Wikipedia Makes The Case For Google & Facebook To Give Back To The Commons, Rather Than Just Take

from the valid-argument dept

Over the past decade or so we've seen lots of arguments from legacy industries -- mainly recording industries, publishing industries, and film industries -- freaking out about Google and Facebook. The go-to response generally seems to be to run to the government and demand that they force the successful internet companies to transfer some of their wealth to the legacy industries. In some cases, these pleas appear to be working -- such as with the link tax proposal in the EU.

Generally speaking, this whole thing is pretty disgusting. It's usually legacy private companies which had a successful business model under a previous system, failed to adapt to a changing world, and then act as if they're magically entitled to someone else's money. Of course, that's not how it should work (even if sometimes it does). But I'm interested in comparing this approach to the approach of Wikipedia, whose executive director, Katherine Maher, has an article in Wired arguing that Google and Facebook should consider giving back to the site, especially seeing as those platforms are increasingly relying on the information within Wikipedia.

While the title of the Wired piece is provocative -- "Facebook and Google must do more to support Wikipedia" -- it's a title that Maher notes was not chosen by herself and which might not directly represent her views:

Not exactly the nuance I was looking for on the title, ⁦@WiredUK⁩! https://t.co/GSmSQxY3bv — Katherine Maher (@krmaher) June 15, 2018

And that's correct, because the article itself is much more nuanced. Rather than demanding a forced transfer of wealth from government, or simply demanding that Google and Facebook pay up, Maher does a great job of making the case that Google and Facebook ought to give back to the commons considering how much they're now relying on it. This is especially true today as both companies have started leaning more heavily on Wikipedia to deal with disinformation (i.e., more direct usage of Wikipedia's content, and not just finding what other people have posted in their usual way):

You may not realise how ubiquitous Wikipedia is in your everyday life, but its open, collaboratively-curated data is used across semantic, search and structured data platforms on the web. Voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Home source Wikipedia articles for general knowledge questions; Google’s knowledge panel features Wikipedia content for snippets and essential facts; Quora contributes to and utilises the Wikidata open data project to connect topics and improve user recommendations. More recently, YouTube and Facebook have turned to Wikipedia for a new reason: to address their issues around fake news and conspiracy theories. YouTube said that they would begin linking to Wikipedia articles from conspiracy videos, in order to give users additional – often corrective – information about the topic of the video. And Facebook rolled out a feature using Wikipedia’s content to give users more information about the publication source of articles appearing in their feeds.

Maher points out that (unlike some others) Wikipedia is thrilled to see that the value of what they've created is being recognized and is so valuable. It's a true validation of the idea that many people spent years mocking. But, Maher suggests, if the tech companies are going to rely so heavily, they ought to consider giving back in ways as well. As she notes, Wikipedia itself works because so many individuals are generous in ways they can be:

But at a deeper level, Wikipedia works because people are generous. Millions of people have contributed their time and effort to create and curate tens of millions of articles simply to share knowledge with the world. And they want that knowledge to be free for everyone. But even the most altruistic creator appreciates a nod for their work and the resources to keep going. Everyone knows the difference between tending a community garden for the use of their neighbours, and tending it for a company to throw a corporate picnic.

And tech companies that are using that content could also help out:

As companies draw on Wikipedia for knowledge – and as a bulwark against bad information – we believe they too have an opportunity to be generous. At Wikimedia, we already love and deeply appreciate the millions of people around the world who make generous charitable contributions because they believe in our values. But we also believe that we deserve lasting, commensurate support from the organisations that derive significant and sustained financial value from our work. And it’s not just us. From groups that set open standards, such as IETF, ICANN and W3C, to organisations that support critical open source projects, such as the Software Freedom Conservancy, to Creative Commons, which enables us to share creativity freely, to the digital knowledge and data commons supported by Wikimedia, we do the work that helps the rest of the internet thrive.

There's a lot more in the piece, and I find it fascinating. It's also different than the legacy companies, in that it's coming from a non-profit that has always survived solely on donations. It's an organization that knows how to ask for support, rather than demand or expect it. At one level, there are similarities to the arguments of the old school legacy companies. But the approach is so very different. Rather than threatening and demanding, this approach is welcoming and collaborative. It's appealing to the better nature of those companies, rather than just scolding them and screaming about how they're evil. One wonders what kind of internet and cultural community we might have if the legacy companies had tried that approach in the early days, rather than the antagonistic approach they did take.

I have no idea if this approach will work. But it's fascinating to see and to contrast it with the legacy players.

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Filed Under: commons, sharing, wikipedia

Companies: facebook, google, wikimedia