> The categorisation regulations are a statutory instrument rather than primary legislation, so they _are_ open to judicial review. But the Wikimedia foundation haven't presented an argument as to why the regulations are unlawful, just an argument for why they disagree with them.
Ofcom's SI could simply be modified to exclude research texts, and it could even be modified to exclude Wikipedia specifically; there's no obvious problem with that considering its scale and importance.
The answers are 1) yes, 2) yes, 3) no, 4) probably "No, but...", 5) no, 6) no.
But the answer to getting out of the problem entirely might be to change the answer to question 6 -- that is, register Wikipedia as an education provider in the UK (since it is already used in that capacity).
I mean Wikipedia have actually exhibited at BETT, the main educational tech show here; Jimmy Wales did a keynote.
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 effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.
> If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. Such a challenge would not be prevented by the outcome of this claim.
Basically, DENIED, DENIED, DENIED. Ofcom can keep the loaded gun pointed in Wikipedia's face, forever, and make as many threats as it likes. Only if it pulls the trigger does Wikipedia have a case.
Wikipedia should voluntarily remove itself from the UK entirely. No visitors, no editors.
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.
Just leaving this here, in case things really start going south and people realize they need to stack up on knowledge supplies (note: I am not affiliated with them, I just think that Wikipedia, among other resources, is too valuable to let it fall through the cracks):
> When there is No Internet, there is Kiwix
Access vital information anywhere. Use our apps for offline reading on the go or the Hotspot in every place you want to call home. Ideal for remote areas, emergencies, or independent knowledge access.
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."
“Wikipedia is one of the best resources humanity has ever produced” and “The Wikimedia Foundation spends money frivolously while soliciting donations with messages that make users think their money is going towards the project they actually care about” are not statements which are incompatible with each other.
Wikimedia does by and large an OK job (the endowment they set up in particular was a great move), but it’s incredibly bloated in ways that should be curtailed before it gets worse. It’s reasonable to want better for a resource as important as Wikipedia.
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?
Yes, there are unilateral policies and treaties that let the US and the UK collaborate in legal action (going through US institutions to judge them), some of them referenced in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal/Legal_Policies -- a keyword might be letters rogatory
Wikimedia also seems to have a presence in the UK https://wikimedia.org.uk/ that presumably would be affected.
In most cases they might have enough pull to get folks blacklisted by payment processors, but wikimedia in particular might win that one.
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."
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me." -1984
This is about the duties of a "category 1 service" under the Online Safety Act. Wikipedia is one mostly because of their size, I believe. These duties are quite onerous, and over the top (someone might say that the government is seeing adults are real "snowflakes" these days):
Large user-to-user services, known as Category 1 services, will be required to offer adult users tools which, if they choose to use, will give them greater control over the kinds of content they see and who they engage with online.
Adult users of such services will be able to verify their identity and access tools which enable them to reduce the likelihood that they see content from non-verified users and prevent non-verified users from interacting with their content. This will help stop anonymous trolls from contacting them.
Following the publication of guidance by Ofcom, Category 1 services will also need to proactively offer adult users optional tools, at the first opportunity, to help them reduce the likelihood that they will encounter certain types of legal content. These categories of content are set out in the Act and include content that does not meet a criminal threshold but encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. These tools also apply to abusive or hate content including where such content is racist, antisemitic, homophobic, or misogynist. The tools must be effective and easy to access. [1]
The correct time for major service providers to shift their weight and start pulling out of any jurisdiction necessary to get their point across has already come and gone. The second best time would be as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, the Internet world we live in today isn't the one I grew up in, so I'm sure things will just go according to plan. Apparently a majority of Britons polled support these rules, even though a (smaller) majority of Britons also believe they are ineffective at their goals[1]. I think that really says a lot about what people really want here, and it would be hard to believe anyone without a serious dent in their head really though this had anything at all to do with protecting children. People will do literally anything to protect children, so as long as it only inconveniences and infringes on the rights of the rest of society. They don't even have to believe it will work.
And so maybe we will finally burn the house to roast the pig.
I remember my mother watching a news segment on TV about the subject of online identity verification several months ago, and she commented that she supported it because "kids shouldn't be looking at these things." I asked her if she believed it's a parents responsibility to parent their children and block childrens' access to unsavory things, or if she felt it might be dangerous to tie a persons legal identity to what they do on the internet, and her face kind of glazed over and she said "no?"
The average person is not thinking about the ways in which legislation can be abused, or in how it oversteps its "stated purpose", or how it can lead to unintended consequences. I remember the news segment saying something to the tune of "new legislation aims to prevent children from viewing pornography", which is a deliberately misinformative take on these kinds of legislation.
The current political atmosphere of the western world is edging towards technofascism at an alarming rate - correlating online activities to real-world identities (more than they already are via the advertisement death cult (read: industry)) is dangerous. A persons political beliefs, national status, health status, personal associations, interests, activities, etc. are all potential means of persecution. Eventually, the western world will see (more) TLAs knocking on doors and asking for papers and stepping inside homes. They're going to forensically analyse computers belonging to average people (which government agencies are already doing at border checkpoints in the US) to weed out political dissidents or people targetted for persecution.
Things are going to get exponentially worse for everyone, and nobody is trying to stop it because the average person is uninformed, uninterested, and - worst of all - an absolute fucking idiot.
Is Wikimedia Foundation a UK entity? Otherwise why should it concern itself with some country's regulation? USA does not have a global jurisdiction. But it has global leverages.
One of the most interesting things about this legislation is where it comes from.
Primarily it was drafted and lobbied for by William Perrin OBE and Prof Lorna Woods at Carnegie UK[1], billed as an “independent foundation”.
William Perrin is also the founder of Ofcom. So he’s been using the foundation’s money to lobby for the expansion of his unelected quango.
It has also been suggested that one of the largest beneficiaries of this law, an age verification company called Yoti, also has financial ties to Carnegie UK.
It’s difficult to verify that because Yoti is privately held and its backers are secret.
It’s not as if anyone was surprised that teenagers can get round age blocks in seconds so there’s something going on and it stinks.
> It has also been suggested that one of the largest beneficiaries of this law, an age verification company called Yoti, also has financial ties to Carnegie UK.
So you’re saying that someone who worked in government on online regulation has carried on that interest outside at a charitable foundation and has had some influence in drafting this legislation?
Not that surprising really is it? And all that is advertised on the individual’s bio online.
The only dubious thing you allude to are ‘financial ties’ to Yoti which are completely unsubstantiated. In fact I took the trouble of looking at the Carnegie Foundation’s accounts [1] and for the last two years at least they have had virtually no donor income at all so they are certainly not being funded by Yoti. Perhaps you would like to be more specific about these ties?
I don’t like this legislation much but creating a controversy when there isn’t one isn’t going to get it changed.
Edit: Just to add that the Carnegie Foundation seems to be about as independent and transparent as you can get which might be why it’s been influential. If you don’t think Google, Meta et all have all been lobbying furiously behind the scenes then I don’t know what to say.
Happy to take downvotes for calling out a fake conspiracy theory (‘there’s something going on’).
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)?
125 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 87.5 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721403 ("Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations (wikimediafoundation.org)"—189 comments)
As another commenter pointed out in the earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44721712
> The categorisation regulations are a statutory instrument rather than primary legislation, so they _are_ open to judicial review. But the Wikimedia foundation haven't presented an argument as to why the regulations are unlawful, just an argument for why they disagree with them.
Ofcom's SI could simply be modified to exclude research texts, and it could even be modified to exclude Wikipedia specifically; there's no obvious problem with that considering its scale and importance.
If you go through Ofcom's checker:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...
The answers are 1) yes, 2) yes, 3) no, 4) probably "No, but...", 5) no, 6) no.
But the answer to getting out of the problem entirely might be to change the answer to question 6 -- that is, register Wikipedia as an education provider in the UK (since it is already used in that capacity).
I mean Wikipedia have actually exhibited at BETT, the main educational tech show here; Jimmy Wales did a keynote.
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 effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
Basically, DENIED, DENIED, DENIED. Ofcom can keep the loaded gun pointed in Wikipedia's face, forever, and make as many threats as it likes. Only if it pulls the trigger does Wikipedia have a case.
Wikipedia should voluntarily remove itself from the UK entirely. No visitors, no editors.
It should close itself before elections to burn the politicians that try to screw it.
> When there is No Internet, there is Kiwix Access vital information anywhere. Use our apps for offline reading on the go or the Hotspot in every place you want to call home. Ideal for remote areas, emergencies, or independent knowledge access.
https://kiwix.org/en/
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."
There’s just no way to donate to just Wikipedia (to specially only the server costs or upkeep) but ignore whatever else the organization is up to.
Same story with Mozilla, there’s no way to donate to just the development of Firefox.
It’s all good though, there’s loads of other charities that I can donate to.
Wikimedia does by and large an OK job (the endowment they set up in particular was a great move), but it’s incredibly bloated in ways that should be curtailed before it gets worse. It’s reasonable to want better for a resource as important as Wikipedia.
We don’t want another Mozilla.
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?
Wikimedia also seems to have a presence in the UK https://wikimedia.org.uk/ that presumably would be affected.
In most cases they might have enough pull to get folks blacklisted by payment processors, but wikimedia in particular might win that one.
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."
FYI, Wikimedia Foundation just wants a carve out/exception to be able to opt out of category 1 duties.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/wikipe...
Large user-to-user services, known as Category 1 services, will be required to offer adult users tools which, if they choose to use, will give them greater control over the kinds of content they see and who they engage with online.
Adult users of such services will be able to verify their identity and access tools which enable them to reduce the likelihood that they see content from non-verified users and prevent non-verified users from interacting with their content. This will help stop anonymous trolls from contacting them.
Following the publication of guidance by Ofcom, Category 1 services will also need to proactively offer adult users optional tools, at the first opportunity, to help them reduce the likelihood that they will encounter certain types of legal content. These categories of content are set out in the Act and include content that does not meet a criminal threshold but encourages, promotes or provides instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders. These tools also apply to abusive or hate content including where such content is racist, antisemitic, homophobic, or misogynist. The tools must be effective and easy to access. [1]
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act...
Unfortunately, the Internet world we live in today isn't the one I grew up in, so I'm sure things will just go according to plan. Apparently a majority of Britons polled support these rules, even though a (smaller) majority of Britons also believe they are ineffective at their goals[1]. I think that really says a lot about what people really want here, and it would be hard to believe anyone without a serious dent in their head really though this had anything at all to do with protecting children. People will do literally anything to protect children, so as long as it only inconveniences and infringes on the rights of the rest of society. They don't even have to believe it will work.
And so maybe we will finally burn the house to roast the pig.
[1]: https://yougov.co.uk/technology/articles/52693-how-have-brit...
The average person is not thinking about the ways in which legislation can be abused, or in how it oversteps its "stated purpose", or how it can lead to unintended consequences. I remember the news segment saying something to the tune of "new legislation aims to prevent children from viewing pornography", which is a deliberately misinformative take on these kinds of legislation.
The current political atmosphere of the western world is edging towards technofascism at an alarming rate - correlating online activities to real-world identities (more than they already are via the advertisement death cult (read: industry)) is dangerous. A persons political beliefs, national status, health status, personal associations, interests, activities, etc. are all potential means of persecution. Eventually, the western world will see (more) TLAs knocking on doors and asking for papers and stepping inside homes. They're going to forensically analyse computers belonging to average people (which government agencies are already doing at border checkpoints in the US) to weed out political dissidents or people targetted for persecution.
Things are going to get exponentially worse for everyone, and nobody is trying to stop it because the average person is uninformed, uninterested, and - worst of all - an absolute fucking idiot.
Primarily it was drafted and lobbied for by William Perrin OBE and Prof Lorna Woods at Carnegie UK[1], billed as an “independent foundation”.
William Perrin is also the founder of Ofcom. So he’s been using the foundation’s money to lobby for the expansion of his unelected quango.
It has also been suggested that one of the largest beneficiaries of this law, an age verification company called Yoti, also has financial ties to Carnegie UK.
It’s difficult to verify that because Yoti is privately held and its backers are secret.
It’s not as if anyone was surprised that teenagers can get round age blocks in seconds so there’s something going on and it stinks.
1. https://carnegieuk.org/team/william-perrin-obe/
Do you have any sources for this?
Passive voice, evidence free conspiracy nonsense that flatters HN biases? Updoots to the left!
You can see some of these things on Companies House. This is Yoti Holding Ltd., but you'd have to look at its subsidiaries, too:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...
(I'm not defending Yoti/similar, just mentioning in case you weren't aware of CH)
Not that surprising really is it? And all that is advertised on the individual’s bio online.
The only dubious thing you allude to are ‘financial ties’ to Yoti which are completely unsubstantiated. In fact I took the trouble of looking at the Carnegie Foundation’s accounts [1] and for the last two years at least they have had virtually no donor income at all so they are certainly not being funded by Yoti. Perhaps you would like to be more specific about these ties?
I don’t like this legislation much but creating a controversy when there isn’t one isn’t going to get it changed.
Edit: Just to add that the Carnegie Foundation seems to be about as independent and transparent as you can get which might be why it’s been influential. If you don’t think Google, Meta et all have all been lobbying furiously behind the scenes then I don’t know what to say.
Happy to take downvotes for calling out a fake conspiracy theory (‘there’s something going on’).
[1] https://carnegieuk.org/publication/annual-report-and-account...
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174
(I am a UK citizen).
it will achieve absolutely nothing, except to destroy their "market share"