Wikipedia loses High Court challenge against UK Government

Wikipedia has lost a High Court challenge against the UK Government over verification requirements in the Online Safety Act.

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), along with an anonymous editor known as BLN, wanted the website to be exempt from certain regulations that came into force earlier this year.

They argued that compliance with the new law would mean Wikipedia would have to impose verification on people who did not want it or limit the amount of monthly UK users.

But in a judgment on Monday, Mr Justice Johnson rejected those claims, saying there may be ways to work within the law “without causing undue damage to Wikipedia’s operations”.

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Harmful content

The Online Safety Act has provisions aimed at reducing the spread of harmful content.

Part of the regulations classify some sites as category one, which is defined by the number of monthly users a site has as well as the systems through which information is shared.

Rupert Paines, for WMF, told a previous hearing that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, who were defending the claim, had made the regulations too broad.

He said that if Wikipedia is to be classified as category one, and verification is to become mandatory for all users, it would make articles “gibberish” because content from non-verified users would be filtered out.

The regulations were more designed for “major, profit-making technology companies” such as Facebook, X and Instagram, he argued, while imposing verification on Wikipedia users would be a breach of their human rights.

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Exemption

Cecilia Ivimy KC, for the Government, said ministers reviewed Ofcom guidance and considered specifically whether Wikipedia should be exempt from the regulations and rejected that.

She said they decided that Wikipedia “is in principle an appropriate service on which to impose category one duties” and how ministers arrived at that choice was not “without reasonable foundation nor irrational”.

Rejecting WMF and BLN’s claims, Mr Justice Johnson said his decision “does not give Ofcom and the Secretary of State a green light to implement a regime that would significantly impede Wikipedia’s operations”.

Doing so would mean the Government would have to justify the imposition as proportionate, he added.

The judge also said that the decision to make Wikipedia a category one service now lies with Ofcom.

If that happens, it may open a possible avenue for further legal action.

Mr Justice Johnson said: “Ofcom’s decision as to which services fall within category one is a public law decision which is potentially amenable to the court’s review on grounds of public law error.”