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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

#81

Post by aaronmdjones »

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

Their homepage certainly is.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#82

Post by ijk »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #71
graemep wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the focus being on porn behind age verification as the main effect, is that it ignores all the other effects. Closing community forums and wikis. Uncertainty about blog comments. It is actually (as noted in many previous discussion about the Online Safety Act) pushing people to using big tech platforms, because they can no longer afford the compliance cost and risk of running their own.

I am very skeptical that the Online Safety Act forces community forums and wikis to close. By and large the Act forces forums to have strong moderation and perhaps manual checks before publishing files and pictures uploaded by users, and that's about it. Likewise, I suspect that most geoblocks are out of misplaced fear not actual analysis.

It has caused many community forums to close, past tense.

Many cited the uncertainty about what is actually required, the potential high cost of compliance, the danger of failing to correctly follow the rules they're not certain about, and the lack of governmental clarity as significant aspects of their decision to close.

The fear may be misplaced, but the UK government has failed to convince people of that.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#83

Post by iLoveOncall »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #60
iLoveOncall wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is the vast majority of users will just not submit their ID and the large companies will lose most of their UK traffic. There was a study by Amazon [1] that showed that every 100ms of extra load time of a page cost 1% of revenue. How much revenue do you think adding an ID verification that takes 10 minutes to complete cost??? You think PornHub loves this law??? [1] https://www.conductor.com/academy/page-s…

The grapevine says that independent sex workers are struggling as a result of the Online Safety Act. Unless the law has significantly reduced the tendency for UK people to engage with internet porn (which I doubt), then yes, PornHub is benefiting from this law.

Independent sex workers upload their content on websites that are affected by the OSA, like PornHub and OnlyFans, this is why they are struggling.

A lot of PornHub's content comes from independants, not big studios.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#84

Post by ChrisKnott »

codedokode wrote: post #22
ChrisKnott wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How is "algorithmic feed" related to safety? Or is it, along with seemingly arbitrary numbers like 7 or 34 millions, a way to target a specific platform for those who are afraid to spell the name explicitly?

One of the main motivations for this law was pro-suicide and pro-anorexia content being pushed to teenage girls. In particular Molly Russell's death received a lot of press coverage and public outrage at tech companies. The coroner's report basically said Instagram killed her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Molly_Russell

Of course if you get your news from HN then the motivation is actually something to do with limiting discussion of immigration or being dystopian just because.

But yes, if they could just name Instagram and TikTok they probably would.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#85

Post by ChrisKnott »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #62
ChrisKnott wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

The phrase they actually use is "content recommender system". The definition is in the link; you could maybe see some search features falling into it but I don't see how Wikipedia as it exists now is Category 1.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#86

Post by mytailorisrich »

freeone3000 wrote: post #79
mytailorisrich wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very skeptical that the Online Safety Act forces community forums and wikis to close. By and large the Act forces forums to have strong moderation and perhaps manual checks before publishing files and pictures uploaded by users, and that's about it. Likewise, I suspect that most geoblocks are out of misplaced fear not actual analysis.

“Strong moderation” and “manual checks” and pro-active age verification are exactly the burdens that would prevent someone from running a small community forum.

You do not need age verification in the vast majority of cases.

Moderation is part and parcel of running forums and all platforms and software provide tools for this, it's nothing new. If someone is not prepared to read submissions or to react quickly when one is flagged then perhaps running a forum is too much of a commitment for them but I would not blame the law.

In fact I believe that forum operators in the UK already got in legal trouble in the past, long before the Online Safety Act, because they ignored flagging reports.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#87

Post by ChrisKnott »

aaronmdjones wrote: post #81
ChrisKnott wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Their homepage certainly is.

The homepage is manually edited isn't it?

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#88

Post by aaronmdjones »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #87
aaronmdjones wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their homepage certainly is.

The homepage is manually edited isn't it?

There have been no edits for the last 6 days; then 18 days prior to that. I don't think so.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#89

Post by VikingMiner »

drcongo wrote: post #68
IlikeKitties wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The large tech companies benefited immensely from relative few regulations in the 2000-2010s. Once they are established, they are happy to comply with regulations which will make it more difficult for competitor to even exist since complying with regulations is often prohibitively expensive for new player.

It is known colloquially as "Pulling up the ladder behind you".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#90

Post by weberer »

bawolff wrote: post #35
weberer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They previously did a 24 hour blackout to protest SOPA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA...

Literally more then a decade ago. Also they didn't mix it together with fundraiser.

Nobody suggested mixing it with a fundraiser. Just that the protest should use the same annoying banner elements that the fundraisers do.
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