Global Majority Wikimedia Technology Priorities

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Introduction

These Global Majority Wikimedia Technology Priorities and the process they rest upon aim to contribute from the Global Majority perspective to the strategic directions of the Wikimedia Movement. Recognizing that the Global South represents the Global Majority, incorporating its perspective into tech development fosters inclusivity and ensures that Wikimedia initiatives reflect the diverse experiences and knowledge systems of the world.

The representation of the Global Majority in the open movement is especially relevant for enhancing sustainable development. In many countries, authoritarian governments have effectively integrated major tech companies into state propaganda, which makes it especially difficult if not impossible to voice and advocate for liberties and digital rights. Platforms like Wikimedia often serve as the sole avenue for human rights. Nevertheless, we are concerned by the restrictive nature of our technology, which hinders the participation of Global Majority communities.

In 2017, the Wikimedia Movement started to discuss its collective future and decided in 2020 that, beyond our core mission of developing, collecting and sharing knowledge, in the next few years we will embody the concepts of knowledge as a service and knowledge equity. These directions aim respectively to foster an infrastructure that serves free, trusted knowledge through different interfaces to the users of our platforms and to focus our efforts on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege. As a movement, we have claimed that by 2030 Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us. In this document, our contribution entails both consolidating, synthesizing, and presenting the technology priorities of the Global Majority, and building a sustained multi stakeholder action process to support the realization of these priorities.

Our current methods of prioritizing technology often do not align with our strategic directions. Wishlist of different kinds, hack-a-thons, hiring staff/consultants, tech plans are usually driven by the urgency to resolve outstanding and upcoming issues. This approach has systematically skewed the development of technology against underrepresented communities and their long-term needs.

This document was produced collectively by Global Majority Wikimedia tech stakeholders, and main questions we have asked ourselves were:

  1. What specific socio-technical infrastructure does the Global Majority communities envision to better serve their needs?
  2. Having the hurdles of the Global Majority communities in mind, how do we overcome barriers that prevent communities from fully accessing and contributing to free knowledge, and foster an inclusive and effective socio-technical infrastructure?

This document is the culmination of a collective effort involving nine Wikimedia organizations and the participation of fourteen individuals. The methodology for selecting these stakeholders and producing a consensus-based set of collective priorities is outlined here. The research was conducted throughout the year 2023, with data organization and writing taking place in the first quarter of 2024. This process was facilitated by Wiki Movimento Brasil, in collaboration with CIS-A2K.

We expect this research and the process it rests upon to influence tech development directions and priorities in the Wikimedia Movement. We expect this initiative to support the implementation of several Movement Strategy recommendations, especially Improve User Experience (R2), Ensure Equity in Decision-making (R4), Coordinate Across Stakeholders (R5) and Innovate in Free Knowledge (R9).

Global Majority Wikimedia Technology Priorities

  1. Promote epistemic diversity in Wikimedia’s Artificial Intelligence coordination efforts by prioritizing representation of Global Majority communities.
  2. Advocate for ethical standards in Artificial Intelligence technologies by engaging in initiatives such as mandating disclosure of information sources, promoting fair working conditions in the AI development ecosystem, developing best practices to address colonial biases in AI, and proactively recommending regulatory frameworks for AI that respect indigenous knowledge, cultural perspectives from the Global Majority, and other marginalized communities.
  3. Prioritize decentralized, diverse and inclusive software development by enhancing accountability, fostering project-based working groups and ensuring developments echo communities needs, as well as internet consumption and content production practices prevalent in the Global Majority.
  4. Empower inclusive development by fostering Global Majority communities to co-create tools that address their needs, making an equitable distribution of funds and nurturing ownership and mentorship for sustainable progress, and prioritizing Wikimedia projects that are chronically underfunded and underdeveloped.
  5. Establish a federated network of stakeholders to develop the Wikimedia projects and tools based on a three-year development plan that prioritizes the Global Majority needs and that decenters Wikimedia tech development from the Global North.
  6. Take immediate action to mitigate IP blockage effects by implementing robust circumvention tools, especially for outreach activities in the Global Majority.
  7. Considering that 70% of people from the Global Majority exclusively access the Internet using mobile devices, break down barriers that hinders access and contribution to the free knowledge ecosystem by optimizing the mobile infrastructure and prioritizing the development of the visual editor for mobile devices.
  8. Invest in core development within the Global Majority by prioritizing capacity building, fostering the growth and sustainability of its technical community, and cultivating a culture of innovation.
  9. Build and sustain the Technology Council as an instance that bridges communities through inclusive representation, deep democracy principles, decolonial agenda-setting practices, and transparent governance, ensuring equitable participation from underrepresented projects and Global Majority communities. Establish a multi-stakeholder executive committee to guide technological priorities, ensuring equitable representation of stakeholders from the Global Majority while the Technology Council is not yet formed.
  10. Considering that subsidiarity is crucial for advancing decentralized technology development, create and run events to showcase Global Majority’s tech abilities and foster the talent via a systematic and sustainable structure.

Conclusion

The Global Majority tech priorities obtained through this investigation outline the more inclusive and effective socio-technical infrastructure we want for the Wikimedia Movement. We also lay down the steps needed to be taken in order to reach that infrastructure, effectively answering our main questions proposed.

The ten priorities ultimately orbit two high priority main concepts: the promotion of epistemic diversity, prioritizing representation and inclusion of the Global Majority communities and knowledge in decision-making spaces and protocols, and the decentering of tech development, prioritizing Global Majority communities’ needs and fostering a federated network of stakeholders to develop in the Wikimedia projects and tools.

Moving forward, we want to take concrete steps to realize the priorities declared in this document. One aspect is to decenter the Wikimedia Hackathon from the Global North, aiming to enhance inclusivity and engagement from the Global Majority. Moreover, we want to initiate discussions with the Wikimedia Foundation, affiliates and other Wikimedia Movement bodies to advocate for the incorporation of these priorities into their strategic plans and to have an opportunity to jointly discuss performance indicators for each one of them.

Signatures

Who should sign: Anyone who agrees with the document, as an individual and/or on behalf of an affiliate group or other organizations.

Format for organization signature: Organization name - Name (username) Example:

[[Wikimedia Antarctica]] - Peng Wynn ([[User:PengWynn]])

Format for individual signature: ~~~~, affiliation or project Examples:

~~~~, Wikimedia Antarctica
~~~~, Wikidata editor
Add your signature


Organizations

  1. Wiki Movimento Brasil - João Alexandre Peschanski (User:JPeschanski (WMB))
  2. Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group - Anthony Diaz (Kunokuno)
  3. Wikimedistas de Uruguay - Evelin Heidel (User:Scann (WDU))
  4. Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge - Pavan Santhosh Surampudi (User:Pavan (CIS-A2K))
  5. West Bengal Wikimedians User Group - Bodhisattwa
  6. Wikimedia UK - LucyCrompton-Reid (WMUK) (talk) 15:23, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Wikimedia Argentina - Nicolás Giorgetti (--Lahi (talk) 02:50, 24 April 2024 (UTC)))[reply]
  8. Wikimedia España - Pilar de la Prieta (User:Pilar de la Prieta (WMES))
  9. Wikimedia Australia - Belinda Spry (User:BindiS)

Individuals

  1. Ederporto (talk) 03:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC), Wiki Movimento Brasil[reply]
  2. Joris Darlington Quarshie (talk) 08:03, 18 April 2024 (UTC), African Wikimedia Technical Community[reply]
  3. --Csisc (talk) 08:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC), Wikidata Arabic Community and Wikimedia Tunisia User Group[reply]
  4. --Pavan Santhosh Surampudi (talk) 11:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC) Telugu Wikimedians User Group[reply]
  5. Isaac Arthur (talk) 14:17, 18 April 2024 GMT, GOI Foundation.
  6. Lahariyaniyathi (talk) 20:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Brahmavadini (talk) 05:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Bhuvana Meenakshi (talk) 07:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Piracalamina (talk) 14:34, 24 April 2024 (UTC), Wikimedistas de Uruguay[reply]
  10. Bijay Chaurasia (talk) 14:46, 28 April 2024 (UTC), Maithili Wikimedians User Group[reply]
  11. Cornelius Agordome(talk), African Wikimedians
  12. Azoma (talk) 10:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC), Wikimedia Thailand[reply]
  13. BindiS (talk) 12:35, 2 May 2024 (UTC), Wikimedia Australia[reply]
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