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Written by Karishma Mehrotra | New Delhi | Updated: December 30, 2019 10:03:57 am Automated filtering and quick takedown requirements would disrupt the volunteer model of real-time editing of information, Wikimedia has said in a letter to IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. (File Photo)

The nonprofit that funds Wikipedia has said its model would be severely disrupted by the intermediary guidelines that India intends to institute by the middle of next month.

Automated filtering and quick takedown requirements would disrupt the volunteer model of real-time editing of information followed by the online encyclopaedia, the Wikimedia Foundation has said in a letter to Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Because the resource is curated by language and not geographic market, the rules would change the entire website, not just Indians access to the knowledge, the Foundation said.

The collaborative system of people would be severely disrupted by obligatory filtering systems that monitor for and automatically remove illegal content across the website. Short response times for removals that would essentially require the use of automatic systems would interfere with peoples ability to collaborate in real time on Wiki, the collaborative, open editing model that has been crucial to Wikipedias growth, the letter said.

It is impossible to restrict changes inside a Wikipedia article from being visible in one country and not another. Fulfilling mandatory content removal requirements from one country would leave problematic gaps in Wikipedia for the whole world, break apart highly context-specific encyclopedic articles, and prevent people from accessing information that may be legal in their country.

Wikipedia is very popular in India. Users in the country visited the encyclopedia 771 million times last month, the fifth highest in the world, the letter said. It urged the Minister to release the latest draft of the guidelines, and suggested a layered definition to social media intermediaries similar to The Personal Data Protection Bill, which was introduced in Lok Sabha earlier this month. The letter also expressed concern over the unrealistic burden on nonprofits, and said that traceability requirements were a serious threat to freedom of expression.

The Indian Express reported the proposed draft guidelines in December 2018. After the Ministry opened them up for public consultation, Wikipedia joined several stakeholders who took issue with a number of provisions: censorship concerns highlighted the rule that would require platforms to proactively eliminate unlawful content, while surveillance concerns focused on the proposed guideline that intermediaries must hand over certain information to the government.

When the draft law was released, WhatsApp had said that, if notified, they would require a complete re-design of the platform, threatening its signature encryption. An major concern for the company was the provision on supplying the government with the originator of information. In an ongoing case in the Supreme Court involving WhatsApp and Facebook, the IT Ministry has submitted that it will update these laws by January 15.

In November, the IT Ministry told Parliament: Key features of proposed amendments in the due diligence to be followed by intermediaries are: (i) periodically informing the users for compliance of rules & regulations, users agreement & privacy policy, (ii) traceability of the originator of the information, (iii) significant intermediaries having more than 50 lakh users to have an office in India and to appoint a nodal officer for liaisoning with law enforcement agencies, (iv) removal of malicious content in 24 hours upon receiving a court order or when notified by appropriate government, (v) deployment of technology based automated tools or appropriate mechanisms for proactively identifying and removing or disabling public access to unlawful information or content, etc.

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Wikipedia writes to IT Minister: New govt guidelines will severely disrupt our model - The Indian Express

Two FIRs. Both filed after CAA protests turned violent in the Sambhal district (UP), but vastly different. One, against 17 persons for alleged rioting and the other one related to the killing of 23-year-old Mohammed Sheroz. In the first segment, Kaunain Sheriff, talks about the differences in the two FIRS, the glaring gaps they reveal and how they will affect the two cases. Next, Naveed Iqbal talks about SMS services being restored in Jammu & Kashmir and the changes that the region has seen in the last couple of months. And last, Karishma Mehrotra explains why Wikipedia is worried about the guidelines that the Indian government is soon intending to implement.

You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook and Twitter @expresspodcasts, or send us an email at podcasts@indianexpress.com. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on http://www.indianexpress.com/audio.

What two FIRs of CAA protest in UP show, J&K gets SMS and Wikipedias worryTwo FIRs. Both filed after CAA protests turned violent in the Sambhal district (UP), but vastly different. One, against 17 persons for alleged rioting and the other one related to the killing of 23-year-old Mohammed Sheroz. In the first segment, Kaunain Sheriff, talks about the differences in the two FIRS, the glaring gaps they reveal and how they will affect the two cases. Next, Naveed Iqbal talks about SMS services being restored in Jammu & Kashmir and the changes that the region has seen in the last couple of months. And last, Karishma Mehrotra explains why Wikipedia is worried about the guidelines that the Indian government is soon intending to implement.You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook and Twitter @expresspodcasts, or send us an email at podcasts@indianexpress.com. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on http://www.indianexpress.com/audio.

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What two FIRs of CAA protest in UP show, J&K gets SMS and Wikipedia's worry - The Indian Express

All major social networks are financed by advertising and thus free to users who trade access to their data for cat videos and sometimes questionable news content. Wikipedia co-founder and internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales wants to change that. He is currently rolling out his donation-based "news focused social network" WT.Social to people interested in high-quality journalism and productive discussions.

There are a few things that set WT.Social apart from its competitors. First off, it's completely independent from venture capitalists and other beneficiaries (including Wikipedia), running only on Wales' own investments. The network is also not interested in your data and doesn't show you any ads. If you want to, you can support it with donations pre-set to $13 a month or $100 a year (or 12/90 and 10/80). Wales says he doesn't expect his product to be profitable, though he thinks it could be sustainable when he maintains the current "barebones" staff of five, including himself.

The homepage/frontpage.

Once you've signed up for the service, you get access to what looks like a hybrid between Facebook, Reddit, and Wikipedia. You can join or create so-called subwikis tailored to your interest, covering every conceivable topic, ranging from "Fighting Misinformation" and "Long Reads" over "Computers: Windows, Apple, and Linux" all the way to "Dank Memes." It looks like an upvote/downvote system currently determines in which order content is shown in your front page feed, though in a Reddit Ask-me-anything, Jimmy Wales says he and his team are "going to experiment" what solution works best. Note that in contrast the the network's spiritual predecessor WikiTribune, you'll find barely any original content on WT.Social itself; it's mainly an aggregator and crowd-based curator for existing news websites.

Onboarding: Choose your favorite subwikis.

What really sets WT.Social apart from Facebook and Reddit is the ability to edit any post, no matter if you published it yourself or not. Just like on Wikipedia, a transparent history of edits shows who contributed which changes, so authorship becomes fluid. WT.Social hopes its users will catch misinformation early and edit posts accordingly, in addition to standard options to report spammers and vandalism. The team is also on-boarding more administrators and volunteer developers to cope with its sudden growth.

An overwhelming overview of all the changes on the website.

Other than that, the network feels pretty barebones, but that might be precisely how it's supposed to be. The grey-and-beige interface doesn't scream "attention" all over, and it looks like no autoplaying videos are trying to suck you in. The lack of bright eye-candy ads certainly makes browsing it a much more intentional and focused experience, too.

The question remains whether WT.Social is going to be able to scale up to properly compete with Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the like. The network effect is real, and it's going to be hard to convince people to switch, especially since WT.Social seems to be pretty niche with its focus on high-quality journalism. Then again, Wikipedia's donation-based model still works great in this day and age, so I wouldn't write off Wales' network too fast.

Profile page.

If you're interested, you can join a waiting list to get in on the service. The team had to resort to this measure so it could deal with sudden loads of sign-ups following press coverage (yes, I see the irony here). You can also choose to pay the donation fee right away if you want to skip. Mobile apps don't exist at the moment, but that's on the roadmap as the network grows.

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Wikipedia co-founder created an ad-free social network that wants to be a better Facebook[citation needed] - Android Police

The Gateway Pundit and Epoch Times Banned by Wikipedia Over Truthful Reporting on Ukraine and Russia Hoax | 20 Dec 2019 | Breitbart News today reported the Wikipedia blacklists now include The Epoch Times and The Gateway Pundit for our truthful reporting on Russiagate. China critics the Epoch Times and conservative outlet the Gateway Pundit have been banned from use as reliable sources on Wikipedia in the latest cases of news outlets that support President Trump being banned from the online encyclopedia... Gateway Pundits ban came from a proposal soon after the proposed ban for Epoch Times. The ban proposal came in response to editor "BullRangifer" removing a 2017 piece criticizing media silence on Ukraine colluding with Democrats to influence the 2016 election. The article was originally added to frame Gateway Pundit as "fueling conspiracy theories" related to the impeachment inquiry over Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In fact, the piece correctly noted Politico's coverage of DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa soliciting Ukrainian interference and then-Democratic minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiffexpressing concerns about the reported interference.

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The Gateway Pundit and Epoch Times Banned by Wikipedia Over Truthful Reporting on Ukraine and Russia Hoax | CLG News - Citizens for Legitimate...

If you dont want to know how Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ends, you should probably just stay off the internet entirely until you see the movie for yourself. Case in point, even Wikipedia has Star Wars spoilers. I wont link to it here, but if youre curious, just do a quick search for Reys Wiki page and see if you notice anything interesting.

Even before the Rise of Skywalker premiere, spoilers for the final movie in the Skywalker saga were surprisingly common. Successful leakers like Jason Ward of Making Star Wars have made a living just spilling the details of the upcoming film, and theres an entire subreddit devoted to pouring over each new leak along with original spoilers from the subreddits moderator. Burger King even ran a promotional campaign earlier this month where fans had to read and repeat internet-sourced spoilers to get a free burger.

The good news is that Rise of Skywalker is almost in theaters. If you can wait just one more day you might be able to see it before someone spoils the ending assuming you managed to score opening night tickets, that is.

Of course, if youre the type of person who loves reading spoilers, were happy to point you in the right direction too. This particular detail about Reys arc in Star Wars: Episode IX has been out in the wild for a surprisingly long time. To find out what it is just click this link SPOILERS.

For a spoiler-free preview of the movie, check out these articles:

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits theaters December 20, but early screenings start tomorrow night!

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'Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker' spoilers are already on Wikipedia - Inverse