The operator of Wikipedia on Aug. 11 lost a high court challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) rules that could require it to verify the identities of its contributors.
Hailed by the UK government as the world’s first online safety law, the OSA became law in October 2023, but duties related to the regulation of so-called illegal content took effect in March 2025.
The law requires online platforms to implement measures to protect people in the UK from criminal activity, with far-reaching implications for internet governance.
Under the OSA, sites that allow user interaction, including forums, must have completed an illegal harm risk assessment by March 16 and submitted it to UK regulator Ofcom by March 31.
Ofcom warned that noncompliance could result in enforcement action, including fines of 18 million pounds (about $24 million) or 10 percent of a company’s annual revenue, or even court orders to block access in the UK.
They effectively mean that all adult internet users in the UK must prove that they are not children to access certain websites.
Wikipedia Protection
Although Judge Jeremy Johnson dismissed the case, he said the Wikimedia Foundation could bring a further challenge if Ofcom concludes that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service.
He noted that 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.”
The foundation said it welcomed the court’s comments emphasizing what it called “the responsibility of Ofcom and the UK government to ensure Wikipedia is protected.”
It stated that these volunteers set and enforce policies to ensure that information on the platform is “fact-based, neutral, and attributed to reliable sources.”
“Over the last 25 years, this human-centered content moderation model has established Wikipedia as an unparalleled resource for reliable information in over 300 languages; its 65 million articles are viewed more than 15 billion times per month worldwide,” it stated.
Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger has claimed that the website has drifted away from neutrality and slid into “leftist propaganda.”
Sanger created Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales in 2001, but left the project the following year and has subsequently criticized the website.
“Wikipedia made a real effort at neutrality for, I would say, its first five years or so,” Sanger said. “And then … it began a long, slow slide into what I would call leftist propaganda.”
Sanger told EpochTV at the time that those who are “on the right, or even contrarian,” often find themselves with an article on Wikipedia that “grossly misrepresents their achievements, often just leaves out important bits of their work, and misrepresents their motives.”
“[Wikipedia] casts them as conspiracy theorists or far right, or whatever, when they and their friends and people who know them well would never describe them in that way,” Sanger said.
An Ofcom spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email, “We note the court’s judgment and will continue to progress our work in relation to categorised services and the associated extra online safety rules for those companies.”
Reuters, Isabel van Brugen, and Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.
