Overview

• The Wikimedia Foundation has filed a judicial review to contest the categorisation regulations of the UK's Online Safety Act, which could designate Wikipedia as a 'Category 1' service.
• If classified as Category 1, Wikipedia would face stringent requirements, including user identity verification and content filtering, potentially disrupting its global volunteer editing system.
• The foundation warns these rules could enable malicious actors to post harmful content while preventing unverified volunteers from removing or correcting it.
• Privacy concerns are central to the challenge, as identity verification could expose volunteers to risks like data breaches, harassment, or legal threats, particularly in authoritarian regimes.
• The foundation supports online safety regulation in principle but argues that the current rules are overly broad and misaligned with Wikipedia's nonprofit, community-driven structure.