. The Foundation has published the audit, its own "Audit Implementation Report" and related documents on its website.
The audit report found some non-material non-compliance in the area of providing the Terms of Use in every official national language of the EU member states, to affect Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Romania, and further requested that Wikimedia-controlled translations be made for all languages other than English, rather than community translations, in order to avoid unintentional changes in meaning and to provide email emergency and other regulation-relevant contacts directly, rather than through separately linked web pages. The auditors also noted:
Another recommendation is to establish a separate ToU for the EU, free from references to non-EU legislation or mechanisms, to better align with the access requirements under Article 14.
— Holistic AI 2024 DSA audit, Article 14 response, page 25
This recommendation that the Wikimedia Foundation ought to provide nation-specific Terms of Use appears to have been rebuffed with this response from the Foundation, referring to a singular ToU: "The Wikimedia Foundation will review the ToU to make it less US-centric and to ensure contact information is easily accessible."
In its European Policy Monitoring Report for November 2024, Wikimedia Europe notes that besides this audit, Wikipedia's annual obligations under the DSA also include
A Systemic Risk Assessment and Mitigation (SRAM) Register. This is basically a living document where the WMF identifies risks and keeps track of mitigation measures.
Wikipedia, according to the documents, meets the obligations under the DSA, albeit improvement recommendations are made. The systemic risk register lists “disinformation” and “harassment” as immediate priorities with corresponding mitigation measures.
In other EU news, Wikimedia Europe reported that, on November 27, a new European Commission was officially approved by the European Parliament, and started its five-year term on December 1. As kindly highlighted by Wikimedia Europe itself and euronews, the Commission – once again led by Germany's Ursula von der Leyen – includes some faces who will likely become more and more familiar to tech experts and Wikipedia members in the next few years.
First up, it's Finland's Henna Virkkunen (EPP), who will serve as Executive Vice President and European Commissioner for Digital and Frontier Technologies. After serving two terms as an MEP and being elected for a third term last June, Virkkunen will be tasked with managing the Commission's digitalisation strategy, including matters such as the Copyright Directive and the implementation of the Digital Services Act (DSA) – which she had led the EU Parliament's work on – as well as the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). Then, there's Bulgaria's Ekaterina Zaharieva (also from the EPP), who will be the European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, whose primary targets will include improving conditions for start-up and scale-up companies and setting up a new research council on AI.
In their analysis of Zaharieva and Virkkunen's November hearings, Communia highlighted a few key insights on copyright policy:
"From a copyright perspective, there was nothing surprising or unexpected in the hearings. While we understand the heavy emphasis on generative AI, we would like to see more work being done to promote the public interest.
The commitment to the idea of a 'fifth freedom' for knowledge and the support for a European Research Area Act are commendable. We fully support this proposal, but would encourage the incoming Commission to be even bolder and, in addition, propose a more comprehensive intervention – a Digital Knowledge Act – that benefits all kinds of knowledge institutions, including universities and research institutions, but also libraries, archives and cultural heritage institutions. If we want to unlock the full potential of European knowledge institutions, we need to address the barriers that currently prevent them from fulfilling their public service mission, including in the field of copyright."
The Wikimedia Europe "deep-dive" article also shed a light on two more relevant Commissioners for the organization: Ireland's Michael McGrath (RE) and Malta's Glenn Micallef (PES). McGrath will serve as the European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, and the Rule of Law: although his portfolio is quite wide, The Irish Times reported that he will have responsibility on developing the Digital Fairness Act – which aims to tackle dark patterns and influencer marketing – and improve co-operation between national data protection regulators. During his hearing, McGrath stated that he would "deepen the work to counter foreign information manipulation and interference and disinformation", among other tasks needed to "put citizens at the heart of our democracy".
On the other hand, as the new Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture, and Sport, Micallef will contribute to address the issues of child protection, cyberbullying and "addictive design" that might trick users and consumers into increasing their engagement on digital platforms. The youngest member of the Commission by far, Micallef pointed out during his hearing that "social media's ability to amplify voices and movements has made them a powerful tool for youth engagement, but navigating them requires critical thinking."
In their own conclusions, Wikimedia Europe noted how the work and the positioning of the new Commission on each of the aforementioned topics might be significantly impacted by the thin supporting majority and the rise of new right-wing political groups in the Parliament, writing quote:
– O"For Wikimedia, the new political landscape comes with some unforeseeable risks, but could also open up new avenues.
For the time being, it seems that the EPP [group], and its chair, Manfred Weber, can play the pivotal role. Developments at the national and international level, and a different political stance of the S&D group, could overturn this situation. It would not be bold to say that the EU has challenging years ahead."
On December 5, Wiki Loves Earth publicly announced the top 20 of the best pictures submitted by users around the world for the 2024 edition of the annual photographic contest, which historically aims to highlight the conservation areas of each participating country and collect new images under free licenses.
According to the official data, a record 56 countries and territories took part in this year's competition, with more than 80,100 submissions from over 3,800 different uploaders. Germany registered by far the highest number of submissions, with 16,921 total uploads; Ukraine ended in second place with 6,438 uploads, while Senegal came in third (just) with 3,774 uploads.
After each country had chosen their local winners, the jury of WLE, formed by professional photographers, experts, and Wikimedians, gathered to select the 20 international winners of the contest, divided as usual in two categories: "Landscapes" (including individual trees that are considered natural monuments) and "Macro/close-up" (involving pictures of animals, plants and fungi). Two more special sections dedicated, respectively, to human rights-themed images and video nominations were also hosted.
You can discover the international winners of WLE 2024 here and here. Enjoy! – O
Since the latest Signpost issue covering them in October this year, there have been three Wikimedia Foundation bulletins: early November, late November, and early December.
The 2023-24 Fundraising report was published. Fundraising grew by 0.51% since 2022-23 (in comparison to a 2.7% growth from 2021-22 to 2022-23) to reach $170.5 million. The number of unique donations increased by 2.5 million to total 17.4 million. The WMF published a post about the 2024 Fundraising Campaign in English.
The WMF Board of Trustees met in August 2024, voting to dissolve its Talent & Culture Committee (BoT minutes can be read at the Foundation wiki). Tulu Wikisource and Moore Wikipedia went live.
An open call went out for Wikimania 2027 and 2028. Any communities interested in hosting should make an 'Expression of Interest' by 27 January 2025.
Charts Extension, planned to replace the abandoned Graphs extension, was enabled on Commons and three pilot Wikipedias. The Graphs extension had been disabled sitewide in April 2023 over security concerns. – S
As part of the Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation saga, the Foundation published an update on 3 December 2024. WMF staffer Quiddity (WMF) clarified that the Foundation had delivered a summons to the three editors involved in the case without disclosing information about them to ANI. There have been two more hearings since then, and a Delhi High Court Justice is now planning to read the sources used to reference the defamation lawsuit – see more in-depth coverage at "In the media". – S
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