So imagine a Britain where access to

Wikipedia is restricted not by a hostile

foreign power, not by a rogue ISP, but

by our own government. This is no

dystopian fantasy. It's the potential

consequence of the Online Safety Act. A

law passed ironically in the name of

safety, but now threatening the very

infrastructure of free knowledge. This

is a law that may force Wikipedia, a

globally trusted not for-p profofit

educational site, to cap UK users,

distort its editing model, and verify

the identity of its volunteer

moderators. Why? Because under the new

rules, if it has more than 7 million

users and features recommendation tools

or allow sharing of links, it could be

classified as a category one platform.

And that means the same regulatory

burden as Tik Tok or Facebook.

algorithm-driven entertainment empires

with wholly different structures and

risks. And so the UK might become the

first liberal democracy to block itself

from an online encyclopedia.

And the blame for this legislative

vandalism lies with a gallery of digital

culture, media, and sport ministers who

had little grasp of the internet and

even less humility. Nadine Doris, whose

literary knowledge of technology was

confined to whether or not it had

subtitles. Michelle Donalan, oh, who

cheered the bill through Parliament with

slogans and sound bites. Lucy Fraser,

who took the baton and confuse

regulation with repression. Peter Kyle,

the current minister, who now finds

himself in court trying to argue that

this is all hypothetical, as if passing

sweeping laws and hoping for the best

were an acceptable digital policy.

This law doesn't make us any safer. It

makes us smaller, poorer, and more

parochial. it censorship under any other

name. And the Online Safety Act was sold

to the public as a way to protect

children and stop illegal content. A

noble aim. But the law's drafting is so

broad, its application so clumsy, its

assumptions so flawed that it will

hobble legitimate services instead of

halting harmful ones. And here's why it

fails. It doesn't distinguish between

platforms designed to manipulate

attention and those built for

collaborative knowledge. Wikipedia is an

encyclopedia, not a dopamine slot

machine. It creates legal risks for

anonymity, undermining the very model

that has allowed Wikipedia to thrive as

a volunteer project. It imposes

algorithmic suspicion, punishing

platforms simply for recommending useful

information. It encourages self

censorship as services will either

overblock content or restrict access

altogether to avoid fines of up to £18

million or 10% of global turnover. And

all this is justified in the name of

protecting people when in truth it

infantilizes them. We're not children in

need of constant supervision. We are

citizens entitled to freedom of inquiry.

As if the economic and academic

restrictions of Brexit were not damaging

enough, we now impose informationational

restrictions on ourselves, we're

amputating our own intellect. The UK is

increasingly behaving not like an open

democracy, but a wary provincial state,

mimicking the strategies of closed ones.

Consider the comparison. In Russia,

Wikipedia is blocked outright over

disinformation laws. In the United

Kingdom, we may find that Wikipedia

access is restricted under safety laws.

In Russia, real name registration for

online users is required. In the United

Kingdom, identity verification is

required for Wikipedia editors. It is

said in Russia, harmful content is a

vague rationale for blocking descent. In

the UK, harmful content will restrict

platforms without precision. In Russia,

all large sites are treated as state

threats. In the United Kingdom, all li

all large sites are treated as legal

liabilities. The difference is one of

degree, not of kind. In both cases, the

state pretends it is doing the public a

favor while undermining its freedom.

Wikipedia is not anti-platform.

It doesn't harvest your data. It doesn't

sell your ads. It doesn't serve

political agendas or political agenda.

It has no CEO billionaire tweeting

policy decisions. Yet, it risks being

shackled because it is popular, free,

and open source.

This tells us everything we need to know

about the agendum of people drafting

these laws. When you pass legislation

written for Silicon Valley and apply it

to educational charities, you are not

keeping anyone safe. You are simply

revealing your own ignorance. In the

name of defending democracy, we are

dismantling one of its pillars, the free

open exchange of knowledge. A Britain

where Wikipedia is throttled is not a

safe Britain. It's a dimension. It it

it's a diminished dimension destroying

Britain. Instead of pretending the

internet is a threat to be quarantined,

we should invest in digital literacy.

Improve content moderation standards

with international cooperation. Apply

proportionate oversight where actual

harm occurs, not blanket suspicion on

global commons. Censorship doesn't work.

Education works. And we're failing in

that as well. If we continue down this

path, we will find ourselves regulated

like autocracies,

governed by mediocrity and informed by

algorithms designed for fear, designed

by fear, designed with fear. And the

irony, we won't be able to look up the

history of our mistake because Wikipedia

won't load.