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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#21

Post by stephen_g »

exasperaited wrote: post #7
beejiu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/Wikimedi...

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. Suc…

Seems like It’s just too dangerous for Wikipedia or many others to risk though - the potential penalties in the law are just too huge as far as I’ve seen.

For a lot of sites, the safe response has just been cautious over-blocking as far as I can see (or smaller UK-based services just shutting down) but you can imagine why Wikipedia don’t want to do that.

But you’re right that encouraging much better parental controls would have been better than passing this bad law - I’ll give you that one.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#22

Post by jadamson »

graemep wrote: post #5
cft wrote: post #3

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.

Which is why they will not do it. Nothing popular will be blocked or shut down.

I'm no longer convinced that nothing popular will be shut down, assuming that includes voluntarily withdrawing from the UK market. A couple of days ago, this popped up:

> The Science Department, which oversees the legislation, told companies they could face fines if they failed to uphold free speech rules.

> A spokesman said: “As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression.

> “Failure to meet either obligation can lead to severe penalties, including fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue or £18m, whichever is greater.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/09/social-media...

They seem to be putting social media platforms between a rock and a hard place, particularly as political debate in the UK is starting to heat up somewhat. I suppose the best to hope for at this point is that fines for infringing free expression never materialize.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#23

Post by vidarh »

exasperaited wrote: post #14
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

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.

That is exactly the problem. It's unpredictable, and in the hand of a government with a serious authoritarian and pro-censorship attitude.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#24

Post by amiga386 »

exasperaited wrote: post #13
amiga386 wrote: post #11

> 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. S…

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…

That's not how lawmaking works in the UK.

I remember an example where the UK Government decided it's OK to rip CDs you own (no, really, it wasn't legal until then), and codified that in law. The parasites that run the UK Music trade organisation appealed and found that the UK had not sufficiently consulted them before deciding to make the law.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-33566933

So - ripping is completely illegal in the UK. Always has been, always will be. Never rip a CD, not even once. Keep paying all your fucking money to the UK Music member corporations and never think you own anything, not even once.

But it illustrates that the UK's law-making is subject to judicial review, and government cannot make laws or regulations without consulting those affected by them how much of a hardship it constitutes to them. The judge here is merely saying we haven't seen the harm yet, and Ofcom can keep threatening indefinitely to cause harm, Wikipedia only have a case when they do cause harm. By contrast, passing the law making CD ripping legal, UK Music argued, using an absolute load of bollocks they made up, that it immediately caused them harm.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#25

Post by flipbrad »

exasperaited wrote: post #13
amiga386 wrote: post #11

> 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. S…

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…

A lot of what you are posting is not true. Take for instance your claim that "Ofcom is an industry self-regulation body"

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#26

Post by IshKebab »

corndoge wrote: post #9
graemep wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why they will not do it. Nothing popular will be blocked or shut down.

Porn is popular!

Only privately though. No politician is going to admit to watching porn. Any campaign to save porn isn't going to attract many public supporters.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#27

Post by exasperaited »

flipbrad wrote: post #25
exasperaited wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lot of what you are posting is not true. Take for instance your claim that "Ofcom is an industry self-regulation body"

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/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/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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#28

Post by IshKebab »

graemep wrote: post #16
corndoge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porn is popular!

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.

> 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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#29

Post by GeekyBear »

perihelions wrote: post #15
nickslaughter02 wrote: post #10

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 eff…

They did do that once, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3477966 ( "Wikipedia blackout page (wikipedia.org)" (2012)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#30

Post by piltdownman »

vidarh wrote: post #18
exasperaited wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Suc…

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.

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-saf...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo

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