The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it ending the Wikipedia Zero program which was launched in 2012. It said that the new partnership opportunities will continue to address critical barriers to participation in free knowledge around the world.
Wikipedia Zero was created with a goal to address one barrier to participating in Wikipedia globally: high mobile data costs. The company through this program has partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72 countries to waive off mobile data fees to more than 800 million people and allow free access to Wikipedia on mobile devices.
It also clarified that no further partnerships will be formed through this year, and the remaining partnerships with mobile operators will expire. The company says that since 2016 the adoption and interested in this program among users have seen a significant drop-off. The main reason identified as part of the research was low awareness of Wikipedia outside of North America and Europe.
To address this the company says that it has experimented with new projects and partnerships and has also seen some initial success in this work. In Iraq where it raised the awareness of Wikipedia by more than 30%. In Nigeria, we partnered with Nigerian community members and Nollywood stars to introduce more than 15 million people to Wikipedia and how it works. Basing on the Iraq success story, Wikimedia said that it will explore other ways to leverage the findings from the research and the Wikipedia Zero program to direct.