SAN FRANCISCO: The foundation that operates Wikipedia will launch its first global code of conduct on Tuesday, seeking to address criticism that it has failed to combat harassment and suffers from a lack of diversity.
"We need to be much more inclusive," said María Sefidari, the chair of board of trustees for the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. "We are missing a lot of voices, we're missing women, we're missing marginalized groups."
Online platforms have come under intense scrutiny for abusive behavior, violent rhetoric and other forms of problematic content, pushing them to revamp content rules and more strictly enforce them.
Unlike Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc which take more top-down approaches to content moderation, the online encyclopedia, which turned 20 years old last month, largely relies on unpaid volunteers to handle issues around users' behavior.
Wikimedia said more than 1,500 Wikipedia volunteers from five continents and 30 languages participated in the creation of the new rules after the board of trustees voted in May last year to develop new binding standards.
"There's been a process of change throughout the communities," Katherine Maher, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said in an interview with Reuters. "It took time to build the support that was necessary to do the consultations for people to understand why this is a priority."
The new code of conduct bans harassment on and off the site, barring behaviors like hate speech, the use of slurs, stereotypes or attacks based on personal characteristics, as well as threats of physical violence and 'hounding,' or following someone across different articles to critique their work.
It also bans deliberately introducing false or biased information into content. Wikipedia is a relatively trusted site compared to major social media platforms which have struggled to curb misinformation.
Maher said some users' concerns that the new rules meant the site was becoming more centralized were unfounded.
Wikipedia has 230,000 volunteer editors who work on crowdsourced articles and more than 3,500 'administrators' who can take actions like blocking accounts or restricting edits on certain pages. Sometimes, complaints are decided on by panels of users elected by the communities.
Wikimedia said the next phase of the project would be working on the rules' enforcement.
"A code of conduct without enforcement...is not going to be useful," said Sefidari. "We're going to figure this out with the communities," she said.
Maher said there would be training for communities and interested task-forces of users.
Wikimedia has no immediate plans to beef up its small 'trust and safety' team, a group of about a dozen staff which currently acts on urgent matters such as death threats or the sharing of people's private information, she said.
Wikipedia launches new global rules to combat site abuses
https://arab.news/8zavu
Wikipedia launches new global rules to combat site abuses
- Wikipedia will launch its first global code of conduct on Tuesday
- The new code of conduct bans harassment on and off the site
Inaugural Saudi Festival of Creativity to be held in Riyadh
- Event to be hosted by Motivate Media Group, TRACCS
DUBAI: UAE-based Motivate Media Group, and communications consultancy TRACCS — which started in and is headquartered in Saudi Arabia — have announced the launch of the inaugural Athar — Saudi Festival of Creativity, in Riyadh in November.
The festival aims to bring together the creative and marketing industries in Saudi Arabia to recognize and celebrate them.
Mohamed Al-Ayed, vice chairman of Athar Festival and CEO of TRACCS, said that the event would “enable and empower a new generation of creative-first Saudi marketers and inspire the sustainable development of the country.”
The festival — which is being held over four days — will include a variety of training courses, roundtables, C-suite sessions, young talent competitions, and an awards ceremony.
It will also boast exclusive programs for women and executive marketers.
The awards will be presented to agencies, networks, and brands, and will be verified by Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx.
Ian Fairservice, chairman of Athar Festival and managing partner and group editor-in-chief of Motivate Media Group, said: “The festival will be a dynamic and vibrant meeting place in Saudi Arabia where culture, creativity, talent, and technology will collide.
“It is a celebration of the power of creativity in an environment that inspires cultural exchange, collaborative innovation, tangible learning, and training and development.”
Russia fines WhatsApp for first time for not deleting banned content
- WhatsApp has previously been fined for its alleged refusal to comply with Russian data law and store Russian users’ data on servers in the country
MOSCOW: A Russian court on Thursday fined messenger service WhatsApp $37,080 (3 million rubles) for not deleting banned content, its first fine in Russia for that offense.
Although WhatsApp’s parent company Meta Platforms Inc. was last year banned in Russia as an “extremist” organization, the messenger app — which is widely popular in Russia — has not previously faced penalties for failing to remove prohibited information.
Other Meta services, Facebook and Instagram — now banned in Russia — have been fined over content, as have the likes of Twitter and Alphabet’s Google.
WhatsApp, however, has previously been fined for its alleged refusal to comply with Russian data law and store Russian users’ data on servers in the country.
The RIA news agency reported that Thursday’s fine was due to WhatsApp’s refusal to remove information about the drug Lyrica, whose sale and manufacture are prohibited in Russia.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside US business hours.
Moscow has for years clashed with Big Tech over content, censorship, data and local representation in disputes that escalated after Russia sent its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Iran starts trial of female journalist who covered Amini’s death
- Hamedi, along with another female journalist, Elaheh Mohammadi, who went on trial on Monday, face several charges including "colluding with hostile powers"
- Iran's intelligence ministry in October accused Mohammadi and Hamedi, both imprisoned for over eight months, of being CIA foreign agents
DUBAI: A Revolutionary Court in Iran on Tuesday began the trial of a female journalist behind closed doors on charges linked to her coverage of a Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death in custody last year sparked months of unrest, her husband said on Twitter.
Mahsa Amini’s death while held by the morality police for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code unleashed a wave of mass anti-government protests for months, posing one of the boldest challenges to the country’s clerical leaders in decades.
A photo taken by Niloofar Hamedi for the pro-reform Sharq daily showing Amini’s parents hugging each other in a Tehran hospital where their daughter was lying in a coma was the first sign to the world that all was not well with 22-year-old Amini.
Tuesday’s trial session “ended in less than two hours while her lawyers did not get a chance to defend her and her family members were not allowed to attend the court,” Hamedi’s husband, Mohammad Hossein Ajorlou, said on Twitter.
“She denied all the charges against her and emphasized that she had performed her duty as a journalist based on the law.”
Hamedi, along with another female journalist, Elaheh Mohammadi, who went on trial on Monday, face several charges including “colluding with hostile powers” for their coverage of Amini’s death.
Iran’s intelligence ministry in October accused Mohammadi and Hamedi, both imprisoned for over eight months, of being CIA foreign agents.
Iran’s clerical rulers have blamed the protests on an array of enemies, including the United States, aimed at destabilising the Islamic Republic.
UAE-based creatives launch Cannes Lions prediction platform ‘The Loudest Roar’
- “The Loudest Roar” is an independent project that is not affiliated with Cannes Lions
DUBAI: A team of UAE-based creatives has launched “The Loudest Roar,” an interactive prediction platform for the advertising industry’s premier awards program, Cannes Lions, which takes place next month.
Founded by Chirag Khushalani, Tobbi Vu, Teena Mathew, and Jack Rogers, “The Loudest Roar” aims to become the “fantasy league” for awards festivals, according to a company statement.
Khushalani said: “If the world can have a say on who can win the Superbowl or Premier League, why can’t they cast an eye on the Cannes Lions too?
“It’s a space where everyone has a say on what’s great, and can feel inspired to create more great work.”
The free, gamified platform is open to all. Participants compete for leaderboard positions and prizes, including cash rewards of up to $500 in Amazon gift cards and a portfolio revamp by Pimp My Portfolio. Each player will receive a personalized juror badge that can be shared on social media.
Industry experts and former Cannes Lions jury members such as Rob Schwartz, Tracey Follows and Akhilesh Bagri will also be present on the platform, sharing their advice on judging and creating award-winning work.
Voting will begin when Cannes Lions releases its shortlists on June 2, and end a few hours before the winners are announced. Participants can view the shortlisted case studies and vote for Grand Prix winners in six categories: Titanium, Innovation, Film, Entertainment Lions for Gaming, Creative Effectiveness, and Creative Business Transformation.
After the Cannes Lions awards are announced, “The Loudest Roar” will announce the winners chosen by the participants, as well as invite this year’s jury members to share insights into the work that won the Grand Prix trophies.
The company plans to roll out the concept across other award festivals and add interactive features like a simulated jury room.
It also plans to introduce private leagues for agencies and universities to gather insights into how their employees and students think, and how they can improve their entries to be more successful on the awards circuit.
“The Loudest Roar” is an independent project that is not affiliated with Cannes Lions.
Websites linked to Iran’s presidency hacked with images of exile group’s leaders
- Iran has been targeted by a series of embarrassing hacks amid the rising tensions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program
DUBAI: A series of websites linked to Iran’s presidency bore the images of two leaders of an exiled opposition group Monday, with others showing the pictures of Islamic Republic’s supreme leader and president crossed out.
An Internet account describing itself as a group of hackers claimed responsibility for allegedly taking down websites. The account GhyamSarnegouni, whose name in Farsi means “Rise to Overthrow,” previously claimed hacking websites associated with Iran’s Foreign Ministry earlier this month.
Iranian state media and officials did not immediately acknowledge the apparent hack. However, Associated Press journalists accessing the sites found them defaced with images of Massoud Rajavi, the long-missing leader of the Iranian exile group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and his wife Maryam, who is now the public face of the group.
One site bore the slogan: “Death to Khamenei Raisi- Hail to Rajavi.” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi both were targeted similarly in the previously claimed hacked in May.
Iran has been targeted by a series of embarrassing hacks amid the rising tensions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program. That’s included the signal of Iranian state television being targeted, gasoline pumps that provide subsidized fuel being targeted in a cyberattack and government surveillance camera imagery being released, including from a notorious prison.
The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, known by the acronym MEK, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The MEK had angrily condemned a prisoner swap Belgium conducted with Iran on Friday to free an aid worker that saw an Iranian diplomat convicted of being behind a bomb plot targeting the group released.
The MEK began as a Marxist group opposing the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It claimed and was suspected in a series of attacks against US officials in Iran in the 1970s, something the group now denies.
It supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but soon had a falling out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and turned against the cleric. It carried out a series of assassinations and bombings targeting the young Islamic Republic.
The MEK later fled into Iraq and backed dictator Saddam Hussein during his bloody eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s. That saw many oppose the group in Iran. Although largely based in Albania, the group claims to operate a network inside Iran.
