Dear all,

This email contains an important update about UK regulatory affairs.

On 8 May, 2025, the Wikimedia Foundation announced a legal challenge against a new element of the UK Online Safety Act, https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/09/19/wikimedia-foundation-calls-for-protection-and-fair-treatment-of-wikipedia/which could have detrimental effects for Wikipedia. We are bringing a legal challenge because the negative impacts that this law threatens to have on Wikipedia have not been addressed, despite multiple warnings in parliamentary debates, media outlets, and an open letter.

The challenge targets the Categorisation Regulations, which are currently so broadly written that Wikipedia could be classified as a “Category 1” service. As a Category 1 service, Wikipedia could face the most burdensome compliance obligations, which were designed to tackle some of the UK’s riskiest websites. These duties would threaten our mission, for example, by disempowering users who wish to keep their identity private.

In this blog post https://wikimediapolicy.medium.com/0f9153102f29?source=friends_link&sk=7c63d11cfdf9cfd5d38ff416d048d620 you can learn more about our legal challenge, what it means for Wikimedians around the world, and what might happen next.

Happy to answer any questions,

Ziski

Franziska Putz (she/her)

Senior Movement Advocacy Manager

Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation

Fputz@wikimedia.org

UTC Timezone