For the Wikimedia movement, information integrity is not an abstract slogan – it is at the core of our daily decisions, edits, discussions, and community processes. In a world where manipulation and misinformation are increasingly used as political and commercial tools, Wikimedia volunteers protect a space where knowledge remains open, neutral, and verifiable.

This year, the **Wikimedia CEE Hub **had an opportunity to help one of our smaller communities bring this mission to a new stage. Together with dedicated Wikimedians in Bulgaria, we organized a Wikimedia session at the Sofia Information Integrity Forum (SIIF) 2025, an international event focused on strengthening resilience against disinformation across Southeast Europe and the Black Sea region.

The goal was simple – show what Wikipedia really is: a public good maintained by volunteers, a reference point for the internet, and a unique model of knowledge governance that deserves a seat at the table in conversations about the future of information.

“Wikipedia and Information Integrity” session at Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025

Why this mattered for Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Wikimedia community is small and active, yet widely misunderstood in its own information environment. Recent media narratives overlook how Wikipedia functions or who creates it. SIIF 2025 provided a rare national stage to change that.

The Forum gathered experts in journalism, cybersecurity, policy, and academia — people who shape the public understanding of information integrity. By including a Wikimedia session, Bulgaria’s volunteers were able to build recognition, encourage dialogue, and bring together local Wikipedians around a joint initiative.

The Wikimedia session at SIIF 2025

The session began with a** keynote by Costanza Sciubba Caniglia, Antidisinformation Strategy Lead at the Wikimedia Foundation**. She spoke about Wikipedia’s role as the “backbone of the internet,” serving as a central, highly-weighted information source and contributing core data for today’s AI systems. By maintaining a human-driven model based on Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research, Wikipedia continues to provide transparent and resilient knowledge in a time of rapid technological transformation.

The next part – a panel discussion facilitated by members of the Bulgarian community – brought together **speakers from Wikimedia Ukraine, Wikimedia Serbia, Wikimedia Türkiye, Wikimedians of Romania and Moldova UG, and Wikimedia MKD **(Macedonia). The representation from across our region was intended to reflect the collaborative spirit of CEE, especially in the Black Sea region, which was the focus area of the Forum.

The goal of the discussion panel was to** introduce aspects of Wikipedia that escape outside observers**, despite the project’s full transparency – workflows, tensions, the constant negotiation of sources, and the human side of decision-making.

Panelists shared real examples of how volunteers navigate policy dilemmas, especially when editing highly emotional or politically sensitive topics. They discussed:

• How Neutral Point of View can sometimes be “weaponized” during protests or conflicts to suppress perspectives lacking well-documented coverage.
• The difficulty of defining reliable sources in regions where media freedom is limited.
• The risk of “citation loops” — when unverified information enters Wikipedia, gets republished elsewhere, and later returns as a “reliable” reference.
• The growing threat of AI-generated disinformation, which might appear to meet Wikipedia’s standards at first glance.

Local examples from Ukraine, Serbia, Türkiye, and the Balkans made one thing very clear: context matters, and every community faces its own battles in keeping articles balanced and resilient.

The panel also highlighted solutions – from automated tools and bots that support smaller Wikipedias, through stronger engagement with academics, to the benefits of having a formal local organization able to coordinate work and advocate for volunteers.

Above all, participants emphasized that Wikipedia aims to document what reliable sources say — not absolute truth. And the constant debate between editors is not a flaw, but a feature: the mechanism that gradually removes bias and strengthens integrity.

How the CEE Hub helped make it happen

For the Bulgarian community, organizing a session at a major international forum would have been difficult without external support.

The Wikimedia CEE Hub provided:

• Strategic guidance on shaping the Wikimedia presence at the Forum
• Funding and administrative support for travel and accommodation of the speakers
• Connections with experienced speakers from across the region
• On-site facilitation and documentation support

This is exactly what the Hub was built for. Many communities in the CEE region are motivated, but small. They have ideas that could help Wikimedia grow locally and globally, but they need a partner to help bring those ideas to life – and we at the CEE Hub have the resources to do that.

Wikimedia CEE Hub at Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025

What comes next, and how we can do it together

SIIF 2025 showed how powerful it can be when Wikimedia communities step into new spaces where information integrity is being shaped. We do not just talk about a better information ecosystem — we build it every day through our edits, our policies, our transparency, and our collaboration.

Thanks to the Bulgarian Wikimedians: Iglika Ivanova and Nikola Tulechki for making the Wikimedia session at SIIF 2025 happen — and to our speakers: Nataliia Tymkiv from Ukraine, Milica Ševkušić from Serbia, Başak Tosun from Türkiye, Strainu from Romania, and Kiril Simeonovski from North Macedonia for sharing their perspectives and expertise.

The conversations that began in Sofia should not end there. Together with the session’s organisers from Bulgaria, we discussed how **this session format deserves to be repeated **— nationally, regionally, or even globally — to continue exchanging experiences between Wikimedia communities facing information integrity challenges during external and internal events. These topics are universal across the movement, and we believe this model could become a regular platform for dialogue, capacity building, and explaining the uniqueness of Wikimedia projects to the world. We are happy to share details of the discussion panel if anyone is interested to organise a similar discussion within their own context. Especially with the Wikipedia 25 anniversary approaching!

This is also an open invitation to other communities in our region: it is time to start thinking about initiatives you want to implement next year! If you have an idea that could amplify Wikimedia’s role, build your community, or support volunteers — reach out to us. We are here to help with guidance, coordination and networking.

We can not wait to CEE your ideas for 2026!

✉️ Have an idea for a Wikimedia event in the CEE region? Contact us at info@wmceehub.org

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