Wikipedia Threatens to Block Brits’ Access Over Online Safety Act – Guido Fawkes

Wikipedia Threatens to Block Brits’ Access Over Online Safety Act

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Back in May, the Wikimedia Foundation – the left-wing outfit behind Wikipedia – announced it was taking the Labour government to court over the Online Safety Act. Now they’ve said unless the law is watered down, they’ll start blocking access to UK visitors…

The row centres on the so-called “Category 1” status, which imposes strict verification rules on platforms with more than seven million users. Wikimedia says that would wreck the crowd-sourced model Wikipedia is built on. If the rules aren’t changed, they’ll bring in a “quota-based” system – capping UK traffic to stay below the user threshold. Brits could be locked out of the world’s biggest encyclopaedia for their own “safety”…

In a filing to the High Court, Wikimedia’s lawyers wrote:

“Wikipedia must weigh imposing a quota-based system for Wikipedia in the UK, depressing average monthly UK users below the Cat1 user number conditions [which would] deprive many of Wikipedia’s UK users of access to the encyclopaedia as and when they want it.”

‘Online safety’ is online censorship…