Wikipedia to seek judicial review of Online Safety Act

OSA risks categorising Wikipedia as among the UK’s ‘riskiest’ websites

The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a judicial review of the Online Safety Act (OSA), claiming that its “Categorisation Regulations” potentially places Wikipedia and its staff and users under the most series Category 1 classification.

As a result, it would place onerous duties on the website, its staff and the volunteers who write the free online encyclopaedia's entries. The first categorisation decisions from the UK’s designated online safety regulator, Ofcom, are expected this summer, after the Act came into force in March this year.

“If enforced on Wikipedia, Category 1 duties would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia volunteer users, expose the encyclopaedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting and improving Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia Projects,” Phil Bradley-Schmieg, lead counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, wrote in a blog post revealing the move.

“With time running short, we have initiated a legal challenge to the Categorisation Regulations. We are taking action now to protect Wikipedia’s volunteer users, as well as the global accessibility and integrity of free knowledge.”

The legal action is not a broad challenge to the OSA itself, but will focus solely on the categorisation rules.

“There are many Online Safety Act Category 1 duties. Each one could impact Wikipedia in different ways, ranging from extraordinary operational burdens to serious human rights risks. Wikipedia has thousands of volunteer users based in the UK alone, and content from cultural institutions like the British Library and Wellcome Collection. But the law’s impact would extend far beyond the UK,” adds Bradley-Schmieg.

For example, while Wikipedia employs staff to edit, manage and maintain the online encyclopaedia, it is written by tens of thousands of users all over the world, in more than 300 languages. But the OSA could force Wikipedia to verify the identity of every user. This risks drastically reducing the pool of writers, on the one hand, and putting the identities of writers at risk if their verified information were compromised, on the other.

“Wikipedia relies on empowered volunteer users working together to decide what appears on the website. This new duty would be exceptionally burdensome (especially for users with no easy access to digital ID). Worse still, it could expose users to data breaches, stalking, vexatious lawsuits or even imprisonment by authoritarian regimes,” wrote Bradley-Schmieg.

Category 1 duties under the OSA are for services supposedly presenting the greatest risks to society. But the Categorisation Regulations produced by the government – based on Ofcom guidance – are excessively broad and, the organisation argues, based on three flawed concepts.

First, the simple tool of having an algorithm running on the site that may influence the content a user may see – a concept already dated in the age of AI.

Second, a content forwarding or sharing function, which isn’t defined in the regulations.

And, third, the popularity of the platform, which in Wikipedia’s case is off the scale, with several million visitors from the UK alone, every month.

“As a result, there is now a significant risk that Wikipedia will be included in Category 1, either this year or from 2026 onwards. The Regulations do not just risk over-regulating low risk ‘outlier’ services, like Wikipedia and navigation/mapping apps. As designed, the regulations will also fail to catch many of the services UK society is actually concerned about,” argued Bradley-Schmieg.

Moreover, while there have been calls to exempt small websites from the Act, many legitimate sites have already closed outright because of the onerous burdens it imposes on all websites.

Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped Ofcom from warning of the stiff penalties it will levy on website owners should they fall foul, in some way, of the Act. This even includes the possibility of prison sentences for the CEOs of technology companies, a move supported by the opposition Labour Party – now in government – when it was in opposition.