Wikipedia’s operator loses challenge to UK Online Safety Act rules

A U.K. court on Monday dismissed a challenge brought by the Wikimedia Foundation to the country’s Online Safety Act, which could prevent unverified users from making edits or adding to posts.

The organization, which operates Wikipedia, preemptively brought the challenge under the assumption that it would be labeled as a “category 1” platform, which it argues “would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia.”

User verification — just one of several requirements for category 1 platforms — ”could expose contributors to data breaches, stalking, lawsuits, or even imprisonment by authoritarian regimes,” Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement.

Although the U.K.’s High Court of Justice dismissed the foundation’s challenge, it said it would revisit the case if the organization was classified as category 1 by Ofcom — the country’s communications regulator — later this year.

User verification rules have expanded in the United States as well as Europe in recent years, bringing pushback from online platforms that say they impose unreasonable requirements and limit free speech. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Texas law that requires people to prove their age to access online pornography was constitutional. Several other states have similar laws on the books.

Category 1 services are defined under the rules as large user-to-user platforms that use content recommendation systems, such as Facebook, X and Google. Wikimedia, a nonprofit, argued that it is different from these organizations because it provides a volunteer-based digital public good, and the requirements would be “exceptionally burdensome” to Wikipedia’s operations.

The judge appeared sympathetic to this argument, commenting on Wikipedia’s “significant value” and recognizing the damages that a category 1 label could have on the organization.

The ruling “does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations,” senior High Court judge Justice Johnson said, adding that it may be possible for Ofcom to flexibly interpret the rules or for lawmakers to amend the act.