Future Retirement Success
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Investing
  • Stocks

Future Retirement Success

Business

Wikipedia will not perform Online Safety Bill age checks

by April 28, 2023
April 28, 2023
Wikipedia will not perform Online Safety Bill age checks

Wikipedia will not comply with any age checks required under the Online Safety Bill, its foundation says.

Rebecca MacKinnon, of the Wikimedia Foundation, which supports the website, says it would “violate our commitment to collect minimal data about readers and contributors”.

A senior figure in Wikimedia UK fears the site could be blocked as a result.

But the government says only services posing the highest risk to children will need age verification.

Wikipedia has millions of articles in hundreds of languages, written and edited entirely by thousands of volunteers around the world.

It is the eighth most-visited site in the UK, according to data from analytics company SimilarWeb.

The Online Safety Bill, currently before Parliament, places duties on tech firms to protect users from harmful or illegal content and is expected to come fully into force some time in 2024.

Neil Brown, a solicitor specialising in internet and telecoms law, says that under the bill, services likely to be accessed by children must have “proportionate systems and processes” designed to prevent them from encountering harmful content. That could include age verification.

Lucy Crompton-Reid, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, an independent charity affiliated with the foundation, warns some material on the site could trigger age verification.

“For example, educational text and images about sexuality could be misinterpreted as pornography,” she said.

But Ms MacKinnon wrote: “The Wikimedia Foundation will not be verifying the age of UK readers or contributors.”

As well as requiring Wikipedia to gather data about its users, checking ages would also require a “drastic overhaul” to technical systems.

If a service does not comply with the bill, there can be serious consequences potentially including large fines, criminal sanctions for senior staff, or restricting access to a service in the UK.

Wikimedia UK fears that site could be blocked because of the Bill, and the risk that it will mandate age checks.

It was “definitely possible that one of the most visited websites in the world – and a vital source of freely accessible knowledge and information for millions of people – won’t be accessible to UK readers (let alone UK-based contributors)”, wrote Ms Crompton-Reid.

There are currently 6.6 million articles on Wikipedia, and she said it was “impossible to imagine” how it would cope with checking content to comply with the bill.

She added: “Worldwide there are two edits per second across Wikipedia’s 300-plus languages.”

The foundation has previously said the bill would fundamentally change the way the site operated by forcing it to moderate articles rather than volunteers.

Encyclopaedia exemption

It wants the law to follow the EU Digital Services Act, which differentiates between centralised content moderation carried out by employees and the Wikipedia-style model by community volunteers.

On Tuesday, the House of Lords debated an amendment from Conservative peer Lord Moylan that would exempt services “provided for the public benefit”, such as encyclopaedias, from the bill.

Heritage Minister Lord Parkinson said he did not think this would be feasible, but added that Wikipedia was an example of how community moderation can be effective.

He said the bill did not say that every service needed to have age checks, and it was expected that “only services which pose the highest risk to children will use age verification technologies”.

Ms Crompton-Reid said that while Lord Parkinson’s remarks “reassured” her , the charity did not want to be relying on future goodwill and interpretation of legislation.

It would continue to urge that protections to community moderation were in the bill through measures such as an exception for public benefit websites like Wikipedia, she said.

A government spokesperson said the bill had been “designed to strike the balance between tackling harm without imposing unnecessary burdens on low-risk tech companies”.

Communications watchdog Ofcom will enforce it and would “focus on services where the risk of harm is highest”.

The government also believes it is unlikely Wikipedia would be classed as a category one service, those that would be subject to the bill’s strictest rules.

Read more:
Wikipedia will not perform Online Safety Bill age checks

0
FacebookTwitterGoogle +Pinterest
previous post
UK to avoid recession but inflation won’t return to Bank of England target until end of next year
next post
Overcoming content challenges for SMEs: tips for resource management and expertise

You may also like

Royal Mail faces £100m hit from strikes

August 25, 2022

HSBC warns UK staff: return to the office...

May 22, 2025

Getting To Know You: Zoë Scorer, MD, Conscious...

July 23, 2024

Marks & Spencer set to open 20 new...

January 16, 2023

Owner of Training Center Daniel Moscatiello On How...

October 18, 2022

UK mortgage rates could start to reduce within...

July 20, 2023

Online safety bill ‘opens door to surveillance’, tech...

April 19, 2023

Timeless Elegance: Top Decor Trends for a Sophisticated...

July 2, 2024

Workplace Accidents and How to Prevent Them

March 13, 2023

Motherhood ‘has driven 250,000 women out of jobs’

November 6, 2023

    Get free access to all of the retirement secrets and income strategies from our experts! or Join The Exclusive Subscription Today And Get the Premium Articles Acess for Free

    By opting in you agree to receive emails from us and our affiliates. Your information is secure and your privacy is protected.

    Recent Posts

    • Trump ally stands firm against ‘big, beautiful bill’ despite pressure: ‘It’ll completely backfire’

      June 8, 2025
    • Rubio condemns assassination attempt on Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe

      June 8, 2025
    • Obama WH physician says Biden doc should have performed cognitive test

      June 8, 2025
    • Trump warns of ‘serious consequences’ if Elon Musk funds Democrats

      June 7, 2025
    • Musk jokes about reconsidering stance on Big Beautiful Bill after Schiff’s praise

      June 7, 2025
    • Musk deletes explosive posts about Trump and Epstein files

      June 7, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (8,152)
    • Investing (2,019)
    • Politics (15,571)
    • Stocks (3,136)
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: futureretirementsuccess.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2025 futureretirementsuccess.com | All Rights Reserved