Dear all

As I know many of you will be aware, the long heralded Online Safety Bill is now making its way through Parliament and is currently at the Committee stage in the House of Lords. The Bill will establish a new regulatory framework for online services, with Ofcom becoming the regulator. As it currently stands, the requirements of the Bill in terms of content moderation, age gating and user verification are incompatible with Wikipedia’s model, and the Wikimedia Foundation has stated that they will not be age gating the platform.

Wikimedia UK has been highlighting concerns about the proposed new legislation since the Online Harms White Paper, published four years ago. We have responded to various consultations, run by Ofcom as well as the government, and met with staff from both. One of the key issues highlighted by Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation - as well as many organisations in the civil society sector - was the requirement to remove content that was “legal but harmful”. This was fortunately dropped from the Bill as it moved through the House of Commons at the end of last year. However, there remains much cause for concern.

Working closely with the Wikimedia Foundation, I have been in touch with a number of peers (members of the House of Lords) over the past few months to highlight the unintended consequences of the proposed legislation on Wikimedia, and to advocate for changes to the Bill to protect our movement and safeguard open knowledge. The Lord Moylan has tabled a series of amendments on our behalf which address some of these issues, including a proposed exemption for small, community moderated and/or public benefit websites that are currently within the scope of the Bill. It’s likely that these amendments will be debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday or Thursday next week. Today, I will be sending a written briefing (attached for your information) urging support for these amendments to a target list of peers, and Jimmy will be giving an in person briefing at Parliament on Monday. 

We are envisaging further advocacy activities before and during the Report Stage in the House of Lords, which is when amendments that have made it to that point will be voted on. If you are interested in supporting these advocacy efforts, please let me know. 

All best

Lucy