Comment by gnfargbl
6 months ago
This is a loss, but only really a technical loss. What happened is that Wikimedia have been told that they haven't been told that they are Category 1 at this point and, given that they've already made a submission to Ofcom which makes an argument that they aren't Category 1 [1], then they need to wait and see if Ofcom agrees. If Ofcom doesn't agree, then Wikimedia is invited to come back again, with a fairly strong hint that they will find the door open for a review under the ECHR [2].
What I hope (and optimistically expect) to happen from here is that Ofcom takes a pragmatic view and interprets the rules such that Wikipedia is, in fact, not caught as a Category 1 site and can continue as before.
That outcome would be in line with Parliament's intent for this Act; the politicians were after Facebook, not Wikipedia, and they won't want any more blowback than the (IMO misguided) porn block has already brought them.
[1] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Wikimedi..., para 66.
[2] ibid, para 136.
The problem is that a regulatory body is determining all this instead of the independent judiciary. Ofcom now has the power to granularly decide who gets categorized as what, and to what degree small organizations are given less stringent rules. They have the power to become a ministry of truth. That is hyperbole today, but only because they haven't been wielded by a suitably minded leader yet. If this seems paranoid consider it is coming from an American. Might ask Poles and Hungarians what they think too. The Poles might still feel free to answer honestly.
> The problem is that a regulatory body is determining all this instead of the independent judiciary.
What we have is the regulatory body (which, as a non-ministerial government department is effectively part of the government) making the specific regulations, and the comparability of those regulations with other laws being determined by the independent judiciary.
That's exactly as it should be, no? I don't think I want judges creating laws or regulations. That's not their role in our democracy.
> [Ofcom has] the power to become a ministry of truth.
The judgment makes clear that any such attempt would be incompatible with the freedom of expression rights guaranteed to us by the ECHR. That's a good thing!
We don't need to panic about the OSA, as things stand. However, we should be very worried about the stated desire of Reform for the UK to join Russia in being outside the ECHR. In that scenario, the judiciary would have no power to prevent the scenario you're outlining and, exactly as it is in Russia, there's a good chance that the media would be captured by the government.
My understanding was that ofcom itself decided on a case by case basis categorization and waivers. If they just set out some rules and appeals go to the judiciary instead of ofcom, then that is certainly better. But that was not what I understood.
1 reply →