Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#31

Post by tomatocracy » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

pocksuppet wrote: post #23

neilalexander wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the article, yes, and it is clear to me that this is a bug, not a feature. Ofcom were suddenly able to find a "novel reading" when directed to do so by a court as a means to temporarily make the problem go away and to avoid having to weaken the legislation. They know full well that if a successful legal challenge forced them to weaken parts of the OSA by removing service categories from scope, that they'd…

The UK has "parliamentary supremacy" which means legislation passed by the parliament overrules everything else. If the court determines the legislation has a problem, it goes back to parliament to make sure parliament intended a certain interpretation, but parliament can either change the law, or they can say the court is wrong and the law stands.

That's (mostly) true for "primary legislation" (Acts of Parliament) but "secondary legislation" (regulations, orders, rules and so on) can be challenged and potentially overturned/similar in the courts. This partly reflects the fact that secondary legislation usually receives significantly less parliamentary scrutiny (and in some cases none at all). The legal challenge which Wikimedia brought here was to secondary legislation - regulations made under the OSA by Ofcom - not to the OSA itself.

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#32

Post by bcjdjsndon » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

neilalexander wrote: post #13

benj111 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the article. Ofcom used a "novel reading of the law" to exempt Wikipedia. The law it seems already covers Wikipedia. Ofcom are choosing not to enforce. I interpret the watchlist comments as ofcom setting up a defensible position for themselves. Yes the law is probably wrong to include Wikipedia, but the enforcers of the law seem to have common sense. Which overall seems to be a win.

I did read the article, yes, and it is clear to me that this is a bug, not a feature. Ofcom were suddenly able to find a "novel reading" when directed to do so by a court as a means to temporarily make the problem go away and to avoid having to weaken the legislation. They know full well that if a successful legal challenge forced them to weaken parts of the OSA by removing service categories from scope, that they'd…

> Ofcom were suddenly able to find a "novel reading" when directed to do so

You have discovered politics

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#33

Post by bcjdjsndon » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

jameskilton wrote: post #8

lenerdenator wrote: post #5

Governments would rather censor the whole internet before putting people who have credible allegations of sex crimes against children under investigation and in handcuffs when appropriate.

It isn't and never has been about the children.

You can pin it down to less than maybe half a dozen cases that made the newsun the UK. I suppose politics has always been reactionary like this and explains why somewhere like Australia which doesn't really have its own culture still has different laws in response to different outrages

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#34

Post by arjie » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #29

arjie wrote: post #19

I wonder what the difference in legal traditions is between the US and the Old World. The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it". What informed this…

Probably because the US was founded by the immigrants who fled because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries, and designed a system that's diametral opposed to that, for better and for worse.

Right, that's what I'd lean to as well.

But was the reason they left the legal tradition? In this telling of the story, they were fully aware of the legal tradition being the reason for their unhappiness. But is it true?

I know the original immigrants/colonists were looking for a specific kind of religious freedom they couldn't have, but you must be speaking of the later waves (which are the majority of people).

I remember ages ago reading this paper (PDF warning): https://annesofiebeckknudsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/...

It made the case that (simplifying) individualists left for the US while collectivists stayed. And because of the massive scale of the migration relative to the populations, this meant that the two regions were permanently altered. Cool, eh?

But I don't know if the thesis has been supported by alternative tests. Essentially, it's what I feel is true, but I've felt many things are true and been wrong many times!

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#35

Post by petesergeant » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

nyeah wrote: post #28

tialaramex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because England is very old it has a whole bunch of things which did charge a toll and then that expired, so, nope. It does also have situations where people go "Hey, this toll bridge was built 50 years ago, surely the tolls should be abolished" and the people who built the bridge are like "Nope. See, here's the press about it 50 years ago saying what a great idea it is to have the tolls be slightly lower but perpetu…

Some folks might consider 500 years "permanent."

Yes, but that doesn't mean we all need to stoop to that level

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#36

Post by seszett » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #29

arjie wrote: post #19

I wonder what the difference in legal traditions is between the US and the Old World. The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it". What informed this…

Probably because the US was founded by the immigrants who fled because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries, and designed a system that's diametral opposed to that, for better and for worse.

> immigrants who fled because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries

I'm not convinced, as the people who designed the US system had extensive exchanges with the ones who ended up designing the modern French one, which became the basis for most of the rest of Europe (bar the UK).

The US and continental European systems were both designed in concert and in opposition to how the old European monarchies worked.

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#37

Post by theginger » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

> based on a novel reading of the law

So they found a loop hole. Why do they need to find a loop hole in their own law, why not just make better laws to start with.

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#38

Post by przemub » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

pocksuppet wrote: post #23

neilalexander wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did read the article, yes, and it is clear to me that this is a bug, not a feature. Ofcom were suddenly able to find a "novel reading" when directed to do so by a court as a means to temporarily make the problem go away and to avoid having to weaken the legislation. They know full well that if a successful legal challenge forced them to weaken parts of the OSA by removing service categories from scope, that they'd…

The UK has "parliamentary supremacy" which means legislation passed by the parliament overrules everything else. If the court determines the legislation has a problem, it goes back to parliament to make sure parliament intended a certain interpretation, but parliament can either change the law, or they can say the court is wrong and the law stands.

The verdict was based on the Ofcom regulations, not the Parliament act though.

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#39

Post by zarzavat » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC

arjie wrote: post #19

I wonder what the difference in legal traditions is between the US and the Old World. The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it". What informed this…

In the UK there is substantial use of secondary legislation. This is where Parliament authorises someone else to make laws on its behalf in some context. These powers delegated by Parliament are usually mundane but can be extreme and there's no limit to what powers Parliament can delegate. Since politicians are lazy they tend to use secondary legislation all the time. This encourages a culture of legislative sloppiness.

While the UK courts have given themselves the power to perform judicial review, there is no constitutional basis for this review and so the courts are reluctant to step on Parliament's toes because if they go too far they risk Parliament deciding that it doesn't like the courts' interference and removing their authority. This isn't a hypothetical and the courts have at times resorted to some crazy mental gymnastics to evade Parliament's attempts to prevent judicial review.

The US has a similar concept that enables federal agencies to make regulations on Congress's behalf but it's much more limited in scope due to the separation of powers and more solid position of the US Supreme Court.

Re: Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

#40

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Jul 13, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

arjie wrote: post #19

I wonder what the difference in legal traditions is between the US and the Old World. The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it". What informed this…

> The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it".

The latter system is what happens if you actually have rule of law. The law says X is illegal, you did not do X, therefore you cannot be prosecuted. Meanwhile anyone caught doing X is prosecuted or it's a scandal that they're seen getting away with it.

The former is autocracy in a trench coat. Whether you're in violation of the law is irrelevant because the laws are so numerous and ambiguous that everyone is always in violation of the law and the only thing that matters is if the prosecutors want to charge you.

Sadly the US is moving more towards the "traditional" system rather than the other way around.