From Online Safety Laws to Movement Lessons: What Brazil, Australia, and the UK Teach Us About Influencing Policy
**Online safety legislation is rapidly reshaping the legal environment in which Wikimedia projects operate. Across multiple jurisdictions, governments are adopting regulatory models intended to address online harms, often without fully understanding how community-governed platforms function.**
**This session presents a comparative showcase of Wikimedia movement engagement with online safety policy processes in Brazil, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Each case will be examined as a learning moment: what strategies enabled meaningful dialogue with policymakers, what was challenging, what worked to overcome challenges. Speakers will explore approaches including coalition-building, proactive strategic comms, engagement with regulators, cross-affiliate coordination, and early risk identification. The session will highlight both effective practices and unresolved tensions between regulation, community governance, and free knowledge principles.**
**Participants will collaboratively identify a set of core lessons that can inform future advocacy and policy engagement across regions now considering similar legislation. The goal is to move beyond reactive responses toward a shared blueprint for earlier, more coordinated, and more strategic movement action.**
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