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Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#61

Post by master-lincoln »

exasperaited wrote: post #55
Havoc wrote: post #8

They should just block all UK gov IPs in protest

[flagged]

I think you both have a point. Why not block foreign access to your internet service if the laws of that foreign country are nothing you want to be concerned with?

It might be a bit disruptive in the beginning, but in the long run I think we all benefit from that. It increases the chance of politicians to realize their over-boarding decisions by having public pressure from previous users of those services and it increases the likelihood of local competitors of those services opening.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#62

Post by philipwhiuk »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #11
cubefox wrote: post #6

The headline seems a little misleading. From the article: > The Wikimedia Foundation shares the UK government’s commitment to promoting online environments where everyone can safely participate. The organization is not bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new Categorisation Regulations that risk…

Is Wikipedia actually Category 1? Seems to require an algorithmic feed to be Category 1 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174

Is search results 'an algorithmic feed'.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#63

Post by nemomarx »

exasperaited wrote: post #55
Havoc wrote: post #8

They should just block all UK gov IPs in protest

[flagged]

Yeah, you should probably try to do something about the rising fascist tendencies in the US? Why wouldn't you?

Rolling over for it isn't going to do the EU or other allies any favors. The administration won't reward loyalty with good deals or whatever

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#64

Post by the_other »

miohtama wrote: post #53
ekianjo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pushing people to using big tech platforms so big tech platforms will cheerfully embrace it. as expected, major players love regulations.

GDPR killed small and medium online advertising businesses and handed everything to Google and Facebook.

Frankly, that's their fault for pursuing individually targeted advertising. The sad thing isn't that some small shitty businesses lost out, it's that some large shitty businesses didn't.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#65

Post by rwmj »

gorgoiler wrote: post #59
noodlesUK wrote: post #25

I don't like the OSA and associated regulations as much as the next person -- I think we could have gotten a long way by saying you need to include a X-Age-Rating in http responses and calling it a day. The law itself is incoherently long and it's very difficult to know what duties you have. However, I don't see what the legal basis of Wikimedia's challenge is. The OSA is primary legislation, so can't be challenged e…

X-Age-Rating would only work if the server could be sure of the jurisdictions under which the recipient was bound. To continue the thought experiment though: another implementation would be to list up to N tags that best describe the content being served. You could base these on various agreed tagging systems such as UN ISIC tagging ( 6010 Broadcasting Pop Music ) or UDC, the successor to the Dewey Decimal System ( 6…

There actually was a proposal/standard for this back in the day: https://www.w3.org/PICS/

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#66

Post by cft »

"The organization is not bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1 duties (the OSA’s most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia."

I find this a very unprincipled stance.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#68

Post by drcongo »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #24
Swinx43 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the UK. Please for the love of all that is sweet and holy DO THIS! The only way our politicians will learn is if the public outcry is so fierce it makes them fear for their jobs. A UK internet blockade might just get this going.

The issue here is that the internet is dominated by large companies that have a huge incentive to use this as a way to ensure regulatory capture of the free internet.

I'm not following the logic, how would this work?

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#69

Post by dcow »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
lysace wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even low-grade encryption was actually forbidden in France for a while in the mid 90s. I remember snickering about the whole thing back then, in a much smaller but also quite similar forum. https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_... > Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month…

There was also in the 90s the weird period of export control of encryption software from the US, leading to the "this tshirt is a munition" shirts with the algorithm printed on them. And the (thankfully failed) "clipper chip" mandate.

Those controls all still exist. You just get a pass if you’re using “standard crypto”. Or if your implementation is open source.
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