Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2026-07-13/Special_report

by hn_acker • 9 days ago

115 96 9 days ago

en.wikipedia.org

alephnerd• 9 days ago

Wikipedia is still on the Ofcom watchlist and might be designated Category 1 at some point.

neilalexander3• 9 days ago

In other words, "stay where you are for now, we promise to extend the legislation to cover you in the future".

benj111• 9 days ago

Did you actually read the article. Ofcom used a "novel reading of the law" to exempt Wikipedia.

The law it seems already covers Wikipedia. Ofcom are choosing not to enforce. I interpret the watchlist comments as ofcom setting up a defensible position for themselves.

Yes the law is probably wrong to include Wikipedia, but the enforcers of the law seem to have common sense. Which overall seems to be a win.

Chu4eeno• 9 days ago

Considering wikimedia hosts what most people would consider porn (randomly came across a video of a couple going at it once) without any ability to filter it from the rest of the content/hide by default, it's not that surprising they are covered, I'm more surprised ofcom relented.

neilalexander3• 9 days ago

I did read the article, yes, and it is clear to me that this is a bug, not a feature. Ofcom were suddenly able to find a "novel reading" when directed to do so by a court as a means to temporarily make the problem go away and to avoid having to weaken the legislation.

They know full well that if a successful legal challenge forced them to weaken parts of the OSA by removing service categories from scope, that they'd effectively open the floodgates to more challenges over other categories. The government and Ofcom don't want their precious work ripped up and the courts seemingly don't want to be responsible for doing so.

Whatever loophole they've found, it is practically a certainty that it will be addressed in the future.

Georgelemental• 9 days ago

No actually, it's not a "win" if everything is formally illegal, and everyone lives in fear that if they don't keep appeasing the faceless unaccountable bureaucrat, they will be prosecuted tomorrow.

"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

monsecchris• 9 days ago

Could someone seek a private prosecution to make a mockery of the law?

pipes• 9 days ago

I'm guessing they won't do it because it will finally wake the public up to all of this, I.e. bad press + scrutiny. The law should be applied equally to all, it shouldn't be a popularity contest.

generalizations• 9 days ago

They just know they can't afford the power right now to do it. They would if they thought they could get away with it.

lenerdenator• 9 days ago

Governments would rather censor the whole internet before putting people who have credible allegations of sex crimes against children under investigation and in handcuffs when appropriate.

jameskilton• 9 days ago

It isn't and never has been about the children.

bcjdjsndon3• 9 days ago

You can pin it down to less than maybe half a dozen cases that made the newsun the UK. I suppose politics has always been reactionary like this and explains why somewhere like Australia which doesn't really have its own culture still has different laws in response to different outrages

bluescrn• 9 days ago

Yes, building prisons is expensive. But the current UK government seems to treat it as a physical impossibility, while releasing violent offenders early due to lack of capacity.

tancop• 9 days ago

a lot of uk prisons are effectively private. companies like serco and g4s get paid millions to run everything with zero oversight. its not quite as bad as the worst cases in america (no legal slavery for prisoners) but the government is definitely overpaying for bad services.

early release is not a problem by itself. honestly the best way to reform the criminal justice system would be replacing fixed prison terms with release based on a psych evaluation and completed volunteer work. of course when you need to release offenders for capacity you should start with the least dangerous ones and i dont think thats happening here, its just random or going off time served.

DaiPlusPlus• 9 days ago

There's no conspiracy here; the UK government is not wanting to censor Wikipedia (honestly!) - what this really is is the consequence of poorly written legislation introduced at the behest of tabloid-newspaper-supported children's online safety nonprofits - they have a very high level of public support (from parents stressed-out over how bad the Internet is thesedays, which is fair enough!) - and this translates into strong political support, which leads to MPs actively avoiding listening to technical experts and other opposition voices because no-one wants the Daily Express to call them out as being on the side of (vague and nebulous) Internet child sex predators (or "the paedos" for short, in UK tabloid speak).

...and none of this has anything to do with Prince Andrew et al (because that's in real-life, not on the Internet).

It's the exact same process that lead to the 2010s IWF/Cleanfeed/Wikipedia block over controversial 1970s music album art.

It's idiocy and fear of a rabid public, not a conspiracy.

kypro• 9 days ago

UK is the worse for this too.

We have a story in the news currently about a foreign child gang rape leader (yes, those are things in the UK) who raped at least 30 children and was released early after serving just 14 years in prison.

We have major children sexual abuse scandals in this country basically every year too. Politicians never care about that though.

BigTTYGothGF5• 9 days ago

Andrew Windsor walks around a free man.

waiwai933• 9 days ago

The High Court judgment referred to is available at https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedi...

I'm not sure if Ofcom's subsequent notification to WMF is publicly available anywhere.

big85• 9 days ago

If you don't fight government overreach now, it becomes permanent.

bsimpson• 9 days ago

As my dad told us every time we crossed a bridge when we were kids:

"Tolls are a ratchet - they only move in one direction."

tialaramex• 9 days ago

Because England is very old it has a whole bunch of things which did charge a toll and then that expired, so, nope.

It does also have situations where people go "Hey, this toll bridge was built 50 years ago, surely the tolls should be abolished" and the people who built the bridge are like "Nope. See, here's the press about it 50 years ago saying what a great idea it is to have the tolls be slightly lower but perpetual". Feel free to build a time machine and go tell your past selves that's not a great idea after all.

But well, nothing is forever. In five hundred years that perpetual toll on a road is obsolete because hardly anybody owns a private vehicle so the toll mostly just moves (local) government money from one pile (funding transport) to another (build infrastructure) and it's not a very efficient way to do that. Or the bridge falls down and its replacement doesn't have a toll because people were sick of tolls. Nothing is forever.

THX11372• 9 days ago

An example of the opposite happening in Ontario in 2022: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/highway-412-418-tolls...

BigTTYGothGF5• 9 days ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_toll_roads_in_...

arjie9• 9 days ago

I wonder what the difference in legal traditions is between the US and the Old World. The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it".

What informed this kind of difference? Is there one?

The US approach seems very much like the way Orthodox Jews follow the halakha by making workarounds around it.

joe_mamba2• 9 days ago

Probably because the US was founded by the immigrants who fled because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries, and designed a system that's diametral opposed to that, for better and for worse.

arjie9• 9 days ago

Right, that's what I'd lean to as well.

But was the reason they left the legal tradition? In this telling of the story, they were fully aware of the legal tradition being the reason for their unhappiness. But is it true?

I know the original immigrants/colonists were looking for a specific kind of religious freedom they couldn't have, but you must be speaking of the later waves (which are the majority of people).

I remember ages ago reading this paper (PDF warning): https://annesofiebeckknudsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/...

It made the case that (simplifying) individualists left for the US while collectivists stayed. And because of the massive scale of the migration relative to the populations, this meant that the two regions were permanently altered. Cool, eh?

But I don't know if the thesis has been supported by alternative tests. Essentially, it's what I feel is true, but I've felt many things are true and been wrong many times!

seszett• 9 days ago

immigrants who fled because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries

I'm not convinced, as the people who designed the US system had extensive exchanges with the ones who ended up designing the modern French one, which became the basis for most of the rest of Europe (bar the UK).

The US and continental European systems were both designed in concert and in opposition to how the old European monarchies worked.

BigTTYGothGF5• 9 days ago

because they hated the way the system worked in their original countries

48/56 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were born in the 13 colonies, and I think for a lot of them what they hated about the way the system worked is that they weren't fully part of it. ("No taxation without representation")

zarzavat• 9 days ago

In the UK there is substantial use of secondary legislation. This is where Parliament authorises someone else to make laws on its behalf in some context. These powers delegated by Parliament are usually mundane but can be extreme and there's no limit to what powers Parliament can delegate. Since politicians are lazy they tend to use secondary legislation all the time. This encourages a culture of legislative sloppiness.

While the UK courts have given themselves the power to perform judicial review, there is no constitutional basis for this review and so the courts are reluctant to step on Parliament's toes because if they go too far they risk Parliament deciding that it doesn't like the courts' interference and removing their authority. This isn't a hypothetical and the courts have at times resorted to some crazy mental gymnastics to evade Parliament's attempts to prevent judicial review.

The US has a similar concept that enables federal agencies to make regulations on Congress's behalf but it's much more limited in scope due to the separation of powers and more solid position of the US Supreme Court.

arjie9• 9 days ago

I believe the analogous concept is Chevron deference here in the US. It must be a relatively easy optimization to make to reduce legislative load considering it arises so often. Interesting.

One funny thing in California that is relevant is lane splitting. It is legal but guidelines are decided on by the CHP (state police). In practice, this means they have discretion to pull you over.

I must imagine this is like the creation of Shadow IT in organizations. In the past, when you made it hard to get a server or whatever, you’d end up with your org building their software somewhere else where IT can’t see it.

This must be the legal innovation that matches that: if law is hard to pass, shove a bunch of things off into Shadow Legislative which can then change rules on a whim.

It’s essentially a mechanism to re-enable rapid decision making in a sclerotic system. So perhaps the US using it less than the Old World is simply an artifact of age (though extant nations vary, the legal traditions of the Old World seem to have endured) and in time we will see it dominate the US as well.

AnthonyMouse5• 9 days ago

The latter have a lot of "Yes, you're technically in trouble under the guidelines the enforcement authority rules using but they're going to make an exception for you, for now" and the former have a lot of "Yes, the spirit was to block this kind of thing but the letter of the law is that you do get away with it".

The latter system is what happens if you actually have rule of law. The law says X is illegal, you did not do X, therefore you cannot be prosecuted. Meanwhile anyone caught doing X is prosecuted or it's a scandal that they're seen getting away with it.

The former is autocracy in a trench coat. Whether you're in violation of the law is irrelevant because the laws are so numerous and ambiguous that everyone is always in violation of the law and the only thing that matters is if the prosecutors want to charge you.

Sadly the US is moving more towards the "traditional" system rather than the other way around.

leonidasrup• 9 days ago

The US was moving in the wrong direction for a long time.

Three Felonies a Day

" Silverglate’s book first explains how law should work, and then demonstrates how federal law really works as he weaves through dozens of cases showing clear prosecutorial abuse. An ugly, recurrent feature is that prosecutors often manipulate the media. "

https://fee.org/articles/three-felonies-a-day-how-the-feds-t...

arjie9• 9 days ago

Yes, I tend to agree. Understanding what forces brought it to be may help preserve it and bring it to more places.

The US is moving in various ways, true, but certainly I think the diminishing of Chevron deference is a move towards clearer law. Agency actors have always acted in a capricious way but they’re now far more susceptible to capture than in prior eras (or at least it’s much more visible) so reducing their power offers more transparency.

stackghost• 9 days ago

Whether you're in violation of the law is irrelevant because the laws are so numerous and ambiguous that everyone is always in violation of the law and the only thing that matters is if the prosecutors want to charge you.

This situation currently describes the USA.

cineticdaffodil2• 9 days ago

First hacker culture there ever was. Hacking the words of god, to make life easier. Makes you pre-disposed to excell in science, that kind of thinking and learning..

Loughla• 9 days ago

One is following the law and the other isn't.

If the letter of the law doesn't enforce the spirit of the law, it was poorly written or it's out of date and needs to be amended.

In theory, the US system allows for those updates. In reality it's a little less clear. Currently we're absolutely moving to the fealty to the crown system and it's not great.

Any system that makes specific carve outs for anyone to not follow the letter of the law is not about enforcing the law, it's about maintaining control using arbitrary enforcement and chronyism (not sure of that spelling).

The system of workarounds for religious customs has always fascinated me. I will follow the letter of the law, because I have to. If I don't agree with the laws, I can move. If I was in a faith tradition and finding workarounds for the intent of the law, I would choose a different faith. To me it's very binary; either you are or you aren't [Religion]. Using technicalities on your deity just feels like a suckers game to make your current and any possible afterlife worse. Like God is just going to say, "oh man you really got one over on me." Makes zero sense.

gcanyon• 9 days ago

If the letter of the law doesn't enforce the spirit of the law, it was poorly written or it's out of date and needs to be amended.

I think if you rewrite that to, “If the letter of the law is demonstrably out of sync with the public sense of the spirit of the law, then it should be amended,” I’m with you.

But I think that’s not what you meant? If you meant “the letter of the law should define prescribed and proscribed behavior exactly,” then I think that’s impossible.

There will always be exceptions, and no set of rules can be exhaustive. The system should allow for humans to recognize that fact.

azornathogron• 9 days ago

chronyism (not sure of that spelling)

Since you mentioned you weren't sure: it's "cronyism", no 'h'.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cronyism

This is despite having an etymology that - at least according to etymonline - does come from greek "khronos"

https://www.etymonline.com/word/cronyism

bcjdjsndon3• 9 days ago

Thinkudur chiddrun

theginger• 9 days ago

based on a novel reading of the law

So they found a loop hole. Why do they need to find a loop hole in their own law, why not just make better laws to start with.

cineticdaffodil2• 9 days ago

You know why all who grew up under the soviet regime in the eastern block are totally alergic to englands direction nowadaways.

sharperguy• 9 days ago

Sadly many of those countries are now in the EU which will force them to adopt similar legislation

Cider99864• 9 days ago

Identity verification should be illegal by default and companies that want to do it should have to prove it's absolutely necessary for their business.

incompatible• 9 days ago

The Wikipedia page implies that all the designated "Category 1" websites will now either have to collect ID from their users worldwide, or remove any presence in the UK.

Edit: there's a list of the Category 1 services at

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...

I.e., Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat, TikTok, Whatsapp, X, YouTube.

Plus others at the Category 2A or 2B levels.

Edit: well, it says they are "Providing user identity verification options." Unclear to me when they are supposed to get users to verify identity.

voxic11• 9 days ago

In 2027, the law will impose extra obligations on the most popular services.

I presume this is the extra obligation starting in 2027 that wikipedia mentions.

sunaookami• 9 days ago

How did Discord escape category 1, the most notorious and infamous chat client!? Lmao

Cider99864• 9 days ago

The Ministry of Truth approves of Wikipedia, for now.

I suppose it's part of UK culture to be authoritarian which is how Orwell predicted it, but it's uncanny.

Cider99864• 9 days ago

It's be one thing if it was just privacy invasions to save the children, but no it's also freedom of speech, removing jury trials, and probably other things.

josefritzishere• 9 days ago

Sounds like turnkey fascism.

Havoc• 9 days ago

Oh so the muppets have finally started thinking about the practicalities of what they’re yolo legislating

asdaqopqkq• 9 days ago

I don't get the anglo mind. They set up the same 1984 esque institutions in the subcontinent. Just why. Does it tickle their mind to control informantion or something ? Is is the boarding schools?

baranul• 8 days ago

It's more like, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If there is no or not enough resistance, certain sadists and egomaniacs see that as a sign to power grab and cause suffering.

Wikipedia escapes Category 1 designation under the UK Online Safety Act for now

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