AC-2025-LON-001365 - [2025] EWHC 2086 (Admin)

Mr Paines submits that Regulation 3 unjustifiably treats Wikipedia, a non-profit, collaborative encyclopaedia, in the same way as major profit-driven social media companies, despite their obvious and significant differences. This blanket approach constitutes a breach of the prohibition of discrimination contrary to article 14 of the Convention, which provision requires that relatively different organisations are treated differently. There is no objective or reasonable justification for the Secretary of State’s decision to treat Wikipedia in the same way as a major social media business.

Ms Ivimy responds that this ground of claim is entirely hypothetical. It is not yet known if the first claimant will fall within Category 1 and thus whether it will be treated in the same way as social media companies. In any event, the services that fall within the scope of regulation 3 differ in many different ways, and this was always understood and expected. That is an inevitable, and justified, consequence of the policy aim that underpins regulation 3, namely identifying conditions that capture, in a manner that is objective and workable, services that are likely to involve viral dissemination.