So imagine a Britain where access to
Wikipedia is restricted not by a hostile
foreign power, not by a rogue ISP, but
by our own government. This is no
dystopian fantasy. It's the potential
consequence of the Online Safety Act. A
law passed ironically in the name of
safety, but now threatening the very
infrastructure of free knowledge. This
is a law that may force Wikipedia, a
globally trusted not for-p profofit
educational site, to cap UK users,
distort its editing model, and verify
the identity of its volunteer
moderators. Why? Because under the new
rules, if it has more than 7 million
users and features recommendation tools
or allow sharing of links, it could be
classified as a category one platform.
And that means the same regulatory
burden as Tik Tok or Facebook.
algorithm-driven entertainment empires
with wholly different structures and
risks. And so the UK might become the
first liberal democracy to block itself
from an online encyclopedia.
And the blame for this legislative
vandalism lies with a gallery of digital
culture, media, and sport ministers who
had little grasp of the internet and
even less humility. Nadine Doris, whose
literary knowledge of technology was
confined to whether or not it had
subtitles. Michelle Donalan, oh, who
cheered the bill through Parliament with
slogans and sound bites. Lucy Fraser,
who took the baton and confuse
regulation with repression. Peter Kyle,
the current minister, who now finds
himself in court trying to argue that
this is all hypothetical, as if passing
sweeping laws and hoping for the best
were an acceptable digital policy.
This law doesn't make us any safer. It
makes us smaller, poorer, and more
parochial. it censorship under any other
name. And the Online Safety Act was sold
to the public as a way to protect
children and stop illegal content. A
noble aim. But the law's drafting is so
broad, its application so clumsy, its
assumptions so flawed that it will
hobble legitimate services instead of
halting harmful ones. And here's why it
fails. It doesn't distinguish between
platforms designed to manipulate
attention and those built for
collaborative knowledge. Wikipedia is an
encyclopedia, not a dopamine slot
machine. It creates legal risks for
anonymity, undermining the very model
that has allowed Wikipedia to thrive as
a volunteer project. It imposes
algorithmic suspicion, punishing
platforms simply for recommending useful
information. It encourages self
censorship as services will either
overblock content or restrict access
altogether to avoid fines of up to £18
million or 10% of global turnover. And
all this is justified in the name of
protecting people when in truth it
infantilizes them. We're not children in
need of constant supervision. We are
citizens entitled to freedom of inquiry.
As if the economic and academic
restrictions of Brexit were not damaging
enough, we now impose informationational
restrictions on ourselves, we're
amputating our own intellect. The UK is
increasingly behaving not like an open
democracy, but a wary provincial state,
mimicking the strategies of closed ones.
Consider the comparison. In Russia,
Wikipedia is blocked outright over
disinformation laws. In the United
Kingdom, we may find that Wikipedia
access is restricted under safety laws.
In Russia, real name registration for
online users is required. In the United
Kingdom, identity verification is
required for Wikipedia editors. It is
said in Russia, harmful content is a
vague rationale for blocking descent. In
the UK, harmful content will restrict
platforms without precision. In Russia,
all large sites are treated as state
threats. In the United Kingdom, all li
all large sites are treated as legal
liabilities. The difference is one of
degree, not of kind. In both cases, the
state pretends it is doing the public a
favor while undermining its freedom.
Wikipedia is not anti-platform.
It doesn't harvest your data. It doesn't
sell your ads. It doesn't serve
political agendas or political agenda.
It has no CEO billionaire tweeting
policy decisions. Yet, it risks being
shackled because it is popular, free,
and open source.
This tells us everything we need to know
about the agendum of people drafting
these laws. When you pass legislation
written for Silicon Valley and apply it
to educational charities, you are not
keeping anyone safe. You are simply
revealing your own ignorance. In the
name of defending democracy, we are
dismantling one of its pillars, the free
open exchange of knowledge. A Britain
where Wikipedia is throttled is not a
safe Britain. It's a dimension. It it
it's a diminished dimension destroying
Britain. Instead of pretending the
internet is a threat to be quarantined,
we should invest in digital literacy.
Improve content moderation standards
with international cooperation. Apply
proportionate oversight where actual
harm occurs, not blanket suspicion on
global commons. Censorship doesn't work.
Education works. And we're failing in
that as well. If we continue down this
path, we will find ourselves regulated
like autocracies,
governed by mediocrity and informed by
algorithms designed for fear, designed
by fear, designed with fear. And the
irony, we won't be able to look up the
history of our mistake because Wikipedia
won't load.
