Wikipedia has lost a legal challenge to the new Online Safety Act rules which it says could threaten human rights and safety of its volunteer editors.
The Wikimedia Foundation – the non-profit which supports the online encyclopedia – wanted a judicial review of the regulations which could mean Wikipedia has to verify the identities of its users.
But it said despite the loss, the judgement “emphasized the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected.”
The government told the BBC it welcomed the high court’s judgement, “which will help us continue our work implementing the Online Safety Act and create a safer online world for everyone.”
Judicial reviews challenge the lawfulness of the way in which a decision has been made by a public body.
In this case, the Wikimedia Foundation and a Wikipedia editor tried to challenged the way in which the government decided to make regulations covering which sites should be classed as “Category 1” under the Online Safety Act – the strictest rules sites must follow.
The operator of Wikipedia has been given permission by a high court judge to challenge the Online Safety Act as it is categorized as a high-risk platform, which would impose the most stringent duties, The Guardian reported.
The Wikimedia Foundation has said it might be forced to reduce how many people can access the site in order to comply with the regulations if it is classified as a category 1 provider by Ofcom later this summer.
As a non-profit, the site said it would face huge challenges to meet the large technological and staffing needs” required to comply with the duties, which include user-verification requirements, stringent protections for users and regular reporting responsibilities to prevent the spread of harmful content.
The Wikimedia Foundation calculated that the number of people in the UK who access Wikipedia would have to be reduced by about three-quarters in order for the site to not qualify as a category 1 service, which is defined as a large user-to-user platform that uses algorithmic contender recommendations.
Politico reported: The U.K. High Court dismissed the Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to parts of the country’s Online Safety Act on Monday, but suggested the nonprofit could have grounds for legal action in the future.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, sought a judicial review of the Online Safety Act’s Categorization Regulation in May, arguing the rules risked subjecting Wikipedia to the most stringent “Category 1” duties intended for social media platforms.
The nonprofit was particularly concerned that under OSA’s “Category 1” duties it would be forced to verify the identity of users — undermining their privacy – or else allow “potentially malicious” users to block unverified users from changing content, leading to vandalism and disinformation going unchecked.