Digital identity verification and compliance solutions for online platforms.

Origin Reddit Post

r/technology

Wikipedia loses UK Safety Act challenge, worries it will have to verify user IDs

Posted by u/batter159•08/12/2025

Top Comments

u/WillNotBeAThrowaway

"Corporations" have done stuff. Every large ISP has to enable "opt in" to being able to access adult services. Corporations \*did\* do shit, but then the new legislation took a right-hand tur

u/SLASHdk

The EU is Following suit on these issues as well. It is honestly quite depressing. I dont understand how we have gotten to this point where the majority no longer gives a damn about their pri

u/payne747

If we gotta age verify to lookup a page on volcanos then I'm gonna protest.

u/Ediwir

Wrong gov… hold on lemme check. Hmm. Ok, possibly wrong government.

u/mahreow

What does AI have to do with any of this..?

u/Balmung60

I stand by this, it's not that they don't use or understand it, it's that they don't care about the consequences. "The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information

u/ImSuperSerialGuys

You're both correct, but talking about two different groups of people: 1. The folks who made this legislation and pushed it know *exactly* what they're doing, and have been working towards t

u/emmettiow

I can only guess that data companies have loads of dirt on Starmer & Co and they are doing all this to save themselves. How can they be so selfish. Shameful Starmer.

u/DannyHewson

Honestly, if all the big platforms simply agreed to block the UK, the government would fold in no time flat. No social media, no wikipedia, no porn, no streaming, no shopping.

u/twistedLucidity

* Porn? **BLOCK THEM! SAVE THE CHILDREN!** * Grooming gangs? *Tumbleweed* (or blaming the abused underage girls)

u/spribyl

I wanted to watch YouTube in my hotel room and couldn't because I was required to login with an account. How about we don't leak passwords and data on random devices.

u/MathematicianLessRGB

Authoritarianism is so meta right now

u/djsoomo

Where does this end? The incompetent government meddling in things it does not really understand Has zero effect on criminals, pedos and hackers, but affects institutions, free speech, the

u/Damage2Damage

Google and Microsoft are able and eager to collect user information to confirm who is over 18 DuckDuckGo might have more of a problem

u/Top_Chicken5772

Yeah I think everyone’s kinda viewing the world’s govnerments wrong. It’s planned like this. It’s meant to be about stealing your data, and selling it to the highest bidder. Now they can take

u/Balmung60

"Nonce Island" is second only to "TERF Island" as a nickname for Great Britain for a reason.

u/the_inoffensive_man

I don't know if "Don't care" is right. I think most people just don't really understand the gravity of the situation. The marketing works on them. The straw man argument of "What? You don't t

u/marvborg

Is Prince Andrew allowed to go online? Or are we protecting the children rapists more than the children

u/MaliceTheMagician

I agree, we'll use vpns to access your information, young people especially, but by not complying you take some of the UK govs power away and the longer they insist on this charade the worse

u/Equivalent-Cut-9253

> The court disagreed with Wikimedia's claim that the system is illogical, saying that "the claimants have not identified any basic flaw in the logic or reasoning that Ofcom applied, and w

u/Sea_Cycle_909

>the government would fold in no time flat. Don't think they would, Encyclopædia Britannica already exists.

u/Krags

Pravin Lal for PM tbh.

u/Ungreat

Wikipedia should block the UK and put a big splash page that says it's blocked because restrictive internet practices instituted by the UK government make it untenable.

u/Ok-Giraffe-8434

Numbered are the days where you can, as a kid, learn about naughty stuff from the encyclopedia.

u/5c044

This is about collecting and verifying the identities of Wikipedia contributers among other things. How is that protecting children? Wikipedia is extremely heavily self regulated already. UK

u/Big_Many_956

This is what happens when you have folks who do not use technology make up policy. The UK government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that what the internet truly needs is fewer anonymo

u/WigWubz

Yeah I hate how people write-off surveillance legislation like this as "oh these people don't understand technology, if we just mock their grasp of cryptography they will come to their senses

u/sugarringdoughnut

Yep. The UK is getting the heat right now, but there’s a trial about to begin in the EU with France, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Greece.

u/nicuramar

They understand it fine. What’s not to understand in this case?

u/NefariousAnglerfish

Market it as protecting the children. Anyone who criticises the OSA or its botched execution is therefore a pedophile who can safely be ignored.

u/nicuramar

You probably don’t have to be no. 1 in order to fall under this law, you know.

u/Guilty-Mix-7629

Wikipedia, the no.1 site that brings harm to children. Apparently. But roblox, AI content farms and the _literal group of child molesters at the government_ are fine and well.

u/pope1701

As long as there's money to be made, corporations won't do shit.

u/techbear72

I'd love for Wikipedia to block the UK over this. I'd love for Apple to pull out of the UK over the decryption orders. I think that if just those two withdrew from the country, the leadersh

u/SlumboyJames

If they can do this to Wikipedia are the search engines nervous? You can find all kinds of things with Google.

u/The_Starving_Autist

Wikipedia's parent organization lost a challenge to the UK Online Safety Act but can bring another case if the government tries to force it to verify the identity of Wikipedia users.

u/Big_Many_956

This is what happens when you have folks who do not use technology make up policy. The UK government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that what the internet truly needs is fewer anonymo

u/linkheroz

Gambling websites? *More tumbleweed*

u/Hydiz

Its not imcompetence at all. Its either corruption or facism but its hardly idiocy. There is a truckload of money at play for big data players to get access to users and their direct identifi

u/Hydiz

Big data lobby did a good job and convinced some corrupted politician, it doesnt go any further than that

u/WillNotBeAThrowaway

Dear Wikimedia Foundation, If the government try to force the ridiculously ineffective puritanical shame filter, please just block the UK from access. They are socially, technically and poli

u/dangerousluck

The UK will be fine without Wikipedia or they will be fine without this asinine law. People are already being scammed into giving away their personal information from this debacle

u/handym12

Wikipedia has proposed it. One of the qualifiers for Wikipedia needing to follow the rules so strictly is the number of people from the UK accessing it. To remove that status, they've sugge

u/WideEntrance92

If Wikipedia has to verify every user’s ID, say goodbye to free knowledge and hello to the world’s most bureaucratic trivia night.

u/twistedLucidity

Google has more money than Wikimedia, they can simply buy the government they want and trust me, UK MPs are ready and waiting for some hard ~~bribing~~ lobbying.

u/jcunews1

Maybe sites should just refuse giving any content if they're accessed from UK government networks.

u/vriska1

Form my understanding, it does not seem like a loss for Wikimedia? They loses on a technicality seeing they not been categorised as Category 1 YET. The Court seems willing to let them win i

u/vriska1

Form my understanding, it does not seem like a loss for Wikimedia? They loses on a technicality seeing they not been categorised as Category 1 YET. The Court seems willing to let them win i

u/EasySea5

It ends when Wiki who I love negotiate a solution. This is entirely possible

u/Not-Too-Serious-00

FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!!!

u/Camderman106

Honestly yeah. Kinda need something to force their hand on this bs

u/nicuramar

Were those really days? :p

Origin Reddit Post

r/technology

Wikipedia loses UK Safety Act challenge, worries it will have to verify user IDs

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