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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

bbc.com

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#131

Post by rvba »

Levitz wrote: post #69
rvba wrote: post #45

Wikipedia is so bad at simplest PR. It should close itself before elections to burn the politicians that try to screw it.

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.

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...)

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#132

Post by emberfiend »

hliyan wrote: post #81

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 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 purpos…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

Long-time WP contributor and apologist here. I still think Wikipedia does more good than bad (for all its sins), is the greatest collaborative human work of our time, and there is some merit to the idea of having a giant pile of money to be able to fight government-scale battles like this one. But the story of the bureaucrats settling in and leeching donations at scale is basically accurate.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#133

Post by AlecSchueler »

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…

> Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind.

Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?

I'm quite critical of the implementation of this legislation but the idea of an American company throwing their weight around trying to influence policy decisions in the UK gives me the ick.

Fair enough if the regulations mean they just don't want to do business there but please don't block access to try and strong arm the elected government of another nation.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#135

Post by nonethewiser »

jchw wrote: post #118

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 t…

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#136

Post by dizlexic »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #133
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…

> Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind. Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in? I'm quite critical of the implementation of this legislation but the idea of an American company throwing their weight around trying to influence policy decisions in the UK gives me the ick. Fair enough…

Or they should not do business in them. To me this means block access. If you don't then they're supposed to block access to you anyway so who is strong arming who?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#137

Post by mcny »

Iulioh wrote: post #115
Ravus wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sadly an example of terrible leading question bias, to the point where I'm surprised that it even got a 22% oppose rate. The percentages would change dramatically were one to write it as, "From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring adults to upload their id or a face photo before accessing any website that allows user to user interaction?" Both questions are fact…

"Do you want CHILDREN to be MURDERED by RAPEISTS online or are you a good person? Y/N

No

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#138

Post by advisedwang »

zkmon wrote: post #120

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.

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#139

Post by AlecSchueler »

dizlexic wrote: post #136
AlecSchueler wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind. Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in? I'm quite critical of the implementation of this legislation but the idea of an American company throwing their weight around trying to influence policy decisions in the UK gives me the ick. Fair enough…

Or they should not do business in them. To me this means block access. If you don't then they're supposed to block access to you anyway so who is strong arming who?

As I said in my first comment: if it makes doing business in the UK unpalatable then they are of course free to halt their operations. I was specifically responding to the suggestion above that they should do so as a bargaining move to force the government's hand.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#140

Post by nonethewiser »

miroljub wrote: post #56
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…

> Wikipedia should voluntarily remove itself from the UK entirely. No visitors, no editors. No, it should remove servers, employees and legal presence from the UK. It's not their job to block UK people from accessing it just because the UK regime want them to. Let the regime censors actually put an effort to block them. Let them make a Great Firewall of the UK, why make it easy for them?

I generally agreed but this depends entirely on the US's willingness to cooperate with UK authorities. This would be the DOJ, FTC, etc. I dont think it would go straight the judiciary although someone can correct me on that if I'm wrong.
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