Wikipedia loses a round to the UK

This all points to a big problem as nations start regulating the borderless internet: It’s a very big place whose most prominent sites, built over three decades, span very different social roles.

“Ofcom kept saying how they were working with different companies on compliance,” R Street fellow Shoshana Weissmann, who works on social media policy, told DFD. “But there’s so many companies that host user-generated content.”

They’re not all for-profit, attention-driven platforms. Wikimedia had revenue of $185 million in 2024, mostly coming from donations; YouTube made $36 billion. Building and operating verification systems can be expensive, so it’s easier for Big Tech platforms to follow certain regulations than it is for Wikipedia.

By imposing one-size-fits-all requirements, even well-intentioned laws might make the internet smaller in scope, and less diverse. Weissmann notes that blunt laws push websites with tight budgets to get bought out by major platforms, since “it’s going to be easier to be acquired by a company that can handle that regulatory compliance.”