when Wikipedia is suing you, you might be the bad guy
Wikipedia doesn’t have to do shit.
Let them break their internet until they fix it.
1000% Wikipedia needs to blackout in the UK and tell users to call their MPs
The only rational decision, given the cost associated with a poorly defined and maliciously enforced legislative code. I wouldn’t trust the UK courts to fairly adjudicate an alleged breach of the law, particularly if Reform Party gets into office and decides to punish Wikipedia’s management for “Wokeness” or whatever.
Big tech lobbying is behind all this
On the one hand, this is obviously a terrible authoritarian law and it should be repealed, but on the other hand, I’m not sure I like companies having the power or the influence to affect laws. TikTok telling its users to protest its ban in the US back in January comes to mind.
Wikipedia is basically a charity that gives people free knowledge. No one profits off of it. What you describe is called civil society, where interest groups attempt to convince the government to take certain actions, and (only without profit motive, in my opinion) it’s one of a few indicators of democracy.
Wtf are you being downvoted, you’re absolutely right.
The fact that people are so powerless that only corps can fight this shit is maddening.
I’ve said it before, the UK populace has lost all privileges to make fun of Americans, they are as batshit as the trumpets here.
Yes and no. Sometimes a company or organization can serve as a force for good. That said, absolutely a double edged sword. It’s not fair to expect private businesses and organizations to be held hostage by scummy legislators. At the end of the day, no one is entitled to a business’s or organization’s services, so… Don’t want to chase businesses and organizations away? Don’t pass shitty legislation.
I would replace “companies” with “non-profits”. Cause it’s pretty clear that companies do hold that kind of power. Let me broadly gesture to the companies paying off these hack politicians to pass these laws i.e.; apple, alphabet, meta, and so on.
lol they’ve already had that power for decades. This is where you’re going to get stubborn about it? Suspicious.
If “stubborn” is what you read from my comment, I’m not sure what to tell you.
Wikipedia need to cut off access to the UK except through VPNs.
Here’s one way to fix this that might even overturn the law. Turn off Wikipedia in the UK. Put a big banner up on the homepage that says, we have turned off Wikipedia in your country because of your government. Here’s how to use a VPN to access our content.
Edit: Make it apologetic and conciliatory. Like, we’re sorry, we’ve had to disable Wikipedia in your region because of your government’s draconian policies. If you would like to visit our content, please use a VPN. If you need help learning to use a VPN and then link to a here’s how page
They can’t recommend using a VPN, but they can say “some users are illegally subverting the ban using a VPN. For more information on this subject see: [link to VPN guide].”
I read from another comment somewhere that the law or whatever said that they should not promote a VPN, not that they could not promote a VPN. Those are two totally different words.
However, your way is probably safer and not reliant on language.
If they don’t operate in the UK, why can’t they recommend a VPN?
They can outside of the UK, but for stuff accessible in the UK, they can’t. To be specific, I think it’s that they can’t recommend one to get around this law. They can in general, but not to avoid the law.
It’s illegal to recommend using a VPN or teach people how to use a VPN in order to get around these age-check laws.
“It is illegal for us to recommend using services like a VPN to bypass these limits. We do recommend you ask your government why they don’t want you to know about these services or have access to free educational content”.
“We do not condone using a VPN to circumvent these restrictions. To make sure you will not accidentally use a VPN we’ve decided to make our article about VPN‘s the only one available in this country.“
Have a banner with information on why it is blocked, and have the only accessible page be of the Online Safety Act. Then, make that page list what counts as “(teaching) circumvention methods” and say that teaching others how to do those things is illegal. If anyone is truly interested in seeking knowledge and learning, they will be able to figure it out elsewhere
The wording on ofcom is “should not” not" must not". It’s not illegal, they just don’t want people to do it and want people to think that it is illegal.
👆They just need to add this as a disclaimer instead.
Imagine what will happen next, will they just ignore that a stupid law have broken wikipedia in the entire UK? Lol, I think at least someone would be concerned.
I wonder if now is a good time to download all Wikipedia and put it on a spare offline drive…
Kiwix is wonderful for the job. It’s surprising how much of Wikipedia can fit on 128 GB when larger media files are stripped out.
I do kind of relish the images, though. Picture’s worth a thousand words and all. But it’s great to have that choice.
Wikipedia will never block the UK because they value accessible information, however obstructed it may be, more.
You mean Wikipedia will bow down to a Western government and obey their every command?
Do you think Wikipedia would make special exceptions for China or Russia?
Retaining truthful information with obstructed access is not the same as offering redacted or altered information to a specific region.
The UK is demanding that Wikipedia redacts information for users which refuse to identify themselves, and users under 18. It’s far worse than simply not showing certain articles.
Better get a Kiwix server spun up.
Will libraries be requiring age verification to access encyclopaedias and other non-fiction material? Because of the children, of course!
Thats not the argument you think it is. Yes many already do and have for years.
You got a loicense for that desiring knowledge, bruv?
Currently I cannot edit using my VPN as that is blocked by Wikipedia, so I guess if that remains the case and they are forced to implement ID to edit articles, then I will no longer be able to contribute
Ironically you probably have to identify yourself to Wikipedia to get such an exception…
I don’t know what you mean by “identify yourself”. You need an account with a trustworthy history of editing, at which point you can request the exemption.
That’s a catch-22 for good faith new contributors, of course
Correct, as it has to. In addition to behavior, CheckUsers use IP addresses to help identify sockpuppets. If you could bypass the exemption by just saying “here’s a new account; pls exempt”, it would quickly become common knowledge among sockmasters that all they need is to quickly ask and be accepted days later.
At that point, the block on proxy editing near-completely fails at one of its main functions.
Of course. It’s probably the lesser of two evils, but is unfortunate regardless
Every time you would have made an edit, send a note to a representative in government
Coincidentally Wikipedia is the only website I can think of that I’d actually be remotely comfortable with having my identity.
Then you’re not thinking like someone who lives under authoritarians. Have you never gone on a Wikipedia journey following links and ended up on “gunpowder” or “list of dictators in the 21st century” or anything else that could get you painted as a “revolutionary” and locked away?
I’m generally more annoyed at how the early enthusiasm of participation on the site has died out in the face of paranoia and moderator mania. There are so many gaps in both the modern and historical backlog of citations and categorizations. But do I want to invest dozens of hours contributing to a site where a few admins are just going to tear all my work back out again on a bureaucratic technicality?
It is a site that’s alternatively being strangled to death by admins fearful of malicious actors and tore apart by wave after wave of sinister propagandists and hostile agents.
You’re right, the mods are unhinged, almost Reddit level.
And yet I’m sure you read it pretty regularly, and it’s a net good in your life. It’s easy to focus on the negatives and miss what an absolute treasure it still is.
Edit: and it seems it’s been a while since you were a young student and have forgotten what that experience is like. You know many things now, but you didn’t start that way.
I’m sure you read it pretty regularly
I’ve found it less and less capable of keeping up with current events. Enshittification truly comes for us all.
It’s easy to focus on the negatives and miss what an absolute treasure it still is.
As a historical artifact and a demonstration of the potential for open-sourced editing, it’s a milestone. But we’re clearly in the twilight of the Wikipedia era.
It’s never really been all that great about current events. That’s the cost of being “neutral” and letting everything settle into hindsight. However the vast majority of human knowledge isn’t current events. Even if Wikipedia were to never get updated again it is still extremely useful.
However the vast majority of human knowledge isn’t current events.
Broadly speaking, everything was a current event at some point. As Wikipedia calcifies, it loses the ability to capture and collate new information as it is produced.
Even if Wikipedia were to never get updated again it is still extremely useful.
In the same way as any dated encyclopedia, sure. I’ve got a copy of my dad’s childhood encyclopedia, dated to 1954. Lots of interesting factoids in there, assuming your interest in the world is satisfied by an English speaking editor’s ability to consolidate the information available to his firm at their publishing deadline.
Isn’t the issue that for any economical solution websites enlist 3rd parties to do the verification? It’s those (usually US) companies holding my ID that is the problem.
The EU is developing their own centralized system
On its face… maybe? Until the Foundation falls into the hands of malicious management, anyway.
But do I trust that a public website can’t have their security breached by malicious actors? Of course not.
Welp, time to invade the UK. They were overdue.
Let the French invade them.
they had it coming. they invaded countless other civilisations.
Removed by mod
Western fascists do something fascist: “What are we?! A bunch of Asians?!”
Not even Asians, but they are on the way to make mandatory to request every Internet access with personal data and the reasons why. This is what are reallity in North Corea, there the people can use only the local goverment server and content, without access to the open web without the mencioned request in special offices in their city. This is fact and not my fascist opinion, I’m certainly not. People of North Corea are complete aisled from informations of the rest from the world, only through the unique public TV they have which is accessible by the rest of the world, but in NC foreign channels are blocked… No other country in the world, Asian or not, is hermetic like NC. But with the need of an ID to access the fucking Wikipedia, UK is on the best way to emulate NC in the near future.
The west is literally helping identify and kill journalists who are reporting on their genocide.
And it’s not even a new thing. Julian Assange was targeted by the US for exposing their assassination of journalists. No consequences for the assassins. And the UK & EU enthusiastically participated in helping the US in this.
