Latest news with #WikimediaFoundation
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scotsman
Online Safety Act: Wikipedia could ‘introduce cap' in UK
Wikipedia has challenged part of the Online Safety Act in the High Court 🚨 Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Wikipedia could be forced to cap UK users, it has claimed. The website has raised privacy concerns about a part of the Online Safety Act. Wikimedia Foundation has challenged part of the bill in the High Court. A cap on the number of visitors able to use Wikipedia could be introduced, it has been warned. Wikimedia Foundation, the outfit behind the website, is challenging the Government's new Online Safety Act in the High Court over concerns about how it could impact the privacy of its volunteers. The case was heard last week, but a decision has yet to be returned. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The nonprofit is particularly concerned about the Categorisation Regulations contained within the bill, and how the website could be in the top tier: category one. It would require Wikipedia to enforce ID verification on its anonymous voluntary moderators, as well as visitors. In a statement announcing the legal challenge earlier this year, Wikimedia said: 'Category 1 demands would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world's most trusted and widely used digital public goods.' The foundation does add that it is not 'bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole', simply to the categorisation regulations. Wikipedia would fall under category one - which includes websites that have an average number of monthly UK users that 34 million and uses a content recommender system, or has more than 7 million monthly users, uses a content recommender system, and provides a functionality for users to forward or share regulated user-generated content on the service with other users of that service. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Wikipedia is challenging part of the Online Safety Act in the UK High Court | Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas /AFP via Getty Images Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, said: 'The Court has an opportunity in this case to set a global precedent for protecting public interest projects online.' Biometric Update reports that the foundation has warned category one rules would 'undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world's most trusted and widely used digital public goods.' The website added that in court, Wikipedia's lawyers floated the idea of a monthly quota to keep it below the Category 1 threshold, meaning that UK access to Wikipedia could become less like browsing the web and more like trying to buy a concert ticket, with a cap on how many people get in.
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Scotsman
Online Safety Act: Wikipedia could ‘introduce cap' in UK
Wikipedia has challenged part of the Online Safety Act in the High Court 🚨 Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Wikipedia could be forced to cap UK users, it has claimed. The website has raised privacy concerns about a part of the Online Safety Act. Wikimedia Foundation has challenged part of the bill in the High Court. A cap on the number of visitors able to use Wikipedia could be introduced, it has been warned. Wikimedia Foundation, the outfit behind the website, is challenging the Government's new Online Safety Act in the High Court over concerns about how it could impact the privacy of its volunteers. The case was heard last week, but a decision has yet to be returned. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The nonprofit is particularly concerned about the Categorisation Regulations contained within the bill, and how the website could be in the top tier: category one. It would require Wikipedia to enforce ID verification on its anonymous voluntary moderators, as well as visitors. In a statement announcing the legal challenge earlier this year, Wikimedia said: 'Category 1 demands would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world's most trusted and widely used digital public goods.' The foundation does add that it is not 'bringing a general challenge to the OSA as a whole', simply to the categorisation regulations. Wikipedia would fall under category one - which includes websites that have an average number of monthly UK users that 34 million and uses a content recommender system, or has more than 7 million monthly users, uses a content recommender system, and provides a functionality for users to forward or share regulated user-generated content on the service with other users of that service. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Wikipedia is challenging part of the Online Safety Act in the UK High Court | Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas /AFP via Getty Images Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, said: 'The Court has an opportunity in this case to set a global precedent for protecting public interest projects online.' Biometric Update reports that the foundation has warned category one rules would 'undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world's most trusted and widely used digital public goods.' The website added that in court, Wikipedia's lawyers floated the idea of a monthly quota to keep it below the Category 1 threshold, meaning that UK access to Wikipedia could become less like browsing the web and more like trying to buy a concert ticket, with a cap on how many people get in. Phil Bradley-Schmieg, Lead Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, explained: 'We are taking action now to protect Wikipedia's volunteers, as well as the global accessibility and integrity of free knowledge. We call on the Court to defend the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors from flawed legislation'.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Open source X rival Mastodon begins raising funds with new in-app donation feature
Open source X and Threads competitor Mastodon will begin experimenting with a new way to raise funds: in-app donations. The organization on Wednesday announced it's launching a campaign that introduces banners inside its Android and iOS apps, prompting users to make a monetary donation. Initially, the feature will be shown only to those on the Mastodon servers the nonprofit itself operates, and These banners will be easy to dismiss, Mastodon says, and will only be shown to people who have accounts that have existed for at least four weeks. The organization promises that it won't continually prompt users to donate, either. Such campaigns can work well for nonprofit organizations at scale. Wikimedia Foundation, for example, brings in the majority of its funding from individual donors, including those who donate through the pop-up banners that occasionally appear on Wikipedia. However, Mastodon has a much smaller user base: 8.1 million registered accounts, and fewer than 1 million monthly active users. Still, the banners could encourage people who haven't actively sought out ways to contribute to now do so, as it makes the process more seamless as an in-app feature. Mastodon says it will later expand the campaign to the web and, if successful, make it available to all other Mastodon instances. The latter would allow individual server admins to receive direct support from their own users, which could help keep them operational. As an open, decentralized social media platform, Mastodon faces challenges when it comes to financial support. Unlike Meta and X, which are supported by ads, Mastodon so far has relied largely on user donations from Patreon. It has also accepted a handful of donations from open source-focused funds and foundations over the years. In 2023, Mastodon raised €545,000 in total donations, up 65% year-over-year, but its Patreon donor base dropped nearly 23% to 7,400. (Its 2024 report is not out yet.) That decline could have pushed it to look into more aggressive fundraising tactics, especially as competition from Meta and newcomers like the VC-backed startup Bluesky is growing. 'We know that collecting money can present complexities and questions,' a Mastodon blog post stated. 'We'd like to figure out how to do this well, together with the community. This is not a corporate fundraising campaign: it's an effort to secure the future of a more ethical and independent social web.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
TechCrunch
7 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Open source X rival Mastodon begins raising funds with new in-app donation feature
Open source X and Threads competitor Mastodon will begin experimenting with a new way to raise funds: in-app donations. The organization on Wednesday announced it's launching a campaign that introduces banners inside its Android and iOS apps, prompting users to make a monetary donation. Initially, the feature will be shown only to those on the Mastodon servers the nonprofit itself operates, and These banners will be easy to dismiss, Mastodon says, and will only be shown to people who have accounts that have existed for at least four weeks. The organization promises that it won't continually prompt users to donate, either. Such campaigns can work well for nonprofit organizations at scale. Wikimedia Foundation, for example, brings in the majority of its funding from individual donors, including those who donate through the pop-up banners that occasionally appear on Wikipedia. However, Mastodon has a much smaller user base: 8.1 million registered accounts, and fewer than 1 million monthly active users. Still, the banners could encourage people who haven't actively sought out ways to contribute to now do so, as it makes the process more seamless as an in-app feature. Mastodon says it will later expand the campaign to the web and, if successful, make it available to all other Mastodon instances. The latter would allow individual server admins to receive direct support from their own users, which could help keep them operational. As an open, decentralized social media platform, Mastodon faces challenges when it comes to financial support. Unlike Meta and X, which are supported by ads, Mastodon so far has relied largely on user donations from Patreon. It has also accepted a handful of donations from open-source-focused funds and foundations over the years. In 2023, Mastodon raised €545K in total donations, up 65% year-over-year, but its Patreon donor base dropped nearly 23% to 7,400. (Its 2024 report is not out yet.) That decline could have pushed it to look into more aggressive fundraising tactics, especially as competition from Meta and newcomers like the VC-backed startup Bluesky is growing. 'We know that collecting money can present complexities and questions,' a Mastodon blog post stated. 'We'd like to figure out how to do this well, together with the community. This is not a corporate fundraising campaign: it's an effort to secure the future of a more ethical and independent social web.'
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Wikipedia threatens to limit UK access to website
Wikipedia could be forced to limit access in the UK unless crucial elements of Britain's online safety rules are changed, the High Court has been told. Lawyers for the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation which helps run the online encyclopaedia, warned it could be required to introduce a 'quota-based' system for UK visitors if it is classified as a 'category one' service under the Online Safety Act. Services falling under this designation are subject to the strictest duties under the digital laws, which are intended to stop children accessing harmful online material and prevent the spread of illegal posts. To stay outside the scope of the regulation, Wikipedia could cap visitor numbers from the UK so it does not qualify as a 'category one' site, which are defined as those with seven million users. This would make it harder for British users to access the site when they wanted. The foundation has launched a legal challenge against Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, over the rules, warning they threaten to hit Wikipedia with strict regulations intended for social media giants such as Facebook and TikTok. In a filing with the High Court, Wikimedia's lawyers said such a designation would 'cripple the vital exchange of encyclopaedic information on Wikipedia', either by limiting the 'availability and functionality of Wikipedia in the UK' or by 'fundamentally changing the way in which the encyclopaedia works'. Rupert Paines, a lawyer acting for the group, told the court the rules risked 'very severe impacts' for Wikipedia and could reduce articles to 'gibberish'. The measures could also 'render it unavailable to many who wish to use it', he added, even though Wikipedia is a 'world away' from being a social network that the laws were intended to regulate. Under the category, Wikipedia has claimed it could be required to verify the identities of its anonymous volunteer moderators who edit entries. Non-verified users would no longer be able to alter posts, creating a risk that articles with fake news remain online unchecked. It also claimed the rules could also force Wikipedia to restrict access to UK users, in order to prevent the website from falling foul of the toughest measures. Alongside having more than seven million users, the 'category one' threshold says sites must also have algorithms which recommend content and allow posts to be shared or forwarded to others. The foundation argued Wikipedia would fall under these restrictions even though Ofcom, the digital regulator, had initially failed to identify it as within the scope of the rules. While Wikipedia is not a social network, its lawyers said it still used recommendation algorithms, such as a system that identifies new articles for editing. They added it also had systems that allowed its users to share or forward pages. In order to avoid the rules, Wikimedia's lawyers told the court the site could be forced to withhold access in the UK to some visitors. They wrote: '[Wikimedia] must weigh imposing a quota-based system for Wikipedia in the UK, depressing average monthly UK users below the Cat1 user number conditions.' Such a decision would 'deprive many of Wikipedia's UK users of access to the encyclopaedia as and when they want it', its lawyers wrote. The Online Safety Act threatens technology companies that fail in their duties with fines of £18m or up to 10pc of their global turnover. The Government has argued Wikipedia's concerns are 'hypothetical' and its potential inclusion under the regulations would be 'appropriate' if it meets the thresholds. Its inclusion under the rules is a matter for Ofcom, according to the Government's lawyers, and has not been confirmed.
