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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

#81

Post by hliyan »

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 purpose of feeding on donations from rubes."

Quoted post reads: "I have no interest in giving Wikipedia money to blow on fake jobs for ovecredentialed paper-pushers, but if the banner said “Jimmy Wales created Wikipedia and he’d like to buy a yacht” then I’d pull out my wallet immediately."

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#82

Post by miki123211 »

I'm really confused about what would realistically happen if Wikimedia just decided to ignore those regulations.

They have surely ignored demands to censor Wikipedia in more authoritarian countries. What makes the UK different? Extradition treaties? Do they even apply here?

I have the same confusion about Signal's willingness to leave Europe if chat control is imposed[1], while still providing anti-censorship tools for countries like Iran and China. What makes the European laws they're unwilling to respect different from the Iranian laws they're unwilling to respect?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#83

Post by AlgebraFox »

miki123211 wrote: post #82

I'm really confused about what would realistically happen if Wikimedia just decided to ignore those regulations. They have surely ignored demands to censor Wikipedia in more authoritarian countries. What makes the UK different? Extradition treaties? Do they even apply here? I have the same confusion about Signal's willingness to leave Europe if chat control is imposed[1], while still providing anti-censorship tools f…

They might ban the CEO and employees from entering their country or arrest them when they travel.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#84

Post by tinktank »

dkiebd wrote: post #35
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…

I thought people here didn’t like when American companies tried to strongarm democratic governments abroad?

There is more than one poster on this site; it's safe to assume there's more than one opinion.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#85

Post by phpnode »

entuno wrote: post #71
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…

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...

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#86

Post by knorker »

What I hate most about this latest push is that people in their 30s are trying to convince us all that blocking children's access to porn and such is the issue. As if most people don't agree with that in the abstract.

Not only people in their 30s, but it's who I see making a fuss about it. Presumably because they are now parents of children newly reaching this age.

They are completely ignoring that they are entering a debate that's been going on for longer than they have been alive, and are just arguing from a source of "common sense" gut feelings. They are literally a third of a century behind on this issue, but it doesn't stop them talking about it.

They are incompetent on this issue (nothing bad about that. I'm incompetent in most things), but they are also stupid because they don't let that incompetence stop them.

They are too incompetent to understand that they just did the equivalent of entering a room full of mathematicians with a collective thousands of years of math knowledge, and saying "how about just making 2+2=5? You could make 2+2=4, so you smart people should be able to do it". How do you even start with someone this ignorant? They don't even understand what math is.

"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" — "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#87

Post by devmor »

tux1968 wrote: post #47

The UK is spearheading this charge, but if they are successful it will have paved the way for many more governments to embrace these policies. How this plays out is important for people living in every western country.

The US has been implementing similar bans sporadically as well. It's being done on a state-by-state basis due to the limited federal power structure of our government making it more difficult for minority power groups like fascists to push legislation.

I do believe the social factors leading to support for these bans are quite a bit different, but the core minds behind them are of the same creed.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#88

Post by chippiewill »

amiga386 wrote: post #24
exasperaited wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is how the law works? Even in the USA, the Supreme Court doesn't act on hypotheticals. They wait until someone brings an actual case. Ofcom haven't ruled Wikipedia is Category 1. They haven't announced the intention to rule it Category 1. The Category 1 rules are not yet in effect and aren't even finalised . They aren't pointing any gun. Wikipedia have a case that they shouldn't be Category 1 if that happens…

That's not how lawmaking works in the UK. I remember an example where the UK Government decided it's OK to rip CDs you own (no, really, it wasn't legal until then), and codified that in law. The parasites that run the UK Music trade organisation appealed and found that the UK had not sufficiently consulted them before deciding to make the law. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-33566933 So - ripping is completely il…

> But it illustrates that the UK's law-making is subject to judicial review

This is misleading. Actual primary legislation isn't subject to judicial review. The only exception to that is a Judge can declare legislation incompatible with the ECHR - but even then that doesn't actually nullify the law, it only tells the government/parliament they need to fix it.

The bit that is subject to review is _secondary_ legislation, which is more of an executive action than lawmaking. It's mostly a historical quirk that statutory instruments count as legislation in the UK.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#89

Post by piltdownman »

nemomarx wrote: post #54
piltdownman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the PAYG block is circumvented by simply changing the APN in the carrier settings using freely available information online - that's how 3Ireland works and VodafoneIRL IIRC. It also had the annoying consequence of blocking all 'adult' sites - which included sites of historic interest and things like the internet archive. The problem with 'child safety' in the UK has almost nothing to do with pornographers…

Normalizing those mosquito devices and trying to drive teenagers out of public life, banning kitchen knives in some attempt to keep kids from getting used to blades... the UK strategy on kids is very very strange to me. I can't follow the logic at all. Do they expect them to silently sit at home, not using the Internet, not going anywhere with friends, and end up well adjusted adults anyway?

Because these trials and tribulations are designed to disenfranchise the lower classes - regardless of age, the protected classes tend to be unimpeded by societal measures in the UK.

If teenagers Felicity or Joshua need to purchase a knife, or access questionable internet content, it'll be an assumed part of their privilege that they'll be able to do so. Similarly they are unimpacted by anti-social behaviour orders or restrictions on their entitlement to exist in public spaces unmolested, as this is the demographic insulated by their memberships to 3rd spaces such as Social and Sporting clubs - a fry cry from their lower-class urban peers resigned to hanging around the Tesco carpark.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#90

Post by chippiewill »

miki123211 wrote: post #82

I'm really confused about what would realistically happen if Wikimedia just decided to ignore those regulations. They have surely ignored demands to censor Wikipedia in more authoritarian countries. What makes the UK different? Extradition treaties? Do they even apply here? I have the same confusion about Signal's willingness to leave Europe if chat control is imposed[1], while still providing anti-censorship tools f…

A variety of things could happen:

- Employees become accountable for their company's actions - Wikimedia could be blocked - Other kinds of sanctions (e.g. financial ones) could be levied somehow

In practice what will likely happen is Wikimedia will comply: either by blocking the UK entirely, making adjustments to be compliant with UK legislation (e.g. by making their sites read-only for UK-users - probably the most extreme outcome that's likely to occur), or the as-yet unannounced Ofcom regulations they've preemptively appealed actually won't apply to Wikimedia anyway (or will be very light touch).

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