Aug. 5, 2026 update — On July 28, 2026 the CWA filed for a union election with the NLRB. On August 4, 2026, the Wikimedia Foundation and the CWA reached an agreement on which staff are eligible to participate in the representation election. We agreed to include all of the staff CWA requested in our discussions about eligibility. The NLRB approved the agreement on August 5, 2026. Ballots will be mailed to these staff by the NLRB on August 11 and counted by the NLRB on September 3, based on the election agreement details.

SMEX, a member of the joint ministerial committee tasked with developing Lebanon’s national strategy for promoting the safe and responsible use of the internet and its applications by children, participated in the committee’s first meeting on Friday.
Convened by the Lebanese Ministry of Information, the meeting introduced the committee’s objectives, working mechanism, and the framework for developing the national strategy.

Technologies have, throughout modern history, transformed how people live, work, govern their affairs, and exchange knowledge. Our region has been no exception. From the Translation Movement, which brought texts into Arabic, and the House of Wisdom in Baghdad—a major scientific and cultural institution—to groundbreaking achievements in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and engineering, the Arab world was not merely a consumer of knowledge but one of its foremost producers. 
New ideas and technologies were debated, refined, tested, and adapted to meet the needs of society.

Case Study #117 – AI and Epistemic Authority Rethinking Human-Machine Relationship in Knowledge Production

Author: Aisya SabiliAyom Mratita Purbandani

Introduction

Bisherige Apps zur Erkennung von Tierstimmen stießen in der Praxis regelmäßig an ihre Grenzen: Ohne stabile Internetverbindung war eine Echtzeitbestimmung im Wald oder im Hochgebirge unmöglich.
Die neue App „BirdNET Live“, eine Weiterentwicklung der App „BirdNET“, löst dieses Problem durch einen technologischen Meilenstein: Die zugrundeliegenden KI-Modelle wurden so weit optimiert, verkleinert und beschleunigt, dass sie sich nun direkt auf dem Smartphone ausführen lassen.

Author: Rizky Murdiana & Ilham RamadhanEditor: Achmed Faiz Yudha Siregar

(expanded version of talk given at the opening evening of INC Exit Fest at UvA Spui25 in Amsterdam, June 22, 2026)

The 2026 Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) reports that media concentration is on the rise in Europe and that implementation of the EU regulation requiring a special regime to evaluate media mergers is lagging behind. In this blog post, we analyse recent national cases, with a focus on the role played by the European Board for Media Services (Board).

Author: Brigitta Kalina Tristani HernawanEditor: Iradat Wirid

Across universities worldwide, a quiet anxiety has begun to surface among recent graduates. They did everything right – choosing future-proof degrees, learning coding and digital skills, developing critical thinking and creativity. Then they started to apply for jobs.

Proceedings from my presentation during EXIT FEST on the 24th of June 2026, in celebration of Geert Lovink and the Institute of Network Cultures’ departure from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA) on September 1, 2026.
The Digital Image is Non-Static

Continuing our Get to Know the Team series, we would like to introduce James Haw, our Digital Transformation and Regulation Analyst.

James is an LLD candidate at Stellenbosch University whose work sits at the intersection of law, technology and public policy. His doctoral research explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the nature and organisation of work, and what this means for the future of labour law and labour-market regulation in South Africa.

The Frictionless community reconvened to enhance governance, explore AI integration, and establish GitHub as the primary discussion platform
The post Frictionless Community Call June 2026 first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.

A recap of the BrainCommons opening session on the importance of making brain-computer interfaces open by design
The post Opening Remarks: An Open Neurotech Stack first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.

Will we surrender our rights to free thought? – a recap of the Brain Commons keynote by Susie Alegre
The post The Future of Freedom of Thought: Keeping Human Agency Open in the Age of Brain-Computer Interfaces first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.

How neurotech challenges the very idea of ‘thinking for oneself’ – a recap of the Brain Commons keynote by Christoph Bublitz
The post Freedom of Thought in the Age of Neurotechnology first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.