Comment by cubefox

16 days ago

The headline seems a little misleading. From the article:

> The Wikimedia Foundation shares the UK government’s commitment to promoting online environments where everyone can safely participate. The organization is not bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1 duties (the OSA’s most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia.

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cubefox

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ChrisKnott  16 days ago

Is Wikipedia actually Category 1?

Seems to require an algorithmic feed to be Category 1 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174

  • codedokode  16 days ago

    How is "algorithmic feed" related to safety? Or is it, along with seemingly arbitrary numbers like 7 or 34 millions, a way to target a specific platform for those who are afraid to spell the name explicitly?

    • ChrisKnott  16 days ago

      One of the main motivations for this law was pro-suicide and pro-anorexia content being pushed to teenage girls. In particular Molly Russell's death received a lot of press coverage and public outrage at tech companies. The coroner's report basically said Instagram killed her. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Molly_Russell

      Of course if you get your news from HN then the motivation is actually something to do with limiting discussion of immigration or being dystopian just because.

      But yes, if they could just name Instagram and TikTok they probably would.

  • philipwhiuk  16 days ago

    Is search results 'an algorithmic feed'.

    • ChrisKnott  16 days ago

      The phrase they actually use is "content recommender system". The definition is in the link; you could maybe see some search features falling into it but I don't see how Wikipedia as it exists now is Category 1.