The proposed children’s social media ban requires all “regulated user-to-user services”, as defined in the Online Safety Act (2023) (the OSA), to “use highly- effective age assurance measures” to stop under 16s becoming users.
This seems to be a problem for Wikipedia - I think it fits the definition for a user-to-user service and English Wikipedia does seem to have a significant amount of UK users.
So will Wikipedia need to start checking IDs before you can edit? I am not a lawyer or anything but I’m going to try and find out.
Non-enforcement of the OSA
When the UK passed the Online Safety Act in 2023, there was concern that Wikipedia might be a Category 1 service - the most highly regulated category. Wikipedia said that the regulations could put its users at risk by verifying their identity. In practice, I expect Wikipedia would be forced to block editing (and possibly visiting the site) from the UK.
Last year, the Wikimedia foundation brought a legal case (PDF) against the government to oppose the project qualifying as a Category 1 service, (partially) on the grounds that it breaks the European Convention of Human Rights, including freedom of expression. They also argued that the regulations were not intended for them.
The High Court said that the case was premature, given that Ofcom had not decided that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service but suggested that if Wikipedia was affected, the government should consider changing the rules to exempt them given its “significant value”.
Wikipedia has not been named as a Category 1 service since, despite regulations that (to me) seem to say it should be, leading me to believe that the government, regulators and courts are willing, for now at least, to bend the rules to protect the project.
The future
It remains to be seen but I don’t think that our current government will enforce the social media ban against Wikipedia - it would be unpopular and they have no reason to. But that does not mean that the legislation is harmless.
There is a risk that a future government could - in order to stop the spreading of inconvenient facts - use either the OSA or the social media ban in order to block access to the site without going through parliament or breaking the law.
This is important because a right-wing party like Reform is likely to have many MPs (Members of Parliament) who would vote against a law that banned news or information sites because they (at least pretend to) care about free speech. Reform also have low representation in the House of Lords, where a law would also have to pass. But if no new law needs to be passed it can be quietly implemented.
I do not think that the UK should stop regulating social media or the internet but a simple exception for online collaborative encyclopedias wouldn’t be that hard would it?