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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's some irony that the EU is set to have a fairly anonymous solution like next year. they could have waited or tried to use similar tech for this, in theory

Interesting - do you have a link to it?

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-...

It's anonymous to the sites or companies you use it with and not to the government, but that would still be more robust than the uks checks so far. it's only end of 26 though, I thought it was at the end of this year instead.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the record, I'm not actually against age verification for certain content. But it would have to be: 1) private - anonymous (don't know who is requesting access) and unlinkable (don't know if the same user makes repeated requests or is the same user on other services). 2) widely available and extremely easy to register and integrate. The current situation is that it's not easy, or private, or cheap to integrate. A…

Add to that 3) Verifiable to a lay person that the system truly has those properties, with no possibility of suddenly being altered to no longer have those properties without it exceedingly obvious. This whole concept runs into similar issues as digital voting systems. You don't need to just be anonymous, but it must be verifiably and obviously so — even to a lay person (read your grandma with dementia who has never…

It's easy to demonstrate (3) for an age verification system - practical experience will amply demonstrate it to everyone.

Voting is very different - you do need to be able to demonstrate the fairness of the process verifiably to everyone - not just crypto nerds. Age verification - well, some people might get around it, but if it generally seems to work that is good enough.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#233
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. "

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#234

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

I agree, it does seem odd. They do promote bits of their content on the main page, I assume with an algorithm, but it's hardly like a social media feed.

Last time I checked, many many years ago, the front page was just an ordinary wiki page like any other, and its content was manually added.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#235
post #177
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if this Wikipedia's official policy but at 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…

"Content forwarding or sharing functionality" seems like it would cover any website with a URL.

So it means every website is Category 1. How convenient.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

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 Safe…

The online safety act being a more well thought out step on this slippery slope doesn’t mean it isn’t leading to the same horrible end. We are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#237
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…

A British constitution makes no sense, power is delegated from the king not from the member states like in the US or Canada. The only way the UK could end up with a constitution that's meaningful and not performative would be after a civil war.

Reboot doesn't mean improvement.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#238
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…

A British constitution makes no sense, power is delegated from the king not from the member states like in the US or Canada. The only way the UK could end up with a constitution that's meaningful and not performative would be after a civil war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...

It may not make sense to you, but they've been arguing constitutional law there for hundreds of years.

Plenty of monarchies also have modern single-document constitutions, like Norway, Spain and Thailand.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#239

The Online Safety Act is a hideous piece of legislation. I hope Wikipedia block the UK. (I am a UK citizen).

Act like an authoritarian regime, get treated like other authoritarian regimes.

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.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - do you have a link to it?

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-... It's anonymous to the sites or companies you use it with and not to the government, but that would still be more robust than the uks checks so far. it's only end of 26 though, I thought it was at the end of this year instead.

And that really shows the difference in how the EU operates Vs the UK.

They see a general need which the market cannot easily satisfy on its own - it needs standardisation to be cheap and interoperable, and it needs an identity backed by a trusted authority. So they establish a framework and legislation to make that possible.

The UK instead just states it's illegal not to do it, but without any private and not-trivially bypassed services available.

Proactive vs reactive.

It is often said that legislation tends to lag behind technology. At last, the UK is beating the world by legislating ahead of it!

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