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Yet this looks nothing like their reaction to SOPA and PIPA. They even explicitly state that Wikimedia is not against the legislation on the whole. > The Wikim

Yet this looks nothing like their reaction to SOPA and PIPA. They even explicitly state that Wikimedia is not against the legislation on the whole. > The Wikimedia Foundation shares the UK government’s commitment to promoting online environments where everyone can safely participate. The organization is not bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1 duties (the OSA’s most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia. --- I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go?

bbor 1y ago
I share your general frustration, but as an unabashed Wikimedia glazer, I have some potential answers: 1. They lost this legal challenge, so perhaps their UK lawyers (barristers?) knew that much broader claim would be even less likely to work and advised them against it. Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense. 2. The Protests against SOPA and PIPA[1] were in response to overreach by capitalists, and as such drew support from many capitalists with opposing interests (e.g. Google, Craigslist, Flickr, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Wordpress, etc.). Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors, which AFAIK are far from the most popular advertising demo. Certainly some adult users will be put off by the hassle and/or insult, but how many, and for how long? 3. Wikimedia is a US-based organization, and the two major organizers of the 2012 protests--Fight for the Future[2] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation[3]--are US-focused as well. The EFF does have a blog post about these UK laws, but AFAICT no history of bringing legal and/or protest action there. This dovetails nicely with the previous point, while we're at it: the US spends $300B on digital ads every year, whereas the UK only spends $40B[4]. The per-capita spends are closer ($870/p v. $567/p), but the fact remains: the US is the lifeblood of these companies in a way that the UK is not. 4. More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. IMHO YouTube brainrot content farms are a much bigger threat to children than porn, but I'm not a parent. The final point is perhaps weakened by the ongoing AI debates, where there's suddenly a ton of support for the "we're protecting artists!" arguments employed in 2012. Still, I think the general shape of things is clear: Wikimedia stood in solidarity with many others in 2012, and now stands relatively alone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA [2] https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ [3] https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-cases https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-cases [4] https://www.salehoo.com/learn/digital-ad-spend-by-country https://www.salehoo.com/learn/digital-ad-spend-by-country
- thomastjeffery 1y ago
  > Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense. That's my point, though. This is the perfect opportunity to do so, and they aren't doing it. Instead, they are picking the smallest possible battle they can. That decision alone makes waves. > Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors. That's ridiculous. ID systems endanger everyone, particularly the adults who participate. This issue isn't isolated from capitalism. These ID systems must be implemented and managed by corporations, whose greatest incentive is to collect and monetize data. > We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. The think-of-the-children argument is the oldest trick in the book. You are seriously asking me to take it at face value? No thank you. > More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". If people really are blind to the change that has happened right in front of them, then we should be spelling it out at every opportunity. This is my biggest concern with how Wikimedia is behaving: they are in a significant position politically, and are abdicating this crucial responsibility.
  - pmyteh 1y ago
    Some of it is probably about the scope of UK judicial review. Acts of Parliament are absolutely exempt from being struck down. The closest you can get is a "declaration of incompatibility" that a bill is incapable of being read in such a way as complying with the European Convention on Human Rights. If at all possible the courts will gloss and/or interpret hard to come up with a compliant reading. And an incompatibility declaration just suggests Parliament looks again: it doesn't invalidate a law by itself. Executive acts, on the other hand, can be annulled or overturned reasonably straightforwardly, and this includes the regulations that flesh out the details of Acts of Parliament (which are executive instruments even when they need Parliamentary approval). In short, judicial review is a practical remedy for a particular decision. "These regulations may unreasonably burden my speech" is potentially justiciable. "This Act could be used to do grave evil" isn't. If an act can be implemented in a Convention compatible way then the courts will assume it will until shown otherwise. The consequences can look something like the report of this judgement. Yes, it looks like the regulations could harm Wikipedia in ways that might not be Convention compatible. But because interpretation and enforcement is in the hands of Ofcom, it's not yet clear. If they are, Wikipedia have been (essentially) invited to come back. But the regulations are not void ab inito.
echelon 1y ago
[flagged]
- thomastjeffery 1y ago
  Neither the left or the right wants anything. People inside each group do. This is an important distinction that pundits love to invert. I have a very hard time taking any of your sources seriously, particularly when it comes to any categorization of "the left". FEE is a conservative libertarian think tank. Heritage Foundation is the most infamous conservative think tank. Alan Dershowitz is most famous for defending Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein, and decided to leave the Democratic party as soon as it showed signs of becoming a bit less Zionist. These are prime examples of pundits who love to frame the "the left" as a singular cohesive boogeyman. You may not intentionally be picking on the left, but the sources you have cited make a living picking on a version of "the left" that they invented.
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Then I recommend you have a look at the polling numbers on free speech presented here: https://www.natesilver.net/p/free-speech-is-in-trouble https://www.natesilver.net/p/free-speech-is-in-trouble
- bbor 1y ago
  Pretty telling what speech on the left and the right looks like. For the left, it's: > Eugene Debs, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act after he spoke at a rally for peaceful workers telling them they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder”... Likewise, in 1919, Schenck v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member after he sent anti-war leaflets to men across the country. For the right, it's: > It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers [...to trick desparate women into receiving useless propaganda instead of the medical care they were seeking] or small religious businesses [...to deny service based on rank bigotry]. It no longer defends religious freedom [...to deny adoptions to LGBT couples[1], to fire employees for receiving or abetting an abortion[2], and to perjure yourself in a senate hearing about your intention to make legal rulings on the basis of religion[3]], although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating “marginalized groups” should not be defended. If you're ever in a position to write "marginalized groups" in scare-quotes, perhaps that should be a wakeup call... P.S. It doesn't help that your links are to 1) a libertarian thinktank founded to oppose the New Deal, 2) the Heritage Foundation and 3) an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz. The first is extremely biased, and the latter two are just plain bad-faith. [1] https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price [2] https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills-governor-brown-signed-and-didnt-sign-this-year https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-dogma-lives-loudly-within-you-and-thats-a-concern/2017/09/07/04303fda-93cb-11e7-8482-8dc9a7af29f9_video.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-...
OhioMan2943 1y ago
The old generation of idealists grew up and we raised no one to replace them. I know because I'm in that emotionally and ideologically stunted generation.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Why did they raise no one to replace them?
  - michaelt 1y ago
    A lot of 1990s tech optimists thought that people with awful opinions were the unfortunate victims of a lack of access to books and education; and the strict gatekeeping of broadcast media by the powerful. This new multi-media technology was going to give everyone on the planet access to a complete free university education, thousands of books, and would prevent the likes of Chinese state-run media suppressing knowledge about Tienanmen Square. And after they receive this marvellous free education, all the communists and nazis and religious nutjobs will realise they were wrong and we were right. We won't need any censorship though, in our enlightenment-style marketplace of ideas, rational argument is all that's needed to send bad ideas packing, and the educated audience will have no trouble seeing through fallacies and trickery. Also the greater education will mean everyone can get better jobs and make more money, and with this trade with China we're just ramping up they'll see our brilliant democratic system, and peacefully adopt it. The recently fallen Soviet Union is of course going to do the same, and it's going to go really well. We'll all live happily ever after. This Bill Clinton chap has a federal budget surplus, now we're not spending all that money on the cold war, so we'll get that national debt paid off in no time too. You may be able to figure out why this particular brand of optimism isn't so fashionable these days.
    - righthand 1y ago
      I wouldn’t say that optimism and idealism are no longer fashionable, but instead that original optimism (however true) was blinded by it’s own lack of knowledge. We should still be perusing optimist/idealist outcomes but not the ones from another era.
protocolture 1y ago
>I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go? I absolutely abhor the "Kids these days" sort of argument, but it does seem the case that we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly. What has happened previously was we would rally around corporations and institutions that would generally work in our best interests. But the people driving those social goods in those entities are now the villains. Not to mention all the mergers and acquisitions. In Australia, during the internet filter debate, we had both a not for profit entity spending money on advertising, but also decently sized ISP's like iiNet working publicly against the problem. The not for profit was funded by industry, something that never happened again. And iiNet is now owned by TPG who also used to have a social conscience but have been hammered into the dust by the (completely non technical, and completely asinine bane of the internets existence and literal satan) ACCC and have no fight left in them for anything. When Teoh leaves or sells TPG, it will probably never fight a good fight ever again. Its the same everywhere. We cant expect people to fight for freedom when the legislation just gets renamed and relaunched again after the next crisis comes out in the media. We lost internet filtration after christchurch, for absolutely no justifiable reason. And we lost the Access and Assistance fight despite having half the global tech industry tell our government to suck eggs. The only real solution is to prep the next generation to fight back as best as possible, to help them ignore the doomsayers and help the right humans into the right places to deal with this shit.
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  Hey hey hey.. hold on, wait a minuet. What did you just say about the ACCC. Those guys make sure we have good warranties and cracking down on scams. They are the good guys protecting us from the scammers and cooperate greed.
  - protocolture 1y ago
    They also worked tirelessly at the behest of the largest 4 ISPs to ensure that the NBN would be as expensive and anti competitive as possible.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Kim_Bruning 1y ago
> Where did their conscience go? Aaron Swartz is no longer with us. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Opposition_to_the_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act_(SOPA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Opposition_to_the... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Death
Ray20 1y ago
"suddenly"? Wikipedia has always supported fascist initiatives

bbor 1y ago

I share your general frustration, but as an unabashed Wikimedia glazer, I have some potential answers: 1. They lost this legal challenge, so perhaps their UK lawyers (barristers?) knew that much broader claim would be even less likely to work and advised them against it. Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense. 2. The Protests against SOPA and PIPA[1] were in response to overreach by capitalists, and as such drew support from many capitalists with opposing interests (e.g. Google, Craigslist, Flickr, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Wordpress, etc.). Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors, which AFAIK are far from the most popular advertising demo. Certainly some adult users will be put off by the hassle and/or insult, but how many, and for how long? 3. Wikimedia is a US-based organization, and the two major organizers of the 2012 protests--Fight for the Future[2] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation[3]--are US-focused as well. The EFF does have a blog post about these UK laws, but AFAICT no history of bringing legal and/or protest action there. This dovetails nicely with the previous point, while we're at it: the US spends $300B on digital ads every year, whereas the UK only spends $40B[4]. The per-capita spends are closer ($870/p v. $567/p), but the fact remains: the US is the lifeblood of these companies in a way that the UK is not. 4. More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. IMHO YouTube brainrot content farms are a much bigger threat to children than porn, but I'm not a parent. The final point is perhaps weakened by the ongoing AI debates, where there's suddenly a ton of support for the "we're protecting artists!" arguments employed in 2012. Still, I think the general shape of things is clear: Wikimedia stood in solidarity with many others in 2012, and now stands relatively alone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA [2] https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ https://www.fightforthefuture.org/ [3] https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-cases https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-cases [4] https://www.salehoo.com/learn/digital-ad-spend-by-country https://www.salehoo.com/learn/digital-ad-spend-by-country

thomastjeffery 1y ago
> Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense. That's my point, though. This is the perfect opportunity to do so, and they aren't doing it. Instead, they are picking the smallest possible battle they can. That decision alone makes waves. > Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors. That's ridiculous. ID systems endanger everyone, particularly the adults who participate. This issue isn't isolated from capitalism. These ID systems must be implemented and managed by corporations, whose greatest incentive is to collect and monetize data. > We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. The think-of-the-children argument is the oldest trick in the book. You are seriously asking me to take it at face value? No thank you. > More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". If people really are blind to the change that has happened right in front of them, then we should be spelling it out at every opportunity. This is my biggest concern with how Wikimedia is behaving: they are in a significant position politically, and are abdicating this crucial responsibility.
- pmyteh 1y ago
  Some of it is probably about the scope of UK judicial review. Acts of Parliament are absolutely exempt from being struck down. The closest you can get is a "declaration of incompatibility" that a bill is incapable of being read in such a way as complying with the European Convention on Human Rights. If at all possible the courts will gloss and/or interpret hard to come up with a compliant reading. And an incompatibility declaration just suggests Parliament looks again: it doesn't invalidate a law by itself. Executive acts, on the other hand, can be annulled or overturned reasonably straightforwardly, and this includes the regulations that flesh out the details of Acts of Parliament (which are executive instruments even when they need Parliamentary approval). In short, judicial review is a practical remedy for a particular decision. "These regulations may unreasonably burden my speech" is potentially justiciable. "This Act could be used to do grave evil" isn't. If an act can be implemented in a Convention compatible way then the courts will assume it will until shown otherwise. The consequences can look something like the report of this judgement. Yes, it looks like the regulations could harm Wikipedia in ways that might not be Convention compatible. But because interpretation and enforcement is in the hands of Ofcom, it's not yet clear. If they are, Wikipedia have been (essentially) invited to come back. But the regulations are not void ab inito.

echelon 1y ago

[flagged]

thomastjeffery 1y ago
Neither the left or the right wants anything. People inside each group do. This is an important distinction that pundits love to invert. I have a very hard time taking any of your sources seriously, particularly when it comes to any categorization of "the left". FEE is a conservative libertarian think tank. Heritage Foundation is the most infamous conservative think tank. Alan Dershowitz is most famous for defending Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein, and decided to leave the Democratic party as soon as it showed signs of becoming a bit less Zionist. These are prime examples of pundits who love to frame the "the left" as a singular cohesive boogeyman. You may not intentionally be picking on the left, but the sources you have cited make a living picking on a version of "the left" that they invented.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Then I recommend you have a look at the polling numbers on free speech presented here: https://www.natesilver.net/p/free-speech-is-in-trouble https://www.natesilver.net/p/free-speech-is-in-trouble
bbor 1y ago
Pretty telling what speech on the left and the right looks like. For the left, it's: > Eugene Debs, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act after he spoke at a rally for peaceful workers telling them they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder”... Likewise, in 1919, Schenck v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member after he sent anti-war leaflets to men across the country. For the right, it's: > It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers [...to trick desparate women into receiving useless propaganda instead of the medical care they were seeking] or small religious businesses [...to deny service based on rank bigotry]. It no longer defends religious freedom [...to deny adoptions to LGBT couples[1], to fire employees for receiving or abetting an abortion[2], and to perjure yourself in a senate hearing about your intention to make legal rulings on the basis of religion[3]], although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating “marginalized groups” should not be defended. If you're ever in a position to write "marginalized groups" in scare-quotes, perhaps that should be a wakeup call... P.S. It doesn't help that your links are to 1) a libertarian thinktank founded to oppose the New Deal, 2) the Heritage Foundation and 3) an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz. The first is extremely biased, and the latter two are just plain bad-faith. [1] https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price [2] https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills-governor-brown-signed-and-didnt-sign-this-year https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-dogma-lives-loudly-within-you-and-thats-a-concern/2017/09/07/04303fda-93cb-11e7-8482-8dc9a7af29f9_video.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-...

OhioMan2943 1y ago

The old generation of idealists grew up and we raised no one to replace them. I know because I'm in that emotionally and ideologically stunted generation.

johnnyanmac 1y ago
Why did they raise no one to replace them?
- michaelt 1y ago
  A lot of 1990s tech optimists thought that people with awful opinions were the unfortunate victims of a lack of access to books and education; and the strict gatekeeping of broadcast media by the powerful. This new multi-media technology was going to give everyone on the planet access to a complete free university education, thousands of books, and would prevent the likes of Chinese state-run media suppressing knowledge about Tienanmen Square. And after they receive this marvellous free education, all the communists and nazis and religious nutjobs will realise they were wrong and we were right. We won't need any censorship though, in our enlightenment-style marketplace of ideas, rational argument is all that's needed to send bad ideas packing, and the educated audience will have no trouble seeing through fallacies and trickery. Also the greater education will mean everyone can get better jobs and make more money, and with this trade with China we're just ramping up they'll see our brilliant democratic system, and peacefully adopt it. The recently fallen Soviet Union is of course going to do the same, and it's going to go really well. We'll all live happily ever after. This Bill Clinton chap has a federal budget surplus, now we're not spending all that money on the cold war, so we'll get that national debt paid off in no time too. You may be able to figure out why this particular brand of optimism isn't so fashionable these days.
  - righthand 1y ago
    I wouldn’t say that optimism and idealism are no longer fashionable, but instead that original optimism (however true) was blinded by it’s own lack of knowledge. We should still be perusing optimist/idealist outcomes but not the ones from another era.

protocolture 1y ago

>I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go? I absolutely abhor the "Kids these days" sort of argument, but it does seem the case that we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly. What has happened previously was we would rally around corporations and institutions that would generally work in our best interests. But the people driving those social goods in those entities are now the villains. Not to mention all the mergers and acquisitions. In Australia, during the internet filter debate, we had both a not for profit entity spending money on advertising, but also decently sized ISP's like iiNet working publicly against the problem. The not for profit was funded by industry, something that never happened again. And iiNet is now owned by TPG who also used to have a social conscience but have been hammered into the dust by the (completely non technical, and completely asinine bane of the internets existence and literal satan) ACCC and have no fight left in them for anything. When Teoh leaves or sells TPG, it will probably never fight a good fight ever again. Its the same everywhere. We cant expect people to fight for freedom when the legislation just gets renamed and relaunched again after the next crisis comes out in the media. We lost internet filtration after christchurch, for absolutely no justifiable reason. And we lost the Access and Assistance fight despite having half the global tech industry tell our government to suck eggs. The only real solution is to prep the next generation to fight back as best as possible, to help them ignore the doomsayers and help the right humans into the right places to deal with this shit.

jay_kyburz 1y ago
Hey hey hey.. hold on, wait a minuet. What did you just say about the ACCC. Those guys make sure we have good warranties and cracking down on scams. They are the good guys protecting us from the scammers and cooperate greed.
- protocolture 1y ago
  They also worked tirelessly at the behest of the largest 4 ISPs to ensure that the NBN would be as expensive and anti competitive as possible.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Kim_Bruning 1y ago

> Where did their conscience go? Aaron Swartz is no longer with us. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Opposition_to_the_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act_(SOPA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Opposition_to_the... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Death

Ray20 1y ago

"suddenly"? Wikipedia has always supported fascist initiatives