Yet this looks nothing like their reaction to SOPA and PIPA. They even explicitly state that Wikimedia is not against the legislation on the whole.
> 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.
---
I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go?
The old generation of idealists grew up and we raised no one to replace them. I know because I'm in that emotionally and ideologically stunted generation.
>I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go?
I absolutely abhor the "Kids these days" sort of argument, but it does seem the case that we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly.
What has happened previously was we would rally around corporations and institutions that would generally work in our best interests. But the people driving those social goods in those entities are now the villains.
Not to mention all the mergers and acquisitions.
In Australia, during the internet filter debate, we had both a not for profit entity spending money on advertising, but also decently sized ISP's like iiNet working publicly against the problem. The not for profit was funded by industry, something that never happened again. And iiNet is now owned by TPG who also used to have a social conscience but have been hammered into the dust by the (completely non technical, and completely asinine bane of the internets existence and literal satan) ACCC and have no fight left in them for anything. When Teoh leaves or sells TPG, it will probably never fight a good fight ever again.
Its the same everywhere. We cant expect people to fight for freedom when the legislation just gets renamed and relaunched again after the next crisis comes out in the media. We lost internet filtration after christchurch, for absolutely no justifiable reason. And we lost the Access and Assistance fight despite having half the global tech industry tell our government to suck eggs.
The only real solution is to prep the next generation to fight back as best as possible, to help them ignore the doomsayers and help the right humans into the right places to deal with this shit.
> we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly.
I don't think it's a matter of number but activity. There are numerous ways that entities with no morals can make huge amounts of money by exploiting people online (via weaknesses in human psychology adapted for hunting on a savannah), both children and adults. It's hard to make money doing the opposite.
Hey hey hey.. hold on, wait a minuet. What did you just say about the ACCC. Those guys make sure we have good warranties and cracking down on scams. They are the good guys protecting us from the scammers and cooperate greed.
I share your general frustration, but as an unabashed Wikimedia glazer, I have some potential answers:
1. They lost this legal challenge, so perhaps their UK lawyers (barristers?) knew that much broader claim would be even less likely to work and advised them against it. Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense.
2. The Protests against SOPA and PIPA[1] were in response to overreach by capitalists, and as such drew support from many capitalists with opposing interests (e.g. Google, Craigslist, Flickr, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Wordpress, etc.). Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors, which AFAIK are far from the most popular advertising demo. Certainly some adult users will be put off by the hassle and/or insult, but how many, and for how long?
3. Wikimedia is a US-based organization, and the two major organizers of the 2012 protests--Fight for the Future[2] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation[3]--are US-focused as well. The EFF does have a blog post about these UK laws, but AFAICT no history of bringing legal and/or protest action there. This dovetails nicely with the previous point, while we're at it: the US spends $300B on digital ads every year, whereas the UK only spends $40B[4]. The per-capita spends are closer ($870/p v. $567/p), but the fact remains: the US is the lifeblood of these companies in a way that the UK is not.
4. More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. IMHO YouTube brainrot content farms are a much bigger threat to children than porn, but I'm not a parent.
The final point is perhaps weakened by the ongoing AI debates, where there's suddenly a ton of support for the "we're protecting artists!" arguments employed in 2012. Still, I think the general shape of things is clear: Wikimedia stood in solidarity with many others in 2012, and now stands relatively alone.
> Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense.
That's my point, though. This is the perfect opportunity to do so, and they aren't doing it. Instead, they are picking the smallest possible battle they can. That decision alone makes waves.
> Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors.
That's ridiculous. ID systems endanger everyone, particularly the adults who participate. This issue isn't isolated from capitalism. These ID systems must be implemented and managed by corporations, whose greatest incentive is to collect and monetize data.
> We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content.
The think-of-the-children argument is the oldest trick in the book. You are seriously asking me to take it at face value? No thank you.
> More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content".
If people really are blind to the change that has happened right in front of them, then we should be spelling it out at every opportunity. This is my biggest concern with how Wikimedia is behaving: they are in a significant position politically, and are abdicating this crucial responsibility.
Pretty telling what speech on the left and the right looks like.
For the left, it's:
> Eugene Debs, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act after he spoke at a rally for peaceful workers telling them they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder”... Likewise, in 1919, Schenck v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member after he sent anti-war leaflets to men across the country.
For the right, it's:
> It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers [...to trick desparate women into receiving useless propaganda instead of the medical care they were seeking] or small religious businesses [...to deny service based on rank bigotry]. It no longer defends religious freedom [...to deny adoptions to LGBT couples[1], to fire employees for receiving or abetting an abortion[2], and to perjure yourself in a senate hearing about your intention to make legal rulings on the basis of religion[3]], although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating “marginalized groups” should not be defended.
If you're ever in a position to write "marginalized groups" in scare-quotes, perhaps that should be a wakeup call...
P.S. It doesn't help that your links are to 1) a libertarian thinktank founded to oppose the New Deal, 2) the Heritage Foundation and 3) an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz. The first is extremely biased, and the latter two are just plain bad-faith.
Neither the left or the right wants anything. People inside each group do. This is an important distinction that pundits love to invert.
I have a very hard time taking any of your sources seriously, particularly when it comes to any categorization of "the left".
FEE is a conservative libertarian think tank. Heritage Foundation is the most infamous conservative think tank. Alan Dershowitz is most famous for defending Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein, and decided to leave the Democratic party as soon as it showed signs of becoming a bit less Zionist.
These are prime examples of pundits who love to frame the "the left" as a singular cohesive boogeyman. You may not intentionally be picking on the left, but the sources you have cited make a living picking on a version of "the left" that they invented.
I am so much not willing to listen to what heritage specifically has to say on the topic. Could you pick less hypocritical and less eager to lie resources to "definitely not pick up on left totally both side"? Heritage foundation literally where Project 2025 was created and published.
Also, I definitely love the track record of "the measure of free speech is your willingness to defend nazi and never use words to support the left":
> To be sure, the ACLU will still occasionally take a high profile case involving a Nazi or Klan member who has been denied freedom of speech, though there are now some on the board who would oppose supporting such right-wing extremists. But the core mission of the ACLU — and its financial priority — is to promote its left-wing agenda in litigation, in public commentary and, now, in elections. If you want to know the reason for this shift, [...]
Yeah, their litmus test is always willingness to defend nazi AND not have left like opinions. If you are aligned with right wing specifically, you are fine. Just dont you dare to have left like opinions. Total neutral.
That was part of a widespread protest against proposed bipartisan internet legislation in America.
On that occassion, it was very effective at getting the American government to back down.
Sounds like a pretty much identical situation to this. Maybe it would cause the UK government to back down on this stupid law.
Yet this looks nothing like their reaction to SOPA and PIPA. They even explicitly state that Wikimedia is not against the legislation on the whole.
> 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.
---
I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go?
> Where did their conscience go?
Aaron Swartz is no longer with us.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Opposition_to_the...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Death
The old generation of idealists grew up and we raised no one to replace them. I know because I'm in that emotionally and ideologically stunted generation.
Why did they raise no one to replace them?
9 replies →
>I personally find it rather frustrating that Wikimedia is suddenly so willing to bend over for fascists. Where did their conscience go?
I absolutely abhor the "Kids these days" sort of argument, but it does seem the case that we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly.
What has happened previously was we would rally around corporations and institutions that would generally work in our best interests. But the people driving those social goods in those entities are now the villains.
Not to mention all the mergers and acquisitions.
In Australia, during the internet filter debate, we had both a not for profit entity spending money on advertising, but also decently sized ISP's like iiNet working publicly against the problem. The not for profit was funded by industry, something that never happened again. And iiNet is now owned by TPG who also used to have a social conscience but have been hammered into the dust by the (completely non technical, and completely asinine bane of the internets existence and literal satan) ACCC and have no fight left in them for anything. When Teoh leaves or sells TPG, it will probably never fight a good fight ever again.
Its the same everywhere. We cant expect people to fight for freedom when the legislation just gets renamed and relaunched again after the next crisis comes out in the media. We lost internet filtration after christchurch, for absolutely no justifiable reason. And we lost the Access and Assistance fight despite having half the global tech industry tell our government to suck eggs.
The only real solution is to prep the next generation to fight back as best as possible, to help them ignore the doomsayers and help the right humans into the right places to deal with this shit.
> we lowered the barrier of entry sufficiently in the tech sector that people who simply dont give a shit, or actively want to harm our values, now outnumber us greatly.
I don't think it's a matter of number but activity. There are numerous ways that entities with no morals can make huge amounts of money by exploiting people online (via weaknesses in human psychology adapted for hunting on a savannah), both children and adults. It's hard to make money doing the opposite.
Hey hey hey.. hold on, wait a minuet. What did you just say about the ACCC. Those guys make sure we have good warranties and cracking down on scams. They are the good guys protecting us from the scammers and cooperate greed.
1 reply →
"suddenly"? Wikipedia has always supported fascist initiatives
I share your general frustration, but as an unabashed Wikimedia glazer, I have some potential answers:
1. They lost this legal challenge, so perhaps their UK lawyers (barristers?) knew that much broader claim would be even less likely to work and advised them against it. Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense.
2. The Protests against SOPA and PIPA[1] were in response to overreach by capitalists, and as such drew support from many capitalists with opposing interests (e.g. Google, Craigslist, Flickr, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Wordpress, etc.). Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors, which AFAIK are far from the most popular advertising demo. Certainly some adult users will be put off by the hassle and/or insult, but how many, and for how long?
3. Wikimedia is a US-based organization, and the two major organizers of the 2012 protests--Fight for the Future[2] and the Electronic Frontier Foundation[3]--are US-focused as well. The EFF does have a blog post about these UK laws, but AFAICT no history of bringing legal and/or protest action there. This dovetails nicely with the previous point, while we're at it: the US spends $300B on digital ads every year, whereas the UK only spends $40B[4]. The per-capita spends are closer ($870/p v. $567/p), but the fact remains: the US is the lifeblood of these companies in a way that the UK is not.
4. More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content". We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content. IMHO YouTube brainrot content farms are a much bigger threat to children than porn, but I'm not a parent.
The final point is perhaps weakened by the ongoing AI debates, where there's suddenly a ton of support for the "we're protecting artists!" arguments employed in 2012. Still, I think the general shape of things is clear: Wikimedia stood in solidarity with many others in 2012, and now stands relatively alone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA
[2] https://www.fightforthefuture.org/
[3] https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-cases
[4] https://www.salehoo.com/learn/digital-ad-spend-by-country
> Just because they didn't challenge the overall law in court doesn't mean they wouldn't challenge it in a political sense.
That's my point, though. This is the perfect opportunity to do so, and they aren't doing it. Instead, they are picking the smallest possible battle they can. That decision alone makes waves.
> Certainly Reddit et al have similar general concerns with having to implement ID systems as they did about policing content for IP violations, but the biggest impact will be on minors.
That's ridiculous. ID systems endanger everyone, particularly the adults who participate. This issue isn't isolated from capitalism. These ID systems must be implemented and managed by corporations, whose greatest incentive is to collect and monetize data.
> We can call it fascism all we like, but at the end of the day, people do seem concerned about children accessing adult content.
The think-of-the-children argument is the oldest trick in the book. You are seriously asking me to take it at face value? No thank you.
> More fundamentally, I strongly suspect that "big business is trying to ruin the internet by hoarding their property" is an easier sell for the average voter than "big government is trying to ruin the internet by protecting children from adult content".
If people really are blind to the change that has happened right in front of them, then we should be spelling it out at every opportunity. This is my biggest concern with how Wikimedia is behaving: they are in a significant position politically, and are abdicating this crucial responsibility.
5 replies →
[flagged]
Three links from manifestly right-wing organisations decrying the lack of free speech on the left are not exactly convincing.
5 replies →
Pretty telling what speech on the left and the right looks like.
For the left, it's:
> Eugene Debs, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act after he spoke at a rally for peaceful workers telling them they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder”... Likewise, in 1919, Schenck v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member after he sent anti-war leaflets to men across the country.
For the right, it's:
> It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers [...to trick desparate women into receiving useless propaganda instead of the medical care they were seeking] or small religious businesses [...to deny service based on rank bigotry]. It no longer defends religious freedom [...to deny adoptions to LGBT couples[1], to fire employees for receiving or abetting an abortion[2], and to perjure yourself in a senate hearing about your intention to make legal rulings on the basis of religion[3]], although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating “marginalized groups” should not be defended.
If you're ever in a position to write "marginalized groups" in scare-quotes, perhaps that should be a wakeup call...
P.S. It doesn't help that your links are to 1) a libertarian thinktank founded to oppose the New Deal, 2) the Heritage Foundation and 3) an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz. The first is extremely biased, and the latter two are just plain bad-faith.
[1] https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price
[2] https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-...
1 reply →
Neither the left or the right wants anything. People inside each group do. This is an important distinction that pundits love to invert.
I have a very hard time taking any of your sources seriously, particularly when it comes to any categorization of "the left".
FEE is a conservative libertarian think tank. Heritage Foundation is the most infamous conservative think tank. Alan Dershowitz is most famous for defending Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein, and decided to leave the Democratic party as soon as it showed signs of becoming a bit less Zionist.
These are prime examples of pundits who love to frame the "the left" as a singular cohesive boogeyman. You may not intentionally be picking on the left, but the sources you have cited make a living picking on a version of "the left" that they invented.
1 reply →
I am so much not willing to listen to what heritage specifically has to say on the topic. Could you pick less hypocritical and less eager to lie resources to "definitely not pick up on left totally both side"? Heritage foundation literally where Project 2025 was created and published.
Also, I definitely love the track record of "the measure of free speech is your willingness to defend nazi and never use words to support the left":
> To be sure, the ACLU will still occasionally take a high profile case involving a Nazi or Klan member who has been denied freedom of speech, though there are now some on the board who would oppose supporting such right-wing extremists. But the core mission of the ACLU — and its financial priority — is to promote its left-wing agenda in litigation, in public commentary and, now, in elections. If you want to know the reason for this shift, [...]
Yeah, their litmus test is always willingness to defend nazi AND not have left like opinions. If you are aligned with right wing specifically, you are fine. Just dont you dare to have left like opinions. Total neutral.
5 replies →
I’m so tired of this false divide. Its the wealthy vs the rest of us.
I don’t want to go right or left. I want to move forward and leave this stupid, stupid mess behind.