Coincidentally Wikipedia is the only website I can think of that I’d actually be remotely comfortable with having my identity.
Isn’t the issue that for any economical solution websites enlist 3rd parties to do the verification? It’s those (usually US) companies holding my ID that is the problem.
Will libraries be requiring age verification to access encyclopaedias and other non-fiction material? Because of the children, of course!
Thats not the argument you think it is. Yes many already do and have for years.
I don’t know where you live, but I have never seen a library having age verification for consulting anything.
Only age verification was for a membership card, which is rarely mandatory to consult.
You got a loicense for that desiring knowledge, bruv?
Here’s one way to fix this that might even overturn the law. Turn off Wikipedia in the UK. Put a big banner up on the homepage that says, we have turned off Wikipedia in your country because of your government. Here’s how to use a VPN to access our content.
Edit: Make it apologetic and conciliatory. Like, we’re sorry, we’ve had to disable Wikipedia in your region because of your government’s draconian policies. If you would like to visit our content, please use a VPN. If you need help learning to use a VPN and then link to a here’s how page
It’s illegal to recommend using a VPN or teach people how to use a VPN in order to get around these age-check laws.
“We do not condone using a VPN to circumvent these restrictions. To make sure you will not accidentally use a VPN we’ve decided to make our article about VPN‘s the only one available in this country.“
The wording on ofcom is “should not” not" must not". It’s not illegal, they just don’t want people to do it and want people to think that it is illegal.
“It is illegal for us to recommend using services like a VPN to bypass these limits. We do recommend you ask your government why they don’t want you to know about these services or have access to free educational content”.
👆They just need to add this as a disclaimer instead.
Imagine what will happen next, will they just ignore that a stupif law have broken wikipedia in the entire UK? Lol, I think at least someone would be concerned.
Currently I cannot edit using my VPN as that is blocked by Wikipedia, so I guess if that remains the case and they are forced to implement ID to edit articles, then I will no longer be able to contribute
Ironically you probably have to identify yourself to Wikipedia to get such an exception…
I don’t know what you mean by “identify yourself”. You need an account with a trustworthy history of editing, at which point you can request the exemption.
That’s a catch-22 for good faith new contributors, of course
Correct, as it has to. In addition to behavior, CheckUsers use IP addresses to help identify sockpuppets. If you could bypass the exemption by just saying “here’s a new account; pls exempt”, it would quickly become common knowledge among sockmasters that all they need is to quickly ask and be accepted days later.
At that point, the block on proxy editing near-completely fails at one of its main functions.
Every time you would have made an edit, send a note to a representative in government
