Wikipedia's privacy at risk under UK Online Safety Act, legal challenge to be heard
Wikipedia's privacy at risk under UK Online Safety Act, legal challenge to be heard
Wikimedia, the organization behind Wikipedia, is going to challenge some of the provisions of the UK's Online Safety Act related to user verification.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, is due to challenge the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) in the High Court of Justice in London on July 22 and 23. It wants to challenge the categorization regulations that would classify Wikipedia as a Category 1 service, which was designed for large, commercial social media platforms in mind, not volunteer, non-profit encyclopedias.
Honestly, I'm waiting for Wikipedia to just decide "this isn't worth it" and start banning countries that are trying to restrict it's usage. The organization is large and used enough that I feel that threat alone would usually suffice in at least causing a moment to think about if it's worth it. Especially considering the volunteer based system it is. This isn't a company that has a bunch of money to throw at changes and stuff. It's a non-profit that runs mostly on donations from it's peers.
Like I'm all for freedom of information and all but, I hard agree removing the anonymity of the platform will stifle the information on it more than just straight blocking the countries trying to overstep. Worst case scenario is that people will use some form of Proxy or VPN to access it afterwards if they really wanted to keep access.
Yeah they're very happy to use banners to raise money they don't really need. Maybe use them to affect policy?
I guess they'd sort of be better off being apolitical but when it is an existential risk I feel like people would be ok with it.