Via Twitter we received a notification, always attentive Cláudio Silva, about an article related to the misuse of two services that can be extremely useful in our country: Facebook and Zero Wikipedia. For the less attentive, the two services give free access to information on their websites and in the case of Facebook, the images are not displayed.
And then how have Angolan users been able to share pirated content using these services?
It is a simple “scheme”:
- A Facebook group has been created, which can be accessed via Facebook Zero, and in this group are shared links from Wiki , which allows you to upload multimedia content to Wikipedia.
- On the Wiki Commons, Angolan users upload music (and other unauthorized content, that is, pirates) using the version of the site that does not consume data, due to the Wikipedia agreement with Angolan operators.
At the end of the process, no UTT will be spent by the user, thus making content available to everyone in the group.
Of course the Wikipedia team would check the default, it is not every day that someone publishes 5 Rapper songs Prodigy on Wikipedia and soon thereafter.
In an interview with the head of the Wikimedia project, Adele Vrana , she explained what she thinks of this case:
Last fall, we had internal discussions on how to find technical solutions to this problem. We understand that it is a challenge for our existing publishing community to deal with a sudden influx of new editors… I hope that we can find a way to transform this moment in Angola. in an opportunity to learn how to deal with new readers and editors.
Legal Implications
One of the aspects pointed out by the Wikipedia team, is the lack of specific legislation in Angola to combat “piracy”. However, from what the minister of telecommunications announced during the week, the situation of the laws may change soon.
What the Wikipedia team has been doing is notifying and blocking users, although some moderators are suggesting a total blocking of Angolan users, at least in the sense of banning the editing of articles, leaving them read-only.
What do we know about these Angolan “pirates”?
In a quick visit to the Facebook group where links to Wikimedia are shared, you can see that the creator is apparently under 18 and the other co-administrators are quite young. The question remains whether it was just a “flaw” they detected in Wikipedia's free system and are using it unconsciously or whether they are deliberately creating an illegal information sharing network.
Consequences?
As this information is being received by Wikipedia, we advised users of the group to remove the contents of Wikipedia, close the groups on Facebook and try to avoid similar practices as much as possible. The consequence of the continuity of these acts could harm Angolan users who want to use Wikipedia and Facebook Zero for less harmful purposes.
The full article on how “piracy” is tarnishing Angola’s image with those responsible for Wikipedia, can be found here.
