January 18, 2023
According to a leading member of Wikipedia foundation, Wikipedia should be treated differently than the big social media companies in the Online Safety Bill.
This is due to the fact that the encyclopedia is entirely written and edited by thousands of volunteers from around the world, and that it would restrict freedom of expression.
Rebecca MacKinnon of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that hosts the site, told BBC News that they are concerned about sites without massive resources, such as Meta’s Instagram, Facebook, or Elon Musk’s Twitter.
According to MacKinnon, the bill’s “harsh” criminal penalties will affect not only large corporations, but also public interest websites such as Wikipedia.
MacKinnon believes the law should be modeled after the EU Digital Services Act, which she claims distinguishes between centralized content moderation by employees and Wikipedia-style moderation by community volunteers.
She urged the UK to adopt the EU’s Digital Services Act, which she claims distinguishes between tech behemoths and community-minded business models such as Wikipedia.
The sources for this piece include an article in BBC.
