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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

• perihelions 1y ago
  More HN comments here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721403 ("Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations (wikimediafoundation.org)"—189 comments)
  • beejiu 1y ago
    Worth noting that was before the High Court's further judgments today, and the article has been updated. The full judgment is here: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedia-Foundation-and-another-v-Secretary-of-State-for-Science-Innovation-and-Technology.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedi...
    • exasperaited 1y ago
      If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. Such a challenge would not be prevented by the outcome of this claim. Seems pretty logical. Again I think people outside of the UK perceive Ofcom to be a censor with a ban hammer. It's an industry self-regulation authority -- backed by penalties, yes, but it favours self-regulation. And the implementation is a modifiable statutory instrument specifically so that issues like this can be addressed. In a perfect world would this all be handled with parental oversight and on-device controls? Yeah, maybe. But on-device parental controls are such a total mess, and devices available so readily, that UK PAYG mobile phone companies have already felt compelled (before the law changed) to block adult content by default. ETA: I am rate-limited so I will just add that I am in the UK too. Not that this is relevant to the discussion. There is no serious UK consensus for overturning this law; the only party that claims that as a position does not even have the support of the majority of its members. I do not observe this law to be censorship, because as an adult I can see what I want to see, I just have to prove I am an adult. Which is how it used to work with top shelf magazines (so I am told! ;-) ) I suppose it's not really the done thing to say this, but if you disagree with me, say something, don't just downvote.
      • vidarh 1y ago
        As someone in the UK: Ofcom is a censor, that by leaving these things unclear are further having a massive chilling effect that is absolutely already being felt. The issue here is not parental oversight. It's the massively overly broad assault on speech. The UK PAYG block is a good example of a solution that would have had far less severe impact if extended.
        • piltdownman 1y ago
          Pretty sure the PAYG block is circumvented by simply changing the APN in the carrier settings using freely available information online - that's how 3Ireland works and VodafoneIRL IIRC. It also had the annoying consequence of blocking all 'adult' sites - which included sites of historic interest and things like the internet archive. The problem with 'child safety' in the UK has almost nothing to do with pornographers or 'toxic' influences as viewed through the lense of neo-Victorian morality anyway. Instead, it is a societal powderkeg of gang indoctrination and social deprivation leading to a culture of drug-dealing, violent robberies, and postcode gang intimidation. This bill is simply a cheap and easily supported deflection from the dereliction of duty of successive governments towards the youth of the country since Blair. In short, it is nothing but an electoral panacea for the incumbent intolerant conservative voting base; moral-hysteria disguised as a child safety measure. This is inherently obvious when you assess the new vocabulary of persecution and otherness - detailing 'ASBO Youth', 'Chavs', 'NEETs and NEDs' and their inevitable progression to 'Roadmen'. The Netflix series 'Top Boy' is the Sopranos equivalent of how this culture operates and how children are indoctrinated into a life of diminished expectations in a way that is often inescapable given their environment and cultural norms around their upbringing. Even with this plethora of evidence and cultural consciousness, the powers that be are smugly insistent that removing PornHub is more important than introducing Social Hubs and amenities - and those that argue otherwise are derided as 'Saville's in the new parlance. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/online-safety-act-dark-web-nigel-farage-2lnfgvbds https://www.thetimes.com/uk/technology-uk/article/online-saf... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo
          • 1y ago
    • gnfargbl 1y ago
      To me, that judgment reads like a fairly strong warning to Ofcom. The outcome section makes it clear that although the request for judicial review has been refused at present, that refusal is predicated on the fact that Ofcom has currently not ruled that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service. If Ofcom were to rule that Wikipedia is a C1 service, the Wikimedia foundation would have grounds to request a review again -- and, between the lines, that request might well succeed. So, is Wikipedia really a Category 1 service? From https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174, it seems to come down to whether Wikipedia is a site which uses a "content recommender system", where that term is defined as: > a system, used by the provider of a regulated user-to-user service in respect of the user-to-user part of that service, that uses algorithms which by means of machine learning or other techniques determines, or otherwise affects, the way in which regulated user-generated content of a user, whether alone or with other content, may be encountered by other users of the service There's plenty of flexibility in that definition for Ofcom to interpret "content recommender system" in a way that catches Facebook without catching Wikipedia. For instance, Ofcom could simply take the viewpoint that any content recommendation that Wikipedia engages in is not "in respect of the user-to-user part of that service." After today's judgement, and perhaps even before, my own bet is that this is exactly the route Ofcom will take.
• cft 1y ago
  If the UK orders a Wikipedia block to its ISPs, it would be a good thing, to raise public awareness of the OSA. Wikipedia should do nothing and wait.
  • graemep 1y ago
    Which is why they will not do it. Nothing popular will be blocked or shut down.
    • corndoge 1y ago
      Porn is popular!
      • graemep 1y ago
        True, but its not going to get blocked. AFAIK all the big porn sites are happily implementing age verification. Why not? Its an excuse to gather data, to increase numbers of registered users or some other form of tracking, and to raise a barrier to entry to smaller competitors. Other aspects of the OSA have similar effects on other types of sites such as forums vs social media.
        • vidarh 1y ago
          Some are not, an ironically, Ofcom's website now provides a handy list of websites you can visit without age verification (in their list of companies they are investigating)
        • IshKebab 1y ago
          > Why not? Because only 10% of visitors actually do it. It might not be as bad as this because probably anyone who was actually going to pay for the porn would be ok with giving them their credit card number anyway. Bad for advertising income though.
        • filoleg 1y ago
          > AFAIK all the big porn sites are happily implementing age verification I don’t know what you had in mind by “big porn sites”, but the biggest one I know of (Pornhub) is not doing that. They decided to voluntarily withdraw from the US markets where age verification became required (TX, GA, etc.), and wrote a pretty good blog post explaining their rationale (which revolved around the idea that letting third parties to just receive and process ID documents just so that users could watch porn was both not secure at all and absurd).
• exasperaited 1y ago
  It's an interesting thing but I think their specific concerns are somewhat overcooked. As another commenter pointed out in the earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721712 > The categorisation regulations are a statutory instrument rather than primary legislation, so they _are_ open to judicial review. But the Wikimedia foundation haven't presented an argument as to why the regulations are unlawful, just an argument for why they disagree with them. Ofcom's SI could simply be modified to exclude research texts, and it could even be modified to exclude Wikipedia specifically; there's no obvious problem with that considering its scale and importance. If you go through Ofcom's checker: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/check https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c... The answers are 1) yes, 2) yes, 3) no, 4) probably "No, but...", 5) no, 6) no. But the answer to getting out of the problem entirely might be to change the answer to question 6 -- that is, register Wikipedia as an education provider in the UK (since it is already used in that capacity). I mean Wikipedia have actually exhibited at BETT, the main educational tech show here; Jimmy Wales did a keynote.
  • Kim_Bruning 1y ago
    > And it could even be modified to exclude Wikipedia specifically; That's certainly a potential workaround. But carve outs often mean that similar communities become hard to create!
    • exasperaited 1y ago
      I don't doubt that. But again, it is secondary legislation. It's highly amenable to ministerial and parliamentary scrutiny, and it will be amended.
      • vidarh 1y ago
        That is exactly the problem. It's unpredictable, and in the hand of a government with a serious authoritarian and pro-censorship attitude.
      • Kim_Bruning 1y ago
• layer8 1y ago
  The underlying issue remains unaddressed if only Wikipedia-scale sites of “significant value” get special exemption.
  • sparsely 1y ago
    Quite. Sites that have resources and influence will be fine - they can either comply with the rules or will be given soft exemptions. It's small and new communities that will suffer.
  • gnfargbl 1y ago
    The OSA is already written such that only very large sites are potentially caught by the most onerous rules (at least 7 million MAU for Category 1; at least 3 million MAU for Category 2B). Smaller sites are automatically exempted. This isn't to say that the OSA is a universally good thing, or that smaller sites won't be affected by it. However, this request for judicial review wasn't looking to carve out any special cases for specific large sites in favour of smaller sites.
    • _dain_ 1y ago
      >Smaller sites are automatically exempted. No, they're not. I don't know why people keep repeating this "7 million active users limit" idea, it's nowhere to be found in the actual rules. Tiny forums have already had to close because they didn't want to deal with the legal risk: https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/in_memoriam/ https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/in_memoriam/
      • owisd 1y ago
        https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/illegal-content-codes-of-practice-for-user-to-user-services-24-feb.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli... Page 64 defines a Large Service as "A service which has more than 7 million monthly active United Kingdom users". The first two forums in your "in memoriam" list I tried looking at (Sinclair QL Forum & Red Passion Forum) are both still up.
• nickslaughter02 1y ago
  Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind. Remember the "Repeal the Online Safety Act" petition? It has gotten over half a million signatures and the response from the government was a loud "no". > The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
  • perihelions 1y ago
    They did do that once, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3477966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3477966 ("Wikipedia blackout page (wikipedia.org)" (2012)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA#Wikimedia_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative
    • GeekyBear 1y ago
      That was part of a widespread protest against proposed bipartisan internet legislation in America. On that occassion, it was very effective at getting the American government to back down.
      • alt227 1y ago
        Sounds like a pretty much identical situation to this. Maybe it would cause the UK government to back down on this stupid law.
    • thomastjeffery 1y ago
      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?
• amiga386 1y ago
  > If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. Such a challenge would not be prevented by the outcome of this claim. Basically, DENIED, DENIED, DENIED. Ofcom can keep the loaded gun pointed in Wikipedia's face, forever, and make as many threats as it likes. Only if it pulls the trigger does Wikipedia have a case. Wikipedia should voluntarily remove itself from the UK entirely. No visitors, no editors.
  • exasperaited 1y ago
    But this is how the law works? Even in the USA, the Supreme Court doesn't act on hypotheticals. They wait until someone brings an actual case. Ofcom haven't ruled Wikipedia is Category 1. They haven't announced the intention to rule it Category 1. The Category 1 rules are not yet in effect and aren't even finalised. They aren't pointing any gun. Wikipedia have a case that they shouldn't be Category 1 if that happens. But they went fishing in advance (or to use an alternative metaphor, they got out over their skis). What else is the court to do but give a reassurance that the process will absolutely be amenable to review if the hypothetical circumstance comes to pass? That is what the section you are quoted says. First, it's a statutory instrument that ministers will amend if it has unintended, severe consequences. Second, the rules in question have not been written yet and they are being written in conjunction with industry (which will include Wikipedia). Because Ofcom is an industry self-regulation body.
    • flipbrad 1y ago
      A lot of what you are posting is not true. Take for instance your claim that "Ofcom is an industry self-regulation body"
      • exasperaited 1y ago
        Ofcom is a government-approved industry regulator, strictly speaking. It is what in the UK gets called a Quango. A quasi-non-government-organisation. It is not a government body. It is not under direct ministerial control. It gets some funds from government (but mostly through fees levied on industry): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c8eec40f0b626628ace8a/130717_Explanatory_document__Final__1707__6_.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c8eec40f0b... But it operates within industry as the industry's regulator, and its approach has always been to operate that way (just as the other Of- quangos do). Here is what appears to be their own take on it. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/uncategorised/9860-co-reg/associated-documents/co_self_reg.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/cons... This seems pretty consistent with what I said -- it is essentially a self-regulation body, promoting self-regulation but backed by statutory powers/penalties. Now what else is untrue? ETA: rate-limited so I am not able to properly respond to the below. Bye for now.
• andiareso 1y ago
  All US companies should boycott the UK in solidarity. See how fast the regulators walk back the bill.
  • cft 1y ago
    why would they? This is great for the large media corps: - Increases barrier to entry for smaller competitors - Reliable user data (age, race, who knows what else) derived from video age verification Anecdote: My mom recently visited Spain. The process of buying a local SIM card was as follows: • Show your US passport at a major local cellular provider’s store (Movistar) to have its number associated with the SIM. • During SIM activation, open a browser page that accesses the phone’s camera. • Scan the first page of your passport. • Point the selfie camera at your face, then close your eyes and smile when prompted.
    • joemi 1y ago
      > then close your eyes and smile when prompted I was about to ask about this, but then I realized it must so that you can't just point it at a photo of someone.
  • crimsoneer 1y ago
    The UK law is significantly less stringent and better thought out than equivalent age verification laws already in place in a bunch of US states....
    • nonethewiser 1y ago
      Ah yes, what about the US. Which law are you talking about by the way? I was mostly familiar with laws that required porn companies to verify their user's age. That is a lot more targeted and less offensive than UK Online Safety Act Regulations IMO. I mean it's already illegal to distribute porn to minors - that's just requiring them to enforce it at the expense of porn watcher's anonymity. Whereas the UK Online Safety Act is more like a backdoor for content moderation across the internet.
• rvba 1y ago
  Wikipedia is so bad at simplest PR. It should close itself before elections to burn the politicians that try to screw it.
  • Levitz 1y ago
    It's a dangerous game to play, spending credibility to influence stuff. Not that it's unthinkable or anything, but my impression is that people are not quite aware that it ain't free.
    • rvba 1y ago
      If wikipedia can show the Jimmy Wales banners, then sure it can go for the throat of some politicians. It allready collects few hubdred million per year, spends like 10 on wikipedia itself and rest goes for political projects. They could do something useful for once. (On a side note: all those money and they dont use it to track the cliques / country level actors across admins...)
• tux1968 1y ago
  The UK is spearheading this charge, but if they are successful it will have paved the way for many more governments to embrace these policies. How this plays out is important for people living in every western country.
  • devmor 1y ago
    The US has been implementing similar bans sporadically as well. It's being done on a state-by-state basis due to the limited federal power structure of our government making it more difficult for minority power groups like fascists to push legislation. I do believe the social factors leading to support for these bans are quite a bit different, but the core minds behind them are of the same creed.
    • NoGravitas 1y ago
      Don't know why you are being downvoted. It is a literal fact that many states in the US have implemented this type of legislation.
• Mistletoe 1y ago
  Could it be that the massive Wikipedia war chest of money can actually be used for something now?
  • arduanika 1y ago
    If the incessant banner ads said, "Hello, this is a special plea from Jimmy Wales, get in, we're saving the Brits from themselves", then maybe I'd actually donate.
• acka 1y ago
  Just leaving this here, in case things really start going south and people realize they need to stack up on knowledge supplies (note: I am not affiliated with them, I just think that Wikipedia, among other resources, is too valuable to let it fall through the cracks): > When there is No Internet, there is Kiwix Access vital information anywhere. Use our apps for offline reading on the go or the Hotspot in every place you want to call home. Ideal for remote areas, emergencies, or independent knowledge access. https://kiwix.org/en/ https://kiwix.org/en/
• hliyan 1y ago
  On a slightly related note, has anyone else noticed an increase in social media attacks on Wikipedia, kind of like this? https://x.com/benlandautaylor/status/1954276775560966156 https://x.com/benlandautaylor/status/1954276775560966156 Post reads: "Periodic reminder that Wikipedia has a squillion times more money than they need to operate the actual website, and all marginal donations go to the fake paper-shuffling NGO that attached itself to the organization for the purpose of feeding on donations from rubes." Quoted post reads: "I have no interest in giving Wikipedia money to blow on fake jobs for ovecredentialed paper-pushers, but if the banner said “Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia and he’d like to buy a yacht” then I’d pull out my wallet immediately."
  • trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    I've contributed content to Wikipedia and broadly agree with the sentiment. Users are guilted into thinking donations go towards the cost of serving the encyclopedia, which is not really where the money goes.
  • daedrdev 1y ago
    This has been a criticism for a decade or more
    • wiredpancake 1y ago
      Correct, it is especially of note given the publicity of Wikimedias funding and balances. There is a million more greedy companies than Wikimedia, there is also other places that could use your money though, i.e Internet Archive, which is always desperate for donations.
      • account42 1y ago
        > There is a million more greedy companies than Wikimedia How many of them are asking for donations under the guise of an open encyclopedia? For-profit corporations aren't even relevant when discussing badly-behaving non-profits.
  • emberfiend 1y ago
• miki123211 1y ago
  I'm really confused about what would realistically happen if Wikimedia just decided to ignore those regulations. They have surely ignored demands to censor Wikipedia in more authoritarian countries. What makes the UK different? Extradition treaties? Do they even apply here? I have the same confusion about Signal's willingness to leave Europe if chat control is imposed[1], while still providing anti-censorship tools for countries like Iran and China. What makes the European laws they're unwilling to respect different from the Iranian laws they're unwilling to respect?
  • AlgebraFox 1y ago
    They might ban the CEO and employees from entering their country or arrest them when they travel.
    • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
      Having moved out of the uk many years ago, being banned from there, may not be such a bad thing. The worst thing is, people will vote out the labour government, and the tory bastards (who will say they are 'the party of freedom) will tell the country "Well, it wasnt us".
      • vizzier 1y ago
        Its worth noting of course, that this is Tory law which was given a grace period before implementation. Labour have chosen to continue its implementation and not repeal it.
  • chippiewill 1y ago
    A variety of things could happen: - Employees become accountable for their company's actions - Wikimedia could be blocked - Other kinds of sanctions (e.g. financial ones) could be levied somehow In practice what will likely happen is Wikimedia will comply: either by blocking the UK entirely, making adjustments to be compliant with UK legislation (e.g. by making their sites read-only for UK-users - probably the most extreme outcome that's likely to occur), or the as-yet unannounced Ofcom regulations they've preemptively appealed actually won't apply to Wikimedia anyway (or will be very light touch).
• knorker 1y ago
  What I hate most about this latest push is that people in their 30s are trying to convince us all that blocking children's access to porn and such is the issue. As if most people don't agree with that in the abstract. Not only people in their 30s, but it's who I see making a fuss about it. Presumably because they are now parents of children newly reaching this age. They are completely ignoring that they are entering a debate that's been going on for longer than they have been alive, and are just arguing from a source of "common sense" gut feelings. They are literally a third of a century behind on this issue, but it doesn't stop them talking about it. They are incompetent on this issue (nothing bad about that. I'm incompetent in most things), but they are also stupid because they don't let that incompetence stop them. They are too incompetent to understand that they just did the equivalent of entering a room full of mathematicians with a collective thousands of years of math knowledge, and saying "how about just making 2+2=5? You could make 2+2=4, so you smart people should be able to do it". How do you even start with someone this ignorant? They don't even understand what math is. "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" — "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
  • anal_reactor 1y ago
    I wish I could agree with you, but this is not how things work. My experience says that if there's enough people wishing for 2+2 to equal 5, that will become the socially accepted standard, and the whole society will get organized around 2+2=5. Will it be less efficient? Yes. Will people care? No.
  • nonethewiser 1y ago
    UK Online Safety Act has a much bigger scope than porn. In fact you've picked probably the least offensive, which is not to say uncontroversial, part of the law to argue with. Its illegal to distribute porn to minors just like its illegal to let underage people gamble on your poker app. Yet people in factor of age verification laws for porn still have concerns with this because it's just a totally open-ended backdoor into content moderation across the internet.
  • StopVibeCoding 1y ago
• throw7 1y ago
  If UK really believes in their ideology then they just need to copy China and implement the China Firewall™ for the UK. FYI, Wikimedia Foundation just wants a carve out/exception to be able to opt out of category 1 duties.
  • nonethewiser 1y ago
    How would they collect fines in this scenario? To be clear I totally agree with you. But they are playing a game.
• throwaway81523 1y ago
  Wikipedia loses court challenge https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/wikipedia-operator-loses-court-challenge-uk-online-safety-act-regulations-2025-08-11/ https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/wikipe...
• magwa101 1y ago
  [dead]
• mytailorisrich 1y ago
  This is about the duties of a "category 1 service" under the Online Safety Act. Wikipedia is one mostly because of their size, I believe. These duties are quite onerous, and over the top (someone might say that the government is seeing adults are real "snowflakes" these days): Large user-to-user services, known as Category 1 services, will be required to offer adult users tools which, if they choose to use, will give them greater control over the kinds of content they see and who they engage with online. Adult users of such services will be able to verify their identity and access tools which enable them to reduce the likelihood that they see content from non-verified users and prevent non-verified users from interacting with their content. This will help stop anonymous trolls from contacting them. Following the publication of guidance by Ofcom, Category 1 services will also need to proactively offer adult users optional tools, at the first opportunity, to help them reduce the likelihood that they will encounter certain types of legal content. These categories of content are set out in the Act and include content that does not meet a criminal threshold but encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. These tools also apply to abusive or hate content including where such content is racist, antisemitic, homophobic, or misogynist. The tools must be effective and easy to access. [1] [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act...
  • nonethewiser 1y ago
    Conducting risk assessments and impact assessments regularly. Providing transparency reports and cooperating fully with Ofcom. This is the sort of regulatory compliance that has stifled European businesses for decades. Useless overhead.
  • fluidcruft 1y ago
    Only editors engage with each other on Wikipedia, right? Can they just ban sign up and edits by/from the UK?
• jchw 1y ago
  The correct time for major service providers to shift their weight and start pulling out of any jurisdiction necessary to get their point across has already come and gone. The second best time would be as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the Internet world we live in today isn't the one I grew up in, so I'm sure things will just go according to plan. Apparently a majority of Britons polled support these rules, even though a (smaller) majority of Britons also believe they are ineffective at their goals[1]. I think that really says a lot about what people really want here, and it would be hard to believe anyone without a serious dent in their head really though this had anything at all to do with protecting children. People will do literally anything to protect children, so as long as it only inconveniences and infringes on the rights of the rest of society. They don't even have to believe it will work. And so maybe we will finally burn the house to roast the pig. [1]: https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-britons-reacted-to-age-verification https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-brit...
  • nonethewiser 1y ago
    I think this is actually a better place to draw the line than the EU’s Digital Services Act, for example. It's just the UK. Blacking out service for EU would be a more bitter pill to swallow.
  • lxe 1y ago
    This is how we should have stopped the cookie banners
    • donkeybeer 1y ago
      Its easy to solve cookie banners, its not the laws fault websites are fucking incompetent.
      • lxe 1y ago
        But it is the law's fault. Instead of working with some body like IETF and browser contributors to come up with a standard, they just butchered the verbiage and expected the website admins to comply in the most unergonomic fashion imaginable.
• zkmon 1y ago
  Is Wikimedia Foundation a UK entity? Otherwise why should it concern itself with some country's regulation? USA does not have a global jurisdiction. But it has global leverages.
  • advisedwang 1y ago
    It has UK based editors and users. Employees of the foundation surely travel to the UK. They take donations from UK users. Their network peers with UK based ISPs. They have enough touch points with the UK that complying not complying with UK law could cause significant problem.
• jmclnx 1y ago
  I wonder why Wikipedia does not ban access from the UK due to this ruling ? I think doing that will get them an exemption rather quickly.
  • tehwebguy 1y ago
    Do they even need to? Seems like they can just eliminate all the jobs in the UK and let the ISPs ban them when the time comes.
    • MattPalmer1086 1y ago
      Right - in terms of liability there is nothing the UK can do to them if they aren't operating there. Up to the UK to block them with the Great British Firewall if they still aren't happy. Having said that, if Wikipedia geo blocked the UK it would send a powerful message to everyone living here.
  • dmoy 1y ago
    My read of the article is that it's still an ongoing legal battle, even after this one judgement. So maybe yes, but maybe no, depending on how things pan out in subsequent rulings?
  • coryrc 1y ago
    I don't think any movement like that has worked yet.
  • moralestapia 1y ago
    >I think doing that will get them an exemption rather quickly. Some of us prefer civilization, though.
• Lio 1y ago
  One of the most interesting things about this legislation is where it comes from. Primarily it was drafted and lobbied for by William Perrin OBE and Prof Lorna Woods at Carnegie UK[1], billed as an “independent foundation”. William Perrin is also the founder of Ofcom. So he’s been using the foundation’s money to lobby for the expansion of his unelected quango. It has also been suggested that one of the largest beneficiaries of this law, an age verification company called Yoti, also has financial ties to Carnegie UK. It’s difficult to verify that because Yoti is privately held and its backers are secret. It’s not as if anyone was surprised that teenagers can get round age blocks in seconds so there’s something going on and it stinks. 1. https://carnegieuk.org/team/william-perrin-obe/ https://carnegieuk.org/team/william-perrin-obe/
  • albertgoeswoof 1y ago
    Another source to back up the first claim https://carnegieuk.org/blog/online-safety-and-carnegie-uk/ https://carnegieuk.org/blog/online-safety-and-carnegie-uk/ I would like to see much more thorough journalism on the origin of these laws
  • tailspin2019 1y ago
    > It has also been suggested that one of the largest beneficiaries of this law, an age verification company called Yoti, also has financial ties to Carnegie UK. Do you have any sources for this?
  • ChrisKnott 1y ago
    Ludicrous to call William Perrin “the founder” of Ofcom or refer to it as “his” quango. Passive voice, evidence free conspiracy nonsense that flatters HN biases? Updoots to the left!
    • Lio 1y ago
      > Ludicrous to call William Perrin “the founder” of Ofcom or refer to it as “his” quango From his own Carnegie UK webpage linked above: > William was instrumental in creating Ofcom, reforming the regulatory regimes of several sectors and kicking off the UK government’s interest in open data. William was awarded an OBE for his highly influential work at Carnegie UK with Prof Lorna Woods that underpinned the UK government’s approach to regulating online services. How is he not a founder of Ofcom? That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s just a verifiable statement of fact. Or is it the use of the word founder you object to? If you prefer, “was instrumental in setting up and is closely related to the running of Ofcom”.
• ndriscoll 1y ago
  I don't understand why Wikipedia would fall under Category 1. Am I looking at the wrong thing, or does the definition in 3.(1) not require the service to use an algorithmic recommendation system (which Wikipedia does not do)? https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174
  • betaby 1y ago
    Because laws are not interpreted in a logical way. Especially the laws with a 'safety' aspects.
  • buzer 1y ago
    I'm not sure if this Wikipedia's official policy but at https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/wikipedias-nonprofit-host-brings-legal-challenge-to-new-online-safety-act-osa-regulations-0f9153102f29 https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/wikipedias-nonprofit-hos... they do say: > Definition of content recommender systems: Having any “algorithm” on the site that “affects” what content someone might “encounter”, is seemingly enough to qualify popular websites for Category 1. As written, this could even cover tools that are used to combat harmful content. We, and many other stakeholders, have failed to convince UK rulemakers to clarify that features that help keep services free of bad content — like the New Pages Feed used by Wikipedia article reviewers—should not trigger Category 1 status. Other rarely-used features, like Wikipedia’s Translation Recommendations, are also at risk. > Content forwarding or sharing functionality: If a popular app or website also has content “forwarding or sharing” features, its chances of ending up in Category 1 are dramatically increased. The Regulations fail to define what they mean by “forwarding or sharing functionality”: features on Wikipedia (like the one allowing users to choose Wikipedia’s daily “Featured Picture”) could be caught.
    • Sephr 1y ago
      "Content forwarding or sharing functionality" seems like it would cover any website with a URL.
      • miohtama 1y ago
• josefritzishere 1y ago
  Were it my decision to make... I'd ban the UK. If they wants to live in the dark ages, let them.
• MattPalmer1086 1y ago
  The Online Safety Act is a hideous piece of legislation. I hope Wikipedia block the UK. (I am a UK citizen).
  • slaymaker1907 1y ago
    Act like an authoritarian regime, get treated like other authoritarian regimes.
    • catlikesshrimp 1y ago
      China is doing great. Not saying the UK will do well, just that authoritarian regimes can be successful as states although not great for the commoners.
      • FredPret 1y ago
        China only started doing great when they relaxed their ultra-centralized economic rules a little bit in the 1990s. Read business books and news from the 80's - 90's, and they almost never mention China - it's all Germany, UK, Japan, USA. The stats tell the same story - China spent half a century going nowhere fast. After liberalizing their economy, China spent the 90's quietly growing, and only started making real waves in the news around 2000. All this to say that economic authoritarianism has never worked and there's no reason to suppose that the social kind is going to fare any better for anyone either.
        • denkmoon 1y ago
          Economic liberalism isn't really relevant to the question of social authoritarianism. While an enterprising individual in guangzhou can sell whatever he wants to the world without much state involvement, he can't really go around discussing Tibetan sovereignty for example.
          • FredPret 1y ago
            My current theory is that one leads to the other but we’ll see how that works out for our friend in Guangzhou. My point is centralization doesn’t work, so maybe social authoritarianism has deleterious cultural effects that will show up generations from now.
• mathiaspoint 1y ago
  Kind of funny after the authors of the law complained service providers were interpreting it overzealously. No, if Wikipedia falls under it anything meaningful does. You have once again failed to understand the internet.
  • tzs 1y ago
    Many sites were overzealously interpreting it. The difficulty of compliance depends on both how big the size is and the kind of site it is. Many small site overlooked both of those factors.
    • mathiaspoint 1y ago
      Again if it has to be applied to Wikipedia there's nothing meaningful beyond a static informational site it wouldn't apply to.
      • tzs 1y ago
        The overzealous interpretations where not over whether or not it applied. They were over what the providers would have to do to comply. That depends greatly on the amount of traffic the site gets and the type of content that is on the site.
      • foldr 1y ago
        We don't yet know how OFCOM will categorize Wikipedia. This was a preemptive legal action.
• vaylian 1y ago
  Wikipedia has been introduced as the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Anyone can publish problematic material or false information. But it's also Wikipedia's greatest strength that it has been so open to basically everyone and that gave us a wide range of really good articles that rivaled the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia is a product of the free internet. It is a product of a world that many politicians still don't understand. But those politicians still make laws that do not make sense, because they believe that something has to be done against those information crimes. And they also do it to score brownie points with their conservative voting base. The internet has it's problems, no doubt about that. But what these laws do is to throw the baby out with the bath water. Actually, the water probably stays in, because it's not like those laws solve anything.
  • RobKohr 1y ago
    I feel that the left and the right are tag teaming on this topic. Both sides want to track who says what on the internet for their own purposes.
    • taraindara 1y ago
      I’ll add to this, no politician is on your side unless it means getting your vote to keep them in power. It’s hard to be an actual good person and get too far up in politics, especially in today’s environment. So, yes, I believe they both want tracking to exist, because they both benefit massively from it.
      • yndoendo 1y ago
        I would add, some politicians are on your side on select matters, most are not. Sad thing is people ignore a politician's actions and keep applying Yes or No to their marketing statements. They use social engineering wording just to get votes and then they will ignore that standing to support their own action of legislation crafting and voting. By block and limiting access to information, such as Wikipedia, they are advocating for a dumb populous. Irony is that in order to have a strong national security, an educated populous is needed. They are the ones see beyond the easily deployed social engineering tactics and are better at filtering out misinformation.
• p3rls 1y ago
  i run a pretty large wiki, few mill users a month, and will be ignoring these laws. i'm from the US for reference.
• bArray 1y ago
  > The government told the BBC it welcomed the High Court's judgment, "which will help us continue our work implementing the Online Safety Act to create a safer online world for everyone". Demonstrably false. It creates a safer online world for some. > In particular the foundation is concerned the extra duties required - if Wikipedia was classed as Category 1 - would mean it would have to verify the identity of its contributors, undermining their privacy and safety. Some of the articles, which contain factual information, are damning for the UK government. It lists, for example, political scandals [1] [2]. Or information regarding hot topics such as immigration [3], information that the UK government want to strictly control (abstracting away from whether this is rightfully or wrongfully). I can tell you what will (and has already) happened as a result: 1. People will use VPNs and any other available methods to avoid restrictions placed on them. 2. The next government will take great delight in removing this law as an easy win. 3. The likelihood of a British constitution is increasing, which would somewhat bind future parliaments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Labour_Party_(UK)_scandals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Labour_Party_(UK)_sca... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...
  • drawfloat 1y ago
    The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government (which, by the way, there is still a non zero chance could be Labour) will necessarily reverse this. Maybe Reform would tweak the topics, but I’m not convinced any party can be totally trusted to reverse this.
    • adamm255 1y ago
      If the current government reversed it, the 'oh think of the children' angle from the Tories/Reform against them would be relentless. I cant say they have been amazing at messaging as it is.
• OutOfHere 1y ago
  Wikipedia ought to block edits from the UK. Giving in to fascism emboldens it.
• ChrisArchitect 1y ago
  [dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44863487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44863487
• ljosifov 1y ago
  US should slap travel bans on UK politicians travelling to Disney parks and similar in Florida with their families. And/or with their older children visiting NYC. The combined pressure of the wives and their children, will knock sense in their thick skulls quickly. In the sense of - being stupid is not cost free. Atm it's cost free for them, and costly for me.
  • SpaceManNabs 1y ago
    The US is moving in the same direction.
  • watwut 1y ago
    US is not exactly desirable location for tourism right now. And like, appeal of of florida Disneyland as a dream place to go to was never all that huge abroad. The Disney cult/dream is more of an American thing.
    • gambiting 1y ago
      And to add to that - I'd wager that British people who want to go to Disneyland just go to the one in Paris, it's a LOT cheaper than the American ones.
  • jeroenhd 1y ago
    Disneyland Paris is a three hour train ride away from London. I doubt the British politicians would go to American Disney Parks unless they were already there anyway. Most Britons support the current rules: https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-britons-reacted-to-age-verification https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-brit...
  • bigyabai 1y ago
    If this is the biggest threat America can levy then the UK has already won.
• kersplody 1y ago
  At least wikipedia has an out in the legislation by disabling content recommendation engines for UK users, this includes: 1. “You may be interested in…” search suggestions on the Wikipedia interface—these are algorithmic, content-based recommendations. 2. Editor suggestion tools that propose pages to edit, based on prior activity. Academic systems helping newcomers with article recommendations also qualify. Most links within articles—like “See also” sections or hyperlinks—are static and curated by editors, not algorithmically chosen per user. That means they do not meet the recommender system definition. The legislation text for reference: "Category 1 threshold conditions 3.—(1) The Category 1 threshold conditions(10) are met by a regulated user-to-user service where, in respect of the user-to-user part of that service, it— (a)(i)has an average number of monthly active United Kingdom users that exceeds 34 million, and (ii)uses a content recommender system, or (b)(i)has an average number of monthly active United Kingdom users that exceeds 7 million, (ii)uses a content recommender system, and (iii)provides a functionality for users to forward or share regulated user-generated content(11) on the service with other users of that service. (2) In paragraph (1), a “content recommender system” means a system, used by the provider of a regulated user-to-user service in respect of the user-to-user part of that service, that uses algorithms which by means of machine learning or other techniques determines, or otherwise affects, the way in which regulated user-generated content of a user, whether alone or with other content, may be encountered by other users of the service. "
  • oytis 1y ago
    Category 1 means you have some additional duties, but it is not necessary to e.g. be obliged to verify your users' age.
• ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  At what point is is time to put this very real island on a virtual island and just block all traffic that seems to be coming from there? Maybe they're right and all their meddling will really make the internet better, in which case I hope they enjoy their own private improved internet very much while I enjoy my inferior one in which I am not forced to aid materially in the government's surveillance of me.
• outside1234 1y ago
  Just turn off Wikipedia for the UK until it gets fixed.
• mvieira38 1y ago
  Now is the best time to remember: if there's something you value online, download it. There's no problem with downloading the entirety of wikipedia, and it's actually pretty easy and light to do so. Get your favorite songs, movies, etc. too ASAP
• nomilk 1y ago
  Wild. People compelled by law to produce id before accessing an online encyclopaedia. Shouldn't we be encouraging good behaviours like learning?
  • arresin 1y ago
    That won’t help them build a profile on you though and then, through the help of AI determine if you’re a threat because you’ve been displaying a pattern of looking at things you shouldn’t be.
• tempestn 1y ago
  I was just vacationing in the UK last week and ran into this ridiculous thing trying to browse (entirely non-pornographic, fwiw) Reddit threads. Which I opted not to read rather than going through the hassle and privacy breach. Also got to experience the full force of the cookie law, which I hadn't realized I was only seeing a fraction of here in Canada.
  • karel-3d 1y ago
    The cookie law is not in UK but in EU, no?
    • lpribis 1y ago
      Much of it comes from GDPR law which was passed prior to brexit. After brexit, the UK kept most of the regulation under the "UK GDPR", meaning it does apply in the UK as well.
      • karel-3d 1y ago
        Ah. I didn't know there is UK GDPR and UK cookie law! (cookie law is not related to GDPR? or is? I donno) What was the point of brexit if you keep the annoying parts of EU? But, whatever.
        • alt227 1y ago
          > What was the point of brexit if you keep the annoying parts of EU? Indeed, however the UK was part of the EU for 50 years. All the laws created in that time cannot immediately be replaced quickly or easily, and so most were carried over 'temporarily'
  • EasyMark 1y ago
    Why not just get a cheap VPN for traveling or set up tailscale to your home router?
    • tempestn 1y ago
• vsgherzi 1y ago
  Block the UK. Ridiculous behavior.
• throwpoaster 1y ago
  Maybe this is good. On balance, perhaps Wikipedia has become too important a cultural asset for anonymous editors.
• SpaceManNabs 1y ago
  I am not surprised. Every time I mention the draconian laws around digital speech when flying into london, hackernews historically said I was being ridiculous. The UK has some of the oddest laws I have seen from a western nation.
  • StopVibeCoding 1y ago
    america and europe are not too far
• deepsun 1y ago
  Going to be downvoted, but I support the move to make Wikimedia (and other websites that distribute user-generated content) to verify identities of their users (editors). It is ok to be responsible for what you're posting. We are living in the age of global irresponsibility. And it doesn't mean Wikimedia must make the identities public. Same as any other website -- real identity to be provided only to authorities following a court order. Also, there's a ton of bots and paid agents working full-time to shift political opinions to their political agenda.
  • luke727 1y ago
    Think your position through and try to determine if there is any possibility of unintended consequences.
  • Sateeshm 1y ago
    Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
    • xuno 1y ago
      That's a quote from Benjamin Franklin about a taxation dispute, and he was making a pro-Government statement.
• dreamcompiler 1y ago
  Isn't the lesson here that every website should just block UK access?
• vandahm 1y ago
  What are the consequences of simply disregarding the UK ruling? Does Wikipedia have British employees, offices, or financial assets?
• codedokode 1y ago
  In Russia there is a plan to make special SIM cards for children, that would not allow registration in social networks. Isn't it better than UK legislation? The whole idea that every site or app must do verification is stupid. It would be much easier and better to do verification at the store when buying a laptop, a phone or a SIM card. The verification status can be burned in firmware memory, and the device would allow only using sites and apps from the white list. In this case website operators and app developers wouldn't need to do anything and carry no expenses. This approach is simpler and superior to what UK does. If Apple or Microsoft refuse to implement restricted functionality for non-verified devices, they can be banned and replaced by alternative vendors complying with this proposal. It is much easier to force Apple and Microsoft - two rich companies - to implement children protection measures than thousands of website operators and app developers.
  • preisschild 1y ago
    > Isn't it better than UK legislation? Not at all, because SIM cards are bound to your real identity. So the government knows exactly which websites you visit.
    • codedokode 1y ago
      I don't understand your comment, the government knows which sites you visit anyway because it can see the SNI field in HTTPS traffic. The main point is that the verification is done on the device. The device has a digitally signed flag, saying whether it is owned by an adult user or not. And the OS on the device without the flag allows using only safe apps and websites sending a "Safe: yes" HTTP header. User doesn't need to send your ID to random companies, doesn't need to verify at every website, and website operators and app developers do not need do anything and do not need to do verification - they are banned from unverified devices by default. It is better for everyone. Also, as I understand the main point of the Act is to allow removing the content the government doesn't like in a prompt manner, for which my proposal is not helpful at all.
      • Disposal8433 1y ago
• LAC-Tech 1y ago
  Parliamentary democracy has proven absolutely useless in defending alienable rights like freedom of speech. I have been trying to think what sort of system is ideal to replace them. I think there has to be some kind of strong constitution that guarantees aforementioned rights. But I also think it's instructive to look at America wrt how that can go awry - ie their constitution is routinely ignored, and a lot of the political decision making is done by fifth columnists lobbying for a foreign nation. Regardless, we need to start having these conversations. It's not a matter of getting different people into Westminster. Westminster is illegitimate. Let's think about what's next and how we can get there peacefully.
• storus 1y ago
  An honest question - which devices can be used for secure communication if phones get government-borked for "children/foreign interference" purposes?
  • 867-5309 1y ago
    an unborked phone
    • storus 1y ago
      Give me one example of a government-borking-resistant phone?
      • 867-5309 1y ago
        tba
• isaacremuant 1y ago
  Of course it did. This is all completely arbitrary and the powers that be will do what they want and this is what you asked for, nay, begged for during covid.
• twothreeone 1y ago
  I'm confused.. can't they appeal High Court decisions (since the UKSC was formed after the government didn't like the High Court's decisions in the Diego Garcia thing)? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Ki...
  • lawtalkinghuman 1y ago
    Yes, but there would have to be an error of law in the High Court judgment. (And you'd usually appeal to the Court of Appeal first.)
• idorosen 1y ago
  To all of the commenters recommending that Wikipedia block UK visitors: This is incredibly short-sighted in the age of LLMs, where Wikipedia does not need to exist in a country in order for the benefit of its existence to be felt. Such a move would likely just drive people to obtain dubious regurgitations of Wikipedia’s (freely available) content via their favorite LLM chatbot, in my opinion.
  • bovermyer 1y ago
    How is the state of the art as far as blocking LLMs from accessing a site?
  • 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
    Option 1: enabling "dubious regurgitations of information" Option 2: enabling draconian abuse of power, violation of privacy, and mass surveillance
    • idorosen 1y ago
      The point was that Wikipedia blocking the UK today would not have the same effect as blocking it a decade ago during previous similar censorship attempts. It would likely be less effective. However, those aren’t not the only two options. Wikipedia could block editing from the UK, or it could simply not comply and wait for an enforcement action. What recourse would the UK have in any case of such an enforcement action if the law or regulation Wikipedia faces does not exist in the US, where Wikipedia is ostensibly based if it removed all financial or physical presence from the UK?
• trhway 1y ago
  Does Online Safety Act covers only HTTP? I mean does it cover say bittorrent? Or any outgoing TCP connection?
  • wiredpancake 1y ago
    As if this is even a consideration in the law. They are clueless to whatever an internet protocol is. Effectively, if it uses the "internet" and you interface with it from a device, it is subject to the ruling.
    • trhway 1y ago
      And if i were a lawyer i'd use the legal system - specifically i'd start by challenging OSA on the undue burden grounds for say BitTorrent - bringing in some experts, etc.. If not successful - such ruling would effectively prohibit all unauthenticated network activity - would make the cost of OSA clear to the public. If successful, i'd show that the same content OSA worried about - like p.rn - is widely available on BitTorrent, and thus having limitations for HTTP while not for BitTorrent is capricious or something like this.
      • wpm 1y ago
        You're allowed to say porn
• cobbzilla 1y ago
  Somehow this rhymes with the US's "War on Drugs", and it makes me very afraid: Similarities I see: * In the years leading up to government action, a mass hysteria was well cultivated in the media (evil drug users committing abhorrent crimes). * When launched, the public was overwhelmingly in favor of it (In 1971, 48% of the public said drugs were a serious problem in their community [1]). That's where we are now. THEN: * It got worse for decades (By 1986, 56% of Americans said that the government spent "too little" money fighting drugs [1]). * Following many years of lobbying, some rights are slowly restored. (NORML and other groups fighting for legal medical, then recreational use; mushrooms are legal in few places, etc). * It's still going on today. (Over 100,000 people currently serving prison sentences for drug-related offenses [2]). [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/6331/decades-drug-use-data-from-60s-70s.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/6331/decades-drug-use-data-from... [2] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2025.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2025.html
• kittikitti 1y ago
  There are too many Big Tech bootlickers on YCombinator who enabled this. All of a sudden, they get to act surprised and morally superior. I guess this is who the gatekeepers let in, people who publicly seem moral but when push comes to shove they will always act evil.
  • fgfarben 1y ago
    How exactly did "Big Tech bootlickers on YCombinator" enable the UK's parliament to enact authoritarian censorship laws? Pray tell.
    • StopVibeCoding 1y ago
      It's not just ycombinator, it's everywhere on the internet. Too many bootlickers big government & big tech bootlickers not sounding alarms as soon as privacy violations happened is what caused this.
• ozgrakkurt 1y ago
  Wouldn’t think this kind of law could ever have popular vote. Could anyone that support this law explain why they think it is good?
• chris_wot 1y ago
  So, theoretically, this would have revealed the identity of one of the biggest trolls in Wikipedia history: BrownHairedGirl.
• davidhyde 1y ago
  To me the online safety act is a latency tax and nothing more. Sucks for others though. I feel bad for them, it’s not right.
  • changadera 1y ago
    What's a latency tax?
    • cobbzilla 1y ago
      using a VPN adds some latency
• mkoubaa 1y ago
  It's a shame both sides can't lose
• Havoc 1y ago
  It's disappointing that their argument was more "exempt up" and less "this is an unworkable law". Not sure what comes next but wikipedia blocking UK followed by perhaps a study or two about harm done to the economy may be a good start to get the morons in charge to see the light This whole saga tells me that nobody in UK gov knows wtf their doing on anything online. (This act was introduced under conservatives and passed under liberals)
• al_borland 1y ago
  > The government told the BBC it welcomed the High Court's judgment, "which will help us continue our work implementing the Online Safety Act to create a safer online world for everyone". Suppression of information is not safety, it’s control.
• throwaway9832 1y ago
  [dead]
• zoklet-enjoyer 1y ago
  Just ignore the law, what are they going to do about it? Block Wikipedia in the UK?
• dghughes 1y ago
  Here in Canada there is Bill S-210 Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act aka "think of the children". I don't think the politicians thought of or could conceive of the technological requirements needed if this passes. It's just a knee-jerk bill sponsored by self-professed Conservative Senator Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne. Conservatives of the CPC party in Canada are much farther right of center more evangelical religious than the old Progressive Conservatives PCs were. Note that Senators in Canada are not like US Senators.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• curiousgal 1y ago
  > The government's lawyers argued that ministers had considered whether Wikipedia should be exempt from the regulations but had reasonably rejected the idea. It's funny, I'm coming up on my citizenship application and I sure as fuck won't ever be voting for Labour. I would rather create my own party and fail then vote for them (or conservatives or Reform). It's amazing how accurate The Thick Of It is.
• jibal 1y ago
  The debate(s) here is (are) premature.
• mock-possum 1y ago
  Okay but what if I want zero safety Can I have zero safety if I choose that?
• gethly 1y ago
  9 our of 10 online businesses will simply ban English users altogether. Which will be good for England as it will allow it to develop local competition without global multinationals' boot on their necks.
• SwtCyber 1y ago
  Feels like a classic case of a law written with "big social media" in mind accidentally scooping up something that clearly isn't in the same category
• PeterStuer 1y ago
  While I am very much opposed to the OSA, if you were going that way it somehow makes a little more sense to verify the identity of wikipedia editors than those of random social media users.
• lesser-shadow 1y ago
  [flagged]
• silasdavis 1y ago
  Coming back to London for a spell having lived abroad, I see speech supporting a non violent protest group banned, and find my myself firing up a VPN to avoid dragnet data collection. Terrorism Act 2000 and 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 Investigator Powers Act 2016 Online Safety Act 2023 There has been a raft of legislation both permitting and mandating digital monitoring while increasingly prohibiting types of speech. Many of these laws with overly broad definitions and large amounts of discretion.
• esskay 1y ago
  Shameful that Wikipedia are using this as another big yellow box "We need your money or we will have to shut down" message (and if anyone's not already aware, they really, really don't need to be doing this - they are not in any kind of financial struggle).
  • ramon156 1y ago
    iirc wikipedia has a company that hosts the site and has more than enough funding to survive
• xinayder 1y ago
  Don't worry guys, the UK government is protecting the "children" against access to knowledge, you know, the thing that got humans kicked out of the Gardens of Eden. Who would've thought the government would confirm that access to knowledge is a threat to their power?
• hopelite 1y ago
  Did anyone think at this point, on this trajectory that any British court would have struck this down? It reminds me of whatever the process is that keeps people in abusive relationships rationalizing how things will be fine now because their abuser promised to stop abusing them for the 100th time. Our current model of the mind would consider it a delusion, a mental illness. Considering the past few years and the abuses by government that follow the Biderman’s Chart of Coercion, it seems rather clear that humanity finds itself in a dungeon of the aristocracy once again; sadly enough, due to its own choices and actions.
  • cindyllm 1y ago
    [dead]
• v5v3 1y ago
  Decisions need to be made by juries and not judges...
• Palmik 1y ago
  I think UK OSA in its current state is bad, but I also think Wikipedia losing this case is good. Here is Wikipedia's original case: > 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. They were asking for special carve-out just for Wikipedia. This was not some principled stance. Now that they they lost the challenge, they might have to block visitors from UK, which will bring bigger awareness to how bad the current implementation of UK OSA is.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • gnfargbl 1y ago
    This is a loss, but only really a technical loss. What happened is that Wikimedia have been told that they haven't been told that they are Category 1 at this point and, given that they've already made a submission to Ofcom which makes an argument that they aren't Category 1 [1], then they need to wait and see if Ofcom agrees. If Ofcom doesn't agree, then Wikimedia is invited to come back again, with a fairly strong hint that they will find the door open for a review under the ECHR [2]. What I hope (and optimistically expect) to happen from here is that Ofcom takes a pragmatic view and interprets the rules such that Wikipedia is, in fact, not caught as a Category 1 site and can continue as before. That outcome would be in line with Parliament's intent for this Act; the politicians were after Facebook, not Wikipedia, and they won't want any more blowback than the (IMO misguided) porn block has already brought them. [1] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedia-Foundation-and-another-v-Secretary-of-State-for-Science-Innovation-and-Technology.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedi..., para 66. [2] ibid, para 136.
    • galangalalgol 1y ago
      The problem is that a regulatory body is determining all this instead of the independent judiciary. Ofcom now has the power to granularly decide who gets categorized as what, and to what degree small organizations are given less stringent rules. They have the power to become a ministry of truth. That is hyperbole today, but only because they haven't been wielded by a suitably minded leader yet. If this seems paranoid consider it is coming from an American. Might ask Poles and Hungarians what they think too. The Poles might still feel free to answer honestly.
• Traubenfuchs 1y ago
  It was decided this will happen and no one can do anything against it. Everything else is just theater.
• nelox 1y ago
  The decision upholding the Online Safety Act verification rules against Wikipedia’s challenge overlooks practical and proportionality concerns. Wikipedia operates with minimal commercial infrastructure, relies on volunteers and does not require age-restricted content verification for its core encyclopaedia. The law’s blanket requirement for platforms to implement age verification fails to distinguish between services with high-risk harmful material and those providing general reference. That is a regulatory overreach that imposes compliance burdens without measurable safety gains. The ruling also discounts the privacy risks of verification schemes, which can create centralised databases vulnerable to misuse or breach. This is not a hypothetical threat; data leaks from verification providers are well documented. A risk-based approach would focus enforcement on platforms with demonstrated harm while exempting low-risk educational resources. Treating all online services identically undercuts the intended aim of child protection and diverts resources from genuine problem areas.
  • gnfargbl 1y ago
    The OSA has several different parts. This ruling is not concerned with those parts of the OSA which deal with child protection; age verification isn't meaningfully mentioned anywhere in the judgment. Additionally, encyclopedias in the UK have routinely included factual sexual content for many decades -- just pick up an old Britannica for evidence -- without being characterised as pornographic. I don't think the OSA seeks to change that. The main problem I have with the OSA is that age verification for explicitly pornographic sites exposes users to the very real risks that you mention. However, that's really nothing to do with this ruling, which is instead around the special duties that the OSA imposes on "categorised" services.
• shortrounddev2 1y ago
  Freedom is in decline around the planet
• DocTomoe 1y ago
  There's an HTTP status for these kind of situations: 451 - unavailable for legal reasons. If a government decides to dismantle the net - let them see what that means.
• zastai0day 1y ago
  This regulatory challenge reveals how policy changes can create new cybersecurity , from identity verification risks to operational security gaps, underscoring the importance of holistic vulnerability management that addresses both technical and regulatory security risks.
  • jedahan 1y ago
    Not sure why, but this reads as an AI generated summary. Can someone confirm/explain? What does it mean to create new cybersecurity?
• dlenski 1y ago
  Does Wikipedia/Wikimedia have any facilities in the UK? I assume it does have some paid employees based there. How would/could the UK enforce this law against WP/WM if they simply didn't obey it?
• jeffWrld 1y ago
  [dead]
• floam 1y ago
  I n