Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-03-23/In the media



Angolan file sharers cause trouble for Wikipedia Zero
Motherboard, the tech website of Vice magazine, features two articles by Jason Koebler on the rise of Wikipedia Zero as a free file sharing platform in Angola (March 23, 25).

The sharing of copyrighted files via Wikipedia Zero conflicts with Wikimedia sites' copyright rules, and volunteers from Portuguese-language Wikimedia projects (Angola is a former Portuguese colony, thus Portuguese is widely spoken there) recently raised their troubles with Angolan Wikipedia Zero users on the Wikimedia-l mailing list (see the brief note in last week's Signpost issue).

The problems were first brought to the Wikimedia Foundation's attention last summer; they are complicated by the fact that Angola has some of the laxest copyright laws in the world: what Angolan users are doing may, in some cases, not even be illegal in their country. But the Wikimedia Foundation is located in the United States, and a Phabricator task has been created in response to Koebler's article to "prevent Wikipedia Zero exploitation of uploads to share copyrighted media".

Koebler maintains that this kind of situation is a natural consequence of "digital colonialism". In a follow-up article he argues that "Wikipedia doesn't realise it's the developing world's Internet gatekeeper":

To many Angolans, Koebler says, living in a country where 50 MB of mobile data costs $2.50 and the median annual salary is $720, Wikipedia Zero and Facebook Zero (now renamed Free Basics) have simply become the Internet.

The Wikimedia Foundation sent Koebler a response to his first article, which he posted online. Koebler essentially dismissed the response, and frames the dispute as part of a larger debate about zero-rated services against the backdrop of the Indian government's recent decision to outlaw zero-rated services on net neutrality grounds:

Koebler quotes Vishal Misra, a Columbia University professor who provided testimony to the Indian parliament in the recent debates. Noting that the Wikimedia Foundation has received less criticism than Facebook for its zero-rated service, Misra says:

TechDirt's Tim Cushing has also weighed in (March 25), saying that "Zero-rating – the nifty trick companies use to edge around net neutrality rules – is being offered to developing countries as a way to provide cheap internet access to their citizens. There's a bit of altruism in the offerings, but there's also a lot of walls surrounding gardens." He agrees with Koebler that there are three possible solutions to the situation in Angola, all of which are unpalatable: The debate is likely to continue, and it seems certain that both Internet activists and intellectual property rights advocates will closely watch the Wikimedia movement's response.
 * 1) The Wikimedia Foundation could pull the service from Angola – but this would deprive many impoverished citizens of their only access to the internet.
 * 2) Volunteers could start playing whack-a-mole with content and new Wikipedia/Facebook accounts – but this imposes a heavy burden on volunteers and is really "no solution at all".
 * 3) Angolan users start to "behave themselves". However, this third solution is actually the worst solution of all, Cushing argues, following Koebler's line of reasoning:

The 3D printer edit war
The edit war at RepRap project, briefly mentioned in last week's "In the media", is the subject of an in-depth report (March 23) in Motherboard by Roisin Kiberd. Conflicts between contributors at the Wikipedia article focused on the fact that much of its lengthy content lacked references to independent secondary sources.

, a veteran contributor to discussions at the conflict of interest noticeboard, is quoted at some length in Kiberd's report on the difficulty of editing topics in Wikipedia that people feel passionate about:

Jytdog eventually told Kiberd that he would no longer take part in editing the article – as did one of his opponents,, who declared the effort "a waste of time." Kiberd wondered whether Jytdog had done the right thing in reverting his own changes, which had deleted much unsourced and primary-sourced material. Jytdog responded:

"Change and turmoil, not stability"
In the Christian Science Monitor, Simon DeDeo examines (March 24) the evolution of Wikipedia's complex social norms, noting "an evolving ecosystem of ideas" marked by many competing agendas, as well as a strong founder effect:

The history of Wikipedia's culture, he says, is a "fundamentally social affair" whose evolutionary course no one could have predicted, marked by "turmoil and change – not stability". 

In brief

 * NSFW: Cracked.com pokes fun at some of Wikipedia's explicit sexual illustrations. (Mar. 25)
 * Limerick: Irish men's website Joe.ie chronicles some vandalism edits to Limerick Institute of Technology, University of Limerick and Waterford Institute of Technology. (Mar. 24–25)
 * Megadeth: Loudwire plays "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction" with Megadeth star Dave Mustaine. Mustaine apparently had so much to say that the episode is published in two instalments. Guitar Player covers the interview and wonders, "Who's going to make all these corrections on Dave's page?" (Mar. 23)
 * Wales in Romania: Romanian English-language business news website actmedia.eu is among many Romanian sites covering Jimmy Wales' recent visit to Romania, describing him as "the genius behind Wikipedia". (Mar. 23)
 * Women and Wikipedia: The Link looks at the history of Wikipedia's gender gap. (Mar. 21)
 * Monkey selfie appeal: TechDirt and The Daily Dot are among sites reporting that PETA has appealed its loss in the monkey selfie copyright suit. (Mar. 20–21)