“Don’t Blink”: Protecting the Wikimedia model, its people, and its values in January 2026 – Diff

“Don’t Blink”: Protecting the Wikimedia model, its people, and its values in January 2026 – Diff
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Image collage for the January 2026 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
X (formerly Twitter)
, and
Bluesky
; and, sign up for our
quarterly newsletter
or
Wikimedia public policy mailing list
________
The Wikimedia Foundation takes to the international policy stage
Over the past two months, the Wikimedia Foundation has had the opportunity to advocate policies that support and protect open, public interest, and community-driven platforms like the Wikimedia projects at two important international policy-setting events: the United Nations General Assembly and the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.
These annual events serve as key inflection points during the year, gathering representatives from national governments, the tech industry, civil society, and more, to share information, strategize, and set policy that will impact both our projects and the internet at large. The Foundation’s presence at these events is a vital reminder to policymakers:
if laws or regulations make it harder to contribute to or access Wikipedia, they are likely also harming other public interest platforms
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly
[Read
our blog post
about our participation and
watch a video
of our remarks]
2025 marked a significant milestone for internet regulation, the 20th anniversary of the
World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS), which the UN used to review the outcomes of that summit in light of the current social and technological landscape. In December 2025, the high-level meeting to review WSIS 20 years after (WSIS+20) was held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, United States. It was an opportunity to engage with global digital policy and it represented a milestone in our international policy advocacy efforts: taking the main stage at the UN General Assembly to brief stakeholders on the Wikimedia model.
As a part of WSIS+20, the Foundation was invited to speak to the UN General Assembly about the Wikimedia projects’ role in global digital governance. Jan Gerlach (Public Policy Director) spoke to the assembled Member States about the role of digital public goods such as Wikipedia and Wikidata in supporting equitable access to information, innovation, and participation in the digital economy. Jan emphasized the need for multistakeholderism in decision making about internet governance, sharing how the original WSIS process brought together various groups and individuals who would go on to build valued digital public goods that the world relies upon today. He highlighted the work of the Wikimedia volunteer community, and championed the idea that communities such as ours should be involved in important policy decisions impacting the future of their work to create and share free and open knowledge.
Read
our blog post
about our participation and
watch a video
of our remarks.
Making connections at the World Economic Forum
[Watch
an interview
with Jimmy Wales at Davos]
In January 2026, a group representing the Foundation traveled to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, one of the most influential stages for global policy. Every year the WEF hosts world leaders, multinational businesses, NGOs, journalists, at the snowy town of Davos, which turns into a hub for those interested in addressing global issues and shaping the world’s future.
In this dynamic environment, the Foundation had many opportunities to connect with other attendees and share our perspective on policy issues: a lunch discussion to teach participants about the Wikimedia model, a fireside chat, and many informal meetings with other stakeholders interested in internet policy. We also hosted a high-level panel featuring Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia Founder and Wikimedia Foundation Board Member), which discussed the future of knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence, followed by a celebration of Wikipedia’s 25th birthday at Frontiers Science House. Costanza Sciubba Caniglia (Knowledge Integrity Strategy Lead), who is a member of WEF’s Global Futures Council (GFC) on Information Integrity, attended a GFC briefing to hear insider insights and lessons from that year’s forum.
Watch
an interview
with Jimmy Wales at Davos.
Explore the connections between the Wikimedia projects and the broader global information ecosystem
The Wikimedia projects provide access to open knowledge that answers the world’s questions in hundreds of languages and on a wide array of topics, ranging from pop culture to world events to science. However, content on the projects does not simply originate there: for every fact you look up on Wikipedia, there is a source behind that fact, be it a newspaper article, a scientific journal, or a reference text. This verifiability is one of the reasons Wikipedia is a
trusted source
for reliable information and has become the
backbone of knowledge online
, including for many generative AI applications. Just as Wikipedia depends on sources to bring knowledge to the world, many emerging technologies depend on Wikipedia to provide accurate answers to their users. As AI is increasingly adopted by individuals, governments, and businesses, the Foundation is exploring how to better support the knowledge ecosystems that came first, whose foundations are the hard work of the people who built them.
Sharing why the open knowledge movement and public interest journalism must unite forces
[Read
the report
from InternetLab and
our blog post
about its findings]
We recently shared a report authored by Brazilian think tank
InternetLab
, which we supported so that it could examine the relationship between public interest journalism and open knowledge projects like Wikipedia. The report explores the findings of a workshop organized by InternetLab in collaboration with
Momentum — Journalism and Tech Task Force
, which brought together experts, researchers, and civil society representatives working in the fields of journalism, open knowledge, and digital rights in Brazil and other countries in the Global South.
The report highlights the interdependence of the open knowledge ecosystem, including digital public goods like Wikipedia and Wikidata, with primary sources of knowledge like public interest journalism. It also names the common challenges that journalism and open knowledge face at present. The report calls for several joint actions to support both of these vital public services: developing models where access is preserved for the general public but requires that extractors like AI companies pay for use; publicly investing in independent journalism; and creating knowledge sharing networks to reduce costs and exchange legal assistance and licensing expertise.
Read
the report
from InternetLab and
our blog post
about its findings.
Examining the threat posed by AI to the open knowledge ecosystem
[Read Costanza’s
interview
(in Spanish) with
Expansión
and learn more about
our participation
at the AI India Summit]
Stan Adams (Lead Public Policy Specialist, North America) and Ricky Gaines (Human Rights Policy Lead) joined the
AI Governance and Global Economic Development hybrid event
hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology. At the event, Stan Adams spoke on a panel about the Foundation’s approach to content reuse in the context of web scraping for AI training, explaining that the Foundation’s approach of seeking partnerships with companies that heavily rely on using Wikimedia projects’ content helps sustain the projects and keeps them open and free.
This event served as a precursor to India’s
AI Impact Summit
, held in New Delhi from 16–20 February. In the next recap, we will share more about
our participation
at the Summit.
Like many other public interest services and governments around the world, the Foundation continues to grapple with the impact of AI on knowledge sharing and hosting. In an interview with Mexican magazine
Expansión
, Costanza Sciubba Caniglia spoke about Wikipedia’s resilience to disinformation and the importance of the work that editors do on the Wikipedia projects in an age of knowledge sharing that is increasingly disconnected from the humans behind that knowledge.
Read Costanza’s
interview
(in Spanish) with
Expansión
and learn more about
our participation
at the India AI Impact Summit.
Addressing harms online should not negatively affect the best of the internet
What Brazil’s ECA can tell us about online safety laws
[Read
our blog post
explaining our submissions related to the ECA Digital]
Online safety has been a hot topic in policy recently. Governments around the world are attempting to address the consequences that several decades of rapid technological development and widespread internet access has had on the world, and in particular, on children. We have lately seen a number of well-intentioned bills that attempt to protect children online, but also negatively impact public interest projects like Wikipedia.
In January 2026, we shared a blog post discussing several recent submissions related to Brazil’s new online safety law, the ECA Digital. In these submissions, we asked Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security as well as its National Data Protection Authority to take into consideration, when considering how to apply portions of the law related to age verification, the positive impact that public interest projects like Wikipedia have on access to knowledge along with the educational nature of the platforms. Age-verification is the process of verifying a person’s identity in order to provide or prevent access to certain content. As such, it has the potential to impact important human rights, including privacy, free expression and access to knowledge. For these reasons, we urged proportionality in enforcement of the ECA Digital, so that it can still address the most egregious harms online while preserving the best parts of the internet.
Read
our blog post
explaining our submissions related to the ECA Digital.
________
Check out the latest issue of the Global Advocacy quarterly newsletter!
[Read
the newsletter
and
subscribe for quarterly updates
The ninth issue of our Global Advocacy newsletter closed out 2025 with a look at our hopes for the new year—and the challenges that Wikipedia will face in an increasingly complex online landscape.
Among various topics, the newsletter celebrates Wikidata’s recognition as a digital public good, shares findings from our AI and Machine Learning Human Rights Impact Assessment report, and offers details about our work with the TAROCH Coalition to publish a statement supporting access to cultural heritage online.
Read more in
the newsletter
and
subscribe for quarterly updates
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________
Follow us on
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!
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