United Kingdom: High Court rejected Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to classification as “category 1 service” under Online Safety Act

On 11 August 2025, the High Court rejected Wikimedia Foundation’s challenge to its classification as a “Category 1 service” under the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA). Wikimedia claimed that it should not be classified as a “Category 1 service” under the OSA on four grounds. First, it claimed the Secretary of State breached paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 11 of the Act, which requires consideration of the number of users of a service in relation to its dissemination. Wikimedia argued that the classification relied on the mistaken assumption that certain Wikipedia features, which qualify it as a Category 1 service, were not used by most users. The court ruled that the Secretary of State did take account of the number of users by accepting Ofcom's advice on the thresholds to be used. It also ruled that a small user base does not dismiss a content recommender system as a functionality. Second, Wikimedia argued that Regulation 3 under OSA, which defines recommender systems, was irrational, as it covers services with recommender or forward/share functions even if these are not integral. The court found the decision to adopt regulation 3 was not irrational, though its criteria were imperfect. It granted permission for judicial review on this point but dismissed the claim. Third, the Wikimedia argued that the user verification duties imposed by the Secretary would fundamentally disrupt Wikipedia’s collaborative model and therefore amounted to an unjustified interference with the claimants' (Wikipedia and a user of Wikipedia who became an editor) rights under articles 8, 10, and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. To this the court replied that both parties have chosen to litigate the case in a way which avoids the issue of whether Wikipedia should fall within the scope of regulation 3, and that instead the claimants here chose to claim that because it may turn out, in due course, that Wikipedia is captured by regulation 3, the claimants qualify as victims under said articles. Ground 3 was therefore dismissed by the court. Fourth, the claimant made a similar argument to grounds (3) in favour of incompatibility with Article 14 of the Convention. It was similarly dismissed.