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One of the most frustrating things about this legislation is that it's set up so that the only outfits with the resources to do the requested censorship would b

One of the most frustrating things about this legislation is that it's set up so that the only outfits with the resources to do the requested censorship would be a GAFAM. Which is utterly perverse, as on one hand the UK govt is despairing about the extent to which the UK is dependent on Big Tech social media and the control they exert on society... whilst simultaneously pushing through legislation which effectively ensures that GAFAM are the only people who can operate! The Matrix approach to addressing abuse is https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix-without-backdoors https://matrix.org/blog/2020/10/19/combating-abuse-in-matrix... (and we're in the middle of building out the first implementation of the decentralised reputation proposal right now) - but it is not pleasant to think that if a judge considered that approach inadequate, the directors of UK entities providing Matrix hosting (e.g. Element, running matrix.org on behalf of The Matrix.org Foundation) would be eligible for jail time \o/ Needless to say, we're doing our best to explain to the UK Govt that their Bill is throwing out the baby along with bathwater...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KingOfCoders 5y ago
It's the same with GDPR. When I worked for a large enterprise, we had a legal/compliance team of dozens of people and a huge outsourced legal budget. When I worked in the startup of my wife, it was me implementing GDPR compliance.
- Arathorn 5y ago
  But at least GDPR /is/ tractable to implement at small scale. Whereas for the OSB: if you run a smallish but popular chat/blog/forum/etc service, there literally isn’t a solution for moderation which isn’t fiendishly expensive, privacy invasive, or both. The legislation has clearly been dreamt up by folks saying “ah ha! if we threaten the Facebook UK executive mangement team with jailtime unless they do better at filtering self-harm/CSAM/terrorism/etc then they will obviously get their house in order!”. Whereas in practice they crush their own UK-based startups instead. So frustrating.
  - KingOfCoders 5y ago
    GDPR is only tractable because 90% of companies don't implement it. In Germany thousands of companies illegally use Mailchimp for example.
    - LeftTriangle 5y ago
      I like how you, with actual concrete real-world experiences you are sharing, are being downvoted by silent armchair enthusiasts who mostly just like GDPR because they get the sense that it’s vaguely bad for Facebook.
      - KingOfCoders 5y ago
        As a private citizen I like GDPR - even if Facebook will find ways around it (but I do not really care, I've left Facebook many years ago because of privacy concerns). As someone who implemented it in several companies, I don't like it because it hits smaller companies much harder than bigger ones, and because it tries to be technology agnostic it is quite fuzzy, compate to something like SOX or PCIDSS (which I also implemented as CTO). In Germany at least data protection agencies declared they will go after companies that use e.g. Mailchimp.
        tekknik 5y ago
        As both a private citizen, and one who implements it, I hate it. It’s increased regulation around a subject that I was not doing in the first place (I don’t care what you’re doing online, never tracked, etc) that only increased the cost of business. We need more competition, not less.
        TheManInThePub 5y ago
        > It’s increased regulation around a subject that I was not doing in the first place Maybe you were handling personal data correctly. Very many were not (witness numerous data breaches and private data exploited that was held for no reason). Therefore regulation was needed. > We need more competition Competition is good. A race to the bottom is not.
- phatfish 5y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. A large company has a whole team and a small start-up has one person assign the task? That sounds entirely reasonable.
  - KingOfCoders 5y ago
    The large company has a whole team with expertise to work on the task - they don't implement it but handle legal affairs and the process. It is implemented by hundres of employees all over the company. A small startup has one person without a clue (and I gave talks about GDPR).
  - tekknik 5y ago
    the small startup has to pay for that person that didn’t exist before, which reduces the resources available to them. it’s pretty clear why it’s a detriment to startups but not to large tech.
908B64B197 5y ago
Something to wonder: How will these laws affect the current brain flow in the UK [0]? > whilst simultaneously pushing through legislation which effectively ensures that GAFAM are the only people who can operate! Considering they can get UK-based employees at a discount, that's a win for the US tech sector! [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-br...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

KingOfCoders 5y ago

It's the same with GDPR. When I worked for a large enterprise, we had a legal/compliance team of dozens of people and a huge outsourced legal budget. When I worked in the startup of my wife, it was me implementing GDPR compliance.

Arathorn 5y ago
But at least GDPR /is/ tractable to implement at small scale. Whereas for the OSB: if you run a smallish but popular chat/blog/forum/etc service, there literally isn’t a solution for moderation which isn’t fiendishly expensive, privacy invasive, or both. The legislation has clearly been dreamt up by folks saying “ah ha! if we threaten the Facebook UK executive mangement team with jailtime unless they do better at filtering self-harm/CSAM/terrorism/etc then they will obviously get their house in order!”. Whereas in practice they crush their own UK-based startups instead. So frustrating.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  GDPR is only tractable because 90% of companies don't implement it. In Germany thousands of companies illegally use Mailchimp for example.
  - LeftTriangle 5y ago
    I like how you, with actual concrete real-world experiences you are sharing, are being downvoted by silent armchair enthusiasts who mostly just like GDPR because they get the sense that it’s vaguely bad for Facebook.
    - KingOfCoders 5y ago
      As a private citizen I like GDPR - even if Facebook will find ways around it (but I do not really care, I've left Facebook many years ago because of privacy concerns). As someone who implemented it in several companies, I don't like it because it hits smaller companies much harder than bigger ones, and because it tries to be technology agnostic it is quite fuzzy, compate to something like SOX or PCIDSS (which I also implemented as CTO). In Germany at least data protection agencies declared they will go after companies that use e.g. Mailchimp.
      - tekknik 5y ago
        As both a private citizen, and one who implements it, I hate it. It’s increased regulation around a subject that I was not doing in the first place (I don’t care what you’re doing online, never tracked, etc) that only increased the cost of business. We need more competition, not less.
        TheManInThePub 5y ago
        > It’s increased regulation around a subject that I was not doing in the first place Maybe you were handling personal data correctly. Very many were not (witness numerous data breaches and private data exploited that was held for no reason). Therefore regulation was needed. > We need more competition Competition is good. A race to the bottom is not.
phatfish 5y ago
I'm not sure I understand. A large company has a whole team and a small start-up has one person assign the task? That sounds entirely reasonable.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  The large company has a whole team with expertise to work on the task - they don't implement it but handle legal affairs and the process. It is implemented by hundres of employees all over the company. A small startup has one person without a clue (and I gave talks about GDPR).
- tekknik 5y ago
  the small startup has to pay for that person that didn’t exist before, which reduces the resources available to them. it’s pretty clear why it’s a detriment to startups but not to large tech.

908B64B197 5y ago

Something to wonder: How will these laws affect the current brain flow in the UK [0]? > whilst simultaneously pushing through legislation which effectively ensures that GAFAM are the only people who can operate! Considering they can get UK-based employees at a discount, that's a win for the US tech sector! [0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-brain-trade https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-br...