[cooperation-wg] Wikimedia Europe and RIPE (Fwd: [WMEU updates] VLOP designation of Wikipedia under the DSA)

Dear RIPE.net Collaboration working group, after meeting some of you at
RIPE#86 meeting and talking to your chair Desire Milosevic, I am making a
second effort in trying to connect RIPE and Wikimedia, now with more
specifically Wikimedia Europe that has been recently formally recognized as
a legal entity and not just a advocacy group (as it used to be for many
years in Brussels) supported by Wikimedia Germany and other affiliates.

Here is the most recent Wikimedia Europe update where I think our shared
focuses overlap and could maybe benefit from inter-personal or
inter-organizational coordination.
As both organizations make strong efforts to work in maximum transparency
to its communities and general public, as well as for the equality and
benefit of all Internet users I am sure this will be possible to do in the
near future and around shared urgencies.

Best Z. Blace


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dimi Dimitrov <dimi at wikimedia.be>
Date: Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 9:30 AM
Subject: [WMEU updates] VLOP designation of Wikipedia under the DSA
To: <updates at wikimedia-europe.eu>

Hi all,

The European Commission has designated Wikipedia as a Very Large Online
Platform. This is no surprise and is based on the user numbers the WMF has
published for the EU (
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal:EU_DSA_Userbase_Statistics). We
estimate that we have 151 million users in the EU, 45 million would have
been required.

There are 19 platforms that fall into this category, we are the only
not-for-profit. This comes with additional obligations and some bragging
rights. With this status I think we can demand high level political
attention in Europe.

On the obligations, I am copying the monitoring report paragraphs below.
Here is also a list of the main points:

   - The DSA is targeted at the service provider (Wikimedia Foundation),
   not the community content moderation
   - The WMF will have to appoint a legal representative in the EU for
   which it will  need to choose a country
   - The notice & action system means that how a user sends complaints to
   the WMF is now clear and the stages that follow.
   - The WMF will have to do annual risk assessments for systemic risks and
   mitigation reports based on them
   - The WMF will need to find an auditor to control the risk assessment
   and mitigation measures
   - The WMF will need to publish its EU user estimate every three months
   - The WMF will have to pay a VLOP fee to the European Commission
   - The WMF is expected to contribute to the EU's moderation decision
   database
   - The WMF will need to demonstrate how it protects minors on Wikipedia

I am available for additional questions, statements or interviews. Below is
the monitoring report section for more detail. Phil Bradley-Scmieg, the WMF
lawyer who is based in Europe and working on this can also be reached by
email or on the public policy mailing list.

=== Digital Services Act ===

WE ARE VLOP. Officially. [1] For those less acquainted with EU terminology:
Wikipedia has been designated as a Very Large Online Platform by the
European Commission, which means that the WMF will have to comply with the
strictest obligations under the Digital Services Act, including regular
risk assessments for systemic risks (including things like public health,
kids’ safety and freedom of expression), publishing mitigation measures
based on them, and then undergoing an external audit. Wikipedia is the only
not-for-profit service that has been designated as a VLOP; the other 18 are
for-profit.

—

This is a chance for Wikimedia to demonstrate that compliance with such
rules can be done in a manner that respects user rights and keeps
communities - not the platform operator - in the driving seat. The
Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is working on compliance and dedicating
significant resources to this. The challenges are serious too. If
regulators cannot be convinced that Wikipedia is properly addressing
“systemic risks”, like election manipulation, then WMF and the community
will be challenged to find additional responses to that.  There’s also
substantial “bureaucracy”: VLOP designation means that the WMF needs to
appoint a legal representative in the EU. It needs to adjust internal
processes so they are in line with the new “notice & action” framework, it
has to set up a process on how to conduct risk assessments and mitigation
reports (annually, and before making significant changes to things), and to
find an appropriate auditor who will grill it on all of these things.

—

VLOPs are also expected to contribute to the European Commission’s
moderation decision database (though whether and how such a database can
comply with EU privacy laws, remains to be seen). Plus, there remains the
not inconsequential task of ensuring all of the other Wikimedia projects -
such as Commons - comply with the DSA’s more general rules.  That’s a lot
of work - and so is convincing the regulators to not forget our model when
they’re writing the guidance and implementing rules - and it is handled by
very lean teams (as openly and collaboratively as they can manage - witness
the TOU update
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Legal_department/2023_ToU_updates>
).


Cheers,
Dimi
-- 
Dimitar Dimitrov
Policy Director
Wikimedia Europe

mobile: +32497720374
Rue Belliard 12 Belliardstraat
Brussels
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.*
www.wikimedia.org

Wikimedia Europe ivzw
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