Comment by AlecSchueler
1 day ago
> Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind.
Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?
I'm quite critical of the implementation of this legislation but the idea of an American company throwing their weight around trying to influence policy decisions in the UK gives me the ick.
Fair enough if the regulations mean they just don't want to do business there but please don't block access to try and strong arm the elected government of another nation.
Well, that would be tricky, since Wikipedia is not a business, and is nor is it specifically American. (Other than a foundation in the US that runs the servers) . There are Wikipedias in many of the world's languages!
If the UK effectively bans public wikis above a certain size (even if by accident), then it is the law of the land that Wikipedia is banned. Or at least the english wikipedia, which is indeed very large. And if it is banned, then it must block access for the uk, under those conditions. Depending on the exact rules, possibly the uk could make do with the Swahili wikipedia?
That said, the problem here is that it is a public wiki of a certain size. One option might be for Wikipedia to implement quotas for the UK, so that they don't fall under category 1 rules.
Another option would be to talk with Ofcon and get things sorted that way.
By Wikipedia I meant the foundation of course. I'm not sure localisation automatically makes them a multinational entity. Windows is available in Chinese but we both understand that Microsoft is not a Chinese company.
It is fair to say it's not a business, but essentially there's no difference to my feeling that private entities from other countries shouldn't be throwing their weight around in local democracy.
Do you feel that Wikipedia today is banned through the letter of the law? If so why is there a question of it continuing to operate there?
The Wikimedia Foundation is not in charge of the Wikipedias per se (though as always, once you have a central organization, it starts stretching its tentacles) .
Wikipedias are not merely localized versions of each other, they're truly independent.
If you happen to know two languages and want to quickly rack up edits (if that's your sport), arbitraging knowledge between two Wikipedias is one way to go.
Wikipedia is not throwing their weight around. They are merely pointing out that the law happens to make their operating model illegal, and surely that can't be the intent. If they are illegal, they cannot operate. Is "very well, we disagree, but if you truly insist, we shall obey the law and leave" throwing your weight around?
And yes, I get the impression that the UK's letter of the law could lead to a categorization with rules that (a) Wikipedia simply cannot comply with, and still be a Wikipedia. So in that case Wikipedia would be effectively banned.
But we're not there yet. Hence the use of proper legal channels, including this court case. Ofcom is expected to make their first categorizations this summer, so this is timely.
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> Do you feel that Wikipedia today is banned through the letter of the law?
Wikipedia is certainly large enough, in terms of traffic. And as anyone can edit it, it would seem to be a user-to-user service, making it a Category 1 provider, equivalent to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.
And their wiki page about 'breasts' certainly shows photographs of female nipples. Their pages on penises are likewise illustrated. They also have pages about suicide and self-harm.
Wikipedia is also a website we could reasonably expect children to access.
And Wikipedia did lobby the government, before the act was passed, to make it clear they weren't subject to it, which the government opted not to do.
So it would certainly appear they are subject to it.
> Do you feel that Wikipedia today is banned through the letter of the law? If so why is there a question of it continuing to operate there?
This isn't so much up to feeling as it is up to interpretation of the law. If there isn't a good way for Wikipedia to hide parts of itself and the law requires that it does, then it is effectively banned by the letter of the law.
The question of it continuing to operate exists because it is an obvious good to society that the law is yet to act on shutting down themselves. Right now it continues to exist in the UK despite being illegal due to the good will (or incompetence if you're not feeling generous) of the UK government.
> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?
Blocking, making it clear why your blocking and that you will continue to block until it changes is respecting the decision.
As others have noted, blocking /is/ respecting the democratic decisions of the UK. It would bring them into full compliance with the law.
You call it strong arming, I call it malicious compliance. Wikipedia hosts images, it "may contain pornographic material". Make anyone trying to search up a top 5 website see it before their eyes on how this isn't just a way to affect pornhub.
>respect the democratic decisions
Let the peope have a say in the going ons instead of lying to get elected, and maybe we can call it democratic again.
Or they should not do business in them. To me this means block access. If you don't then they're supposed to block access to you anyway so who is strong arming who?
As I said in my first comment: if it makes doing business in the UK unpalatable then they are of course free to halt their operations. I was specifically responding to the suggestion above that they should do so as a bargaining move to force the government's hand.
The Wikimedia Foundation isn't "doing business" in the UK, they're a nonprofit. Their mission statement is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."
Part of fulfilling that mission is opposing laws that restrict free knowledge and open access, so why should they not use their huge presence as a bargaining tool? Doing so directly aligns with their purpose.
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> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?
Well, the OSA was put into law by the Tories in 2023. The democratic decision of the UK was that they resoundingly rejected what the Tories were doing in the landslide win for Labour in the 2024 GE. I'd quite like UKGOV to respect the democratic decisions of the country and if they won't, I'm quite happy for other people to push back via the courts, public opinion, etc.
Your framing is misleading.
Most people weren't aware of the Online Safety Act. I would argue it wasn't even any of the policies.
The Tories were in power for 14 years previously. During that time we had 5 prime ministers all of which were seen as weak and ineffective. People were sick of the Conservative party. This includes some of their most ardent supporters.
People were sick of the Conservative party, this includes people that had previously voted for the Conservatives.
The election had low voter turn out. It wasn't that Labour won, it was more like the Conservatives lost and by default Labour took power because they were the only other choice.
That's not how democracy works. When there's a change in government they don't just abandon all laws the previous one passed.
The current government is more than able to use their democratic mandate to appeal or change the law.
>When there's a change in government they don't just abandon all laws the previous one passed.
Tell that to the US please.
>The current government is more than able to use their democratic mandate to appeal or change the law. °
Yes, but they probably a won't without a lot of push back. Here's the push back
The Tories' loss had nothing to do with what anybody thought of the OSA, a bill which most people hadn't heard of until last week.
But you already knew that.
And which was supported by Labour.
The bill had broad cross party support and passed without opposition from the Labour party.
> Or they could respect
Blocking is respecting the law!
> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?
In what way would blocking access from the UK be not respecting the law?
Also, that won't necessarily do anything. Russia forked wikipedia into Ruwiki after the invasion of Ukraine and it worked out for them.
> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in?
They do that by staying out of such countries. Many US companies don't want to work with EU GDPR and just block all european IPs, wikipedia has full right to leave UK. They are under no obligations to provide service to them in the same was as pornhub is under no obligation to provide services in eg. a country that would require them to disclose IP addresses of all viewers of gay porn, etc.
Saying that it was a democratic decision without people actually being asked if they want that (referendum) is just weaseling out instead of directly pointing out that it's a bad policy that very few brits actually wanted. Somehow no one uses the same words when eg. trump does something (tarifs, defunding, etc.), no one is talking about democratic decisions of americans then.
Wikipedia has the full right to say "nope, we're not playing that game" and pulling out, even if an actual majority of brits want that.
I know that and I've been clear about it several times. If business subs unpalatable they gave every right to withdraw. I was responding to the suggestion above that they should do so explicitly as a bargaining chip.
And parliamentary representative democracy is still very much democratic even without referenda on every little issue.
Is it "democratic" when both parties agree on everything of substance and elections don't change anything no matter who wins? Because that's how "democracy" has worked in the UK for at least as long as I've been alive.
Also, no-one asked for this bill, both parties support it, it received basically no debate or scrutiny and was presented as a fait accompli. Where's the democracy exactly?
There are any number of criticisms I would happily join you in directing at the British parliamentaey system but I don't think relying on American businesses to pressure the government would actually be the win for democracy you seem to suggest?
None of this is responsive to the specific criticisms made, and nor are the follow-up replies.
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I didn't say anything prescriptive, I'm just disputing your use of the word "democratic".
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The Brexit referendum ought to have shut up the “your vote doesn’t make any difference” folks forever (regardless of whether or not they were in favor of Brexit). But they tend to have short memories.