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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#191

Post by taraindara »

RobKohr wrote: post #187
vaylian wrote: post #182

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…

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.

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#192

Post by bakugo »

vaylian wrote: post #182

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…

> And they also do it to score brownie points with their conservative voting base.

Care to remind me what side of the political spectrum was desperately trying to silence all health-related discourse that did not match the government's agenda just a few years ago?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#193

Post by drivingmenuts »

oconnore wrote: post #175
ndriscoll wrote: post #158

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

Wikipedia is based in San Francisco. Why can't they just tell the UK to pound sand?

Because some of Wikipedia's editors are based in the UK.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#194

Post by bArray »

> 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_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Labour_Party_(UK)_sca...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_Unit...

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#195

Post by AlecSchueler »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #180
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…

Well, that would be tricky, since Wikipedia is not a business, and is nor is it specifically American. (Other than a foundation in the US that runs the servers) . There are Wikipedias in many of the world's languages! If the UK effectively bans public wikis above a certain size (even if by accident), then it is the law of the land that Wikipedia is banned. Or at least the english wikipedia, which is indeed very large…

By Wikipedia I meant the foundation of course. I'm not sure localisation automatically makes them a multinational entity. Windows is available in Chinese but we both understand that Microsoft is not a Chinese company.

It is fair to say it's not a business, but essentially there's no difference to my feeling that private entities from other countries shouldn't be throwing their weight around in local democracy.

Do you feel that Wikipedia today is banned through the letter of the law? If so why is there a question of it continuing to operate there?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#196

Post by nemomarx »

oconnore wrote: post #175
ndriscoll wrote: post #158

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

Wikipedia is based in San Francisco. Why can't they just tell the UK to pound sand?

They presumably have editors in the UK, foundation members who live or work or travel there

they would at least want to block the UK from accessing it first?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#197

Post by drawfloat »

bArray wrote: post #194

> 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 c…

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#198

Post by AlecSchueler »

arrowsmith wrote: post #189
zimpenfish wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in? Well, the OSA was put into law by the Tories in 2023. The democratic decision of the UK was that they resoundingly rejected what the Tories were doing in the landslide win for Labour in the 2024 GE. I'd quite like UKGOV to respect the democratic decisions of the country and if they won't, I'm quite happy for other people to push ba…

The Tories' loss had nothing to do with what anybody thought of the OSA, a bill which most people hadn't heard of until last week. But you already knew that.

And which was supported by Labour.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#199

Post by [deleted] »

bArray wrote: post #194

> 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 c…

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#200

Post by johnnyanmac »

phpnode wrote: post #85
entuno wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those petitions aren't really worth anything - governments have ignored ones with over six million signatures before. And they also ignored this one a few years back that had just under 700,000 signatures to "make verified ID a requirement for opening a social media account": https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/575833 Ironically, the primary reason they gave for rejecting it was: > However, restricting…

The other point is that recent polls suggest the British public are overwhelmingly in support of this legislation [0], which is not reflected in most of the narrative we see online. Whether they support how it has been implemented is a different matter, but the desire to do something is clear. [0] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/survey-results/daily/202...

As always, the devil is in the details. Very careful wording:

>do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?

"may" is doing the heavy lifting. Any website that hosts image "may" contain pornograohic content. So they don't associate this with "I need id to watch YouTube" it's "I need ID to watch pornhub". Even though this affects both.

On top of that, the question was focused on peon to begin with. This block was focused more generally on social media. The popular ones of which do not allow pornography.

Rephrase the question to "do you agree with requiring ID submission to access Facebook" and I'd love to see how that impacts responses.

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