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UK lawmakers vote to jail tech execs who fail to protect kids online

155 points by AlexandrB 4y ago

csense 4y ago
RIP UK tech industry
- everyone 4y ago
  But think of the children!!
- edgyquant 4y ago
  If having to protect children and consider their outcomes (like basically every other industry has to) kills big tech then good riddance.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - donmcronald 4y ago
    > It now appears that tech company executives found to be "deliberately" exposing children to harmful content could soon risk steep fines and jail time of up to two years. The subjective definitions of "deliberately" and "harmful" are what makes it problematic. Also, harmful to what or who? Is the Wikipedia article on the theory of evolution harmful? Probably not. Is it harmful to some people's religious beliefs? Probably.
- danjac 4y ago
  The only industry the UK government cares about is providing real estate and money-laundering services to Russian oligarchs and Middle Eastern despots.
zarzavat 4y ago
I hope this causes websites to start blocking UK users. That would cause VPNs to become more common, undermining the government's enforced logging of internet use.
- rainforest 4y ago
  IIRC some of the Snowden leaks alleged that (at least at the time) domestic traffic couldn't be surveilled (but this was solved by mutual assistance across the Atlantic - the British would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1]). VPNs seem useful to guarantee that your traffic is designated as foreign, so this might be a net gain for the intelligence services rather than a loss - the mandatory collection of ICRs only relates to IP addresses and time of access. [1]:https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/edward-snowden-leaks-uk-officials-let-nsa-access-british-citizens-personal-data-8953537.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/edward-snowden-leaks-uk-o...
  - b112 4y ago
    the British would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1]). Five eyes has been a known thing, to everyone I knew (friends, parents, teachers, everywone) even in the 80s. This is not much of a revelation. (Back then, it was phone calls, letters, and even foreign friendly spies operating domestically etc)
    - r3trohack3r 4y ago
      What you're describing as "known" was not known. If you remember, the ACLU attempted to take the government to court over the Presidential Surveillance Program several years before the Snowden Revalations. They lost because they didn't have evidence. The government had classified evidence of their crimes making possessing evidence of them breaking the law illegal. SCOTUS ruled that they couldn't charge the government of a crime without possessing that evidence. Snowden gave us that evidence allowing citizens to, once again, bring charges against the government in 2013 and winning the case in 2017. Some rumors are true. Some rumors are false. Rumors do not a court case make. The Snowden Revalations do.
      - b112 4y ago
        I had thought this was about the NSA spying on US citizens, not about five eyes' actions, which is still ongoing I thought. Note: re rumours, there are rumours, and then there are facts widely known. No one I knew had even a shred of doubt re:five eyes, it was not "tinfoil hat" stuff, merely "this is how this works". Even now, I do not see how five eyes is even remotely illegal.
matthewdgreen 4y ago
"The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children to grow up online" is the first line of this article. Not presented as a quote, or a claim made by a source in the article. Just a fact. From that point it just gets worse. There's basically no description of what terms like "protecting kids online" actually means. The actual description of the law is extremely vague and doesn't answer basic questions about how the law would work. Would it only involve social media (published) content, or would it cover private text messages as well? Can providers simply ban children from using their platform, or will the law hold them accountable even for unauthorized users? These are the details one might expect answers to in a reasonable article, but I'm not sure if this is a journalistic exercise or some sort of PR puff piece.
- bjt2n3904 4y ago
  No one should grow up online. There is no "safe" way to "grow up" online.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I saw all kinds of crazy stuff on the early web as a teen. I grew [up?] both tolerant and thick-skinned.
    - bjt2n3904 4y ago
      This isn't about content! There is a real world, and a virtual one. The virtual one is a mere imitation of the real one. We weren't born to live inside a machine.
    - birdyrooster 4y ago
      Even if you are right it’s survivor bias, but to the parent commenters point being raised on the internet is sad because of the lost opportunity.
  - goatlover 4y ago
    The internet has replaced growing up on tv, rock and roll and video games. Before then, the wrong books.
kodah 4y ago
Now if only we could jail lawmakers that crash the economy with their stupid ideas. /s This seems brainless. Companies do need more accountability, but starting with a "for the children" issue is pretty bad sampling.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  I disagree. Social media has amplified all of the worst aspects of being a kid and they’ve done so either on purpose or through gross negligence.
  - stu432 4y ago
    So add those sites to the standard blocklists most ISPs already put in place for new customers and let parents decide if they want to remove them, just as they have to for porn and gambling. This is just a gimme for the security services under the "think of the kids" mantra.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    This law wouldn't solve any of the problems caused by social media. Maybe it aims to, but it wouldn't.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mcv 4y ago
Can they perhaps start by jailing execs for crimes that their companies are actively committing? That rarely gets them more than a slap on the wrist, but now failing to do something poorly defined is going to land them in jail?
- luckylion 4y ago
  Hey, if you want to go after that company dumping sewage into the river, just have a child visit their website and get a tracking cookie and send in the cops to get them to stop stalking minors.
- thinking4real 4y ago
  Lol that would happen if they were actually concerned with exec/elite behavior. This is not about protecting children. This is about clamping down on civilian rights to control the internet and indeed, civilian ability to communicate freely. If children are being harmed (and they are, more than we’d like to imagine), the answer is simple: shut down social media. Seriously. Yes we’d lose time wasting places like this. Yes we wouldn’t be as tuned into media ongoings. I’m sure many here will chime in to say how HN or similar has saved their life. Don’t care, social media isn’t more important than the health of our children. And these companies have shown they don’t care and that profit is more important. Thus, they needn’t exist. But that won’t ever even be on the table. Because they don’t give a flying fuck about children. They want profits and control.
  - substation13 4y ago
    Indeed. This is coming from the same people who dragged their feet on expanding free school meals until it become politically untenable.
  - valdiorn 4y ago
    > This is about clamping down on civilian rights to control the internet and indeed, civilian ability to communicate freely. You're giving them way too much credit. MPs are not evil geniuses, they're highly motivated self absorbed politicians with no understanding of the internet, but the one thing they understand is that "protect the children" and "blame internet for bad stuff" is great for their career and ballot count. Trying to oppose this will get you a soundbite on the evening news with the headline "Tory MP defends online suicide porn". Good luck bouncing back from that.
alar44 4y ago
Maybe they should jail the parents instead? Your kids, your responsibility.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  That may be a bit harsh but is not far from what I have been suggesting [1][2] The liability for protecting kids must be on the parents and there are simple technical ways to solve this. In my opinion laws should just require websites to add RTA headers and the most popular ways small children access content must be required to once again read these headers and integrate with parental controls. I say once again because some browsers used to implement this ages ago. If browser devs are opposed to this then it could be done by writing an add-on. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260167#34262400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260167#34262400 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34352923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34352923
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    If one or two children are effected it’s the parents fault, when all children are statistically impacted in a negative way it’s systemic and is the fault of organization.
    - LinuxBender 4y ago
      This may be the case but I would rather not spend tax money playing whack-a-mole with businesses thus artificially creating new revenue models for lawyers. I would rather just put a technical solution in place that empowers good parents to have some control over their own devices and let them decide when their small children are somewhat psychologically armed to handle the internet. RTA headers do not require integration with any third party sites and does not add tracking or additional identification. Sunak and others have been pushing for rules that would require sites to use third party identification sites. This is a non-starter for me personally. It is very obvious to me someones pockets are getting lined by people interested in adding more tracking to the internet. I see this as the UK trying to extend its CCTV system to the rest of the world but perhaps I am a bit skeptical after watching the behavior of governments for many decades. It is also a bit curious that US politicians have also been pushing for this at the same time. These recent events really smell like a startup trying to get funded by multiple governments. Investors love government contracts because they are usually multi-year and get written into policy. In terms of disciplining parents that neglect their children there is already a system in place for this. The first time should be an infraction that requires the parent to do an online training course. Perhaps under extreme circumstances a misdemeanor and at some point social services step in just like in any other repeat neglect case. In reality this should not affect most parents. There should not be any jail involved unless the parents are intentionally putting the children in harms way such as encouraging the kids to pose nude for strangers and inviting said strangers over.
vezycash 4y ago
> fail to protect kids online Actually means, refusing to provide backdoors, provide user data; or the crime of supporting a different candidate. My personal favorite, collateral damage, no crime committed, arrest as a favor to a competitor.
0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago
I'm too excited about GDPR to pay any attention.
themaninthedark 4y ago
Will the UK lawmakers also jail the UK lawmakers and those who implement policy for failing to protect kids? I remember a story about Birmingham...
- adolph 4y ago
  Context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring
- pjc50 4y ago
  The Birmingham "Trojan Horse" story was entirely made up. Real child protection is often difficult to discuss, because it's necessarily anonymous, and we tend to find out what's happened only very late. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806
coldcode 4y ago
Nothing like vague laws referencing Simpson memes, instead of actually solving real problems.
LatteLazy 4y ago
This is a shitty bill. But the chance of it becoming law is very low. Various leaders from this party have been (very half heartedly) trying to pass it for a decade. If passed it would fail (in dozens of ways). And the problem is more useful to scare voters and whip votes than solving it would get them actual benefits. This is just the bill going from one committee to another (with some extreme additional parts the other committee will take out, likely leading to deadlock)
- rwmj 4y ago
  Unfortunately I think this time it'll pass (not least because of the exact failure you mention - they are desperate to pass something and it's got cross-party support apart from a few symbolic edge cases). Whether or not it will be fully enacted and then enforced is questionable.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    The fact labour will support it (the even crazier version) is why the government will not bring it to a vote. It will die in committee like the last 17 drafts. It's already been sent to the Lords committee with Rishi saying it will be a "long hard journey" (or words to that effect). Given the terrible polls you'd have to be pretty suicidal to risk bringing down your own government and forcing an election. Not to say there are not plenty of crazy tories, just that they're usually more self-interested than that...
kwhitefoot 4y ago
As the bulk of such services are based in other countries I imagine that the most obvious result would be that the executives of the companies concerned would simply never visit the UK for fear of arrest and nothing else would change. Would other countries, such as China or the US, extradite their own citizens to face prosecution for this?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
guy98238710 4y ago
As a parent, I can tell you how the current laws work in practice. When you admit you are younger than 18, average website will, with significant probability, lock your account immediately with no way to correct the situation and no way to setup new account with the same email address. After this happens a few times, you learn to dutifully tell all websites that you are 18. I fear the mandatory age checking tech/laws. Being a kid is becoming increasingly illegal. How about equal access laws for children before passing any new laws that encourage websites to block all children?
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I think the obvious solution to this is to require websites not ask the visitors age or name. Like, that stuff is private info, and they don't need it to provide whatever service they're providing.
  - guy98238710 4y ago
    It is however nice to warn younger kids that something scary is ahead. Images of violence can be traumatizing. Attracting adult attention to suspected bullying is also nice.
    - cm2187 4y ago
      What's the percentage of those websites hosted in the UK? You aren't achieving anything with those laws. You should rather focus on content filtering on the device.
  - gergov 4y ago
    or if you're going to ask them their age just display age appropriate content. Automatic categorizing of even user generated stuff should be a pretty much solved problem by now
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      What is "age appropriate" changes by the year, and is not universally agreed upon by everyone. I'm not sure that is a problem that will ever actually be solved. As for categorizing content in general, I think it's pretty safe to look at Facebook and Twitter for examples of content moderation failing in spectacular ways, just as it is by all of the horror stories of Google accounts being automatically locked for utterly unclear reasons because some automated system picked up some cue and erroneously banned the account.
Pigalowda 4y ago
Why not just make a license to get on the “information super highway”? Obviously this excludes IOT devices but for smart phone, desktop/laptop, tablets, etc maybe a card reader should be installed. The backfacing camera can use facial recognition tech to intermittently check if the correct user is on. Licenses can be renewed every year until 18 years of age. If needed, licenses can be extended to adults to keep track of certain undesirable behaviors and to maybe even reward prosocial behavior. Disclosure: I’m not a UK citizen, I would vehemently oppose these ideas if they were ever proposed in the US.
kypro 4y ago
[flagged]
- xkbarkar 4y ago
  Not sure I follow here. Seems weirdly arbitrary to accuse somone of being racist when they speak up about abuse that they suffered.
  - kypro 4y ago
    My comment was flagged which is basically the kind of response I've come to expect. While this is just one example of what happens when you try to talk about this issue, this is generally the pattern we have to come to expect. I'm not a direct victim though, so while it upsets me when my girlfriend talks about what happened to her, I don't really care about being called a racist or silenced when discussing this topic. What bothers me is when my partner tries to talk about it she gets the same response so she's learnt to stay silent. No one wants to hear what I said in my comment because it's a difficult thing to hear. And I kinda get it because when someone is talking about the systematic rape of tens of thousands of children by immigrants it does sound like a racist conspiracy theory... I myself thought that. But turns out it was true, we all just refused to listen. The same is true of issues like knife crime which is impacting kids in the UK today too. It's one of those issues which is very difficult to talk about honestly, and I'd argue subsequently deal with in an adequate way without acknowledging the demographic realities. But we can't talk about those realities, because they sound bad. So kids will continue to get stabbed because anyone who wants to do something about it would first need to sound racist then implement policies which would risk being perceived as racist. And that was the larger point I was trying to make. This is just an easy way for the government to pretend they care about kids in a country which allows working class to be killed and raped every day because the alternative would risk being called a racist.
  - VLM 4y ago
    The right people were doing the raping, which explains the entire situation.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
danuker 4y ago
All I see is $GOVERNMENT wants tyrannical surveillance due to $EXCUSE.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Why do kids need special protections online? How about we jail parents who don't teach their kids how to behave online? Imagine way-too-young kids printing out their bathing suit pictures and sellotaping them to a tree with their phone number written underneath... is the city (or whoever is responsible for the trees there) guilty if some pedophille calls the number and does something bad? Or have the parents failed in educating the kid on what is good and bad, right and wrong? Replace the tree with instagram (or whatever), and you're there. The kids will just change their birth date everywhere to something 18+, and online services will ban everyone below. The next step is mandatory government ID for registering to any service online... and everyone laughing at Sunak asking a homeless man if he's "working in business" will get police on their doors.
- kderbyma 4y ago
  .....stopped reading after your first sentence. A simple second would bring many reasons
  - charlieyu1 4y ago
    But why the rest of society has to pay because some parents couldn't do what should be their responsibilites?
wonderwonder 4y ago
"The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children to grow up online". Or they could actually arrest the people responsible for child rape and prostitution. UK Police ignored the rape of 1400+ kids because they didn't want to be accused of racism. UK criminal justice system and laws are a circus. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscruton/2014/08/30/why-did-british-police-ignore-pakistani-gangs-raping-rotherham-children-political-correctness/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscrut...
tasubotadas 4y ago
How about we jail MPs and police when they fail to protect citizens?
bluescrn 4y ago
Maybe they'd be better off punishing parents who allow kids unfiltered and unsupervised Internet access at far too young an age.
frogpelt 4y ago
What about their parents??
golemotron 4y ago
I'm curious about how extraterritoriality plays with this. Are there any UK-based online platforms or do are they obliging themselves to pursue Zuckerberg, Elon, and whomever runs Reddit?
squarefoot 4y ago
An always relevant cartoon in serious need of adaptation to other countries beside the US. https://teddit.net/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/how_would_you_like_this_wrapped_john_jonik/ https://teddit.net/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/how_w...
Throwawayjan 4y ago
[flagged]
passwordoops 4y ago
I'm all for jailing execs who break the law (e.g, HSBC's entire C-suite and board should have probably been in cuffs after the bank was caught laundering money again for terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers AFTER paying a substantial fine for laundering money on behalf of terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers [0]). But the "protect the children" angle is a steep, nebulous, subjective and very slippery slope that will likely target small fry who are not really harming anyone... Unlike the execs running HSBC who enabled money laundering for terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers. [0] https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...
- from 4y ago
  The ICIJ investigation showed that HSBC reported on a bunch of suspected criminals and it turns out some of them were in fact criminals. There is no law that requires closing accounts after a suspicious activity report, some banks do so after multiple of them but it is not a requirement at all. Generally companies are not penalized for what they report on. And like what is this? > The records show HSBC worked with a bank in Tiraspol, within Moldova’s breakaway territory of Transnistria, for four years after the U.S. Treasury Department issued a 2011 advisory warning of the risks of doing business with the Tiraspol bank. An advisory warning is not binding, is not an act of Congress, does not show up in the Federal Register, and just generally means the bank should monitor customers specified in the notice more, not that they should deny service entirely. These articles never say it directly but they are basically arguing for "derisking" which in practice means excluding large numbers of customers based solely on nationality.
Havoc 4y ago
UK loves invoking children whenever some shady oppressive online stuff needs passing.
croes 4y ago
Are these the same lawmakers that allowed this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/metropolitan-police-officer-david-carrick-revealed-as-serial-rapist https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/metropolitan... Which exec will be jailed?
Beaver117 4y ago
Unpopular but I think kids should not be allowed on the public internet at all. Let alone porn or social media, only certain apps like youtube kids or similar with extremely filtered content should be allowed if at all. The danger/addiction is too high and the benefit is really low. On the other hand I became quite a good programmer since I started tinkering at age 10. But today is a different era than when I was growing up.
- shortcake27 4y ago
  While I don’t agree with your reasoning, I do agree with your approach. All of these laws require restricting/removing content or invasive identity verification, in order to “protect” a tiny fraction of internet users. Preventing those people from accessing the internet would be cheaper, more effective, and less problematic for the rest of the population. The problem is that we’re assuming laws like the Online Safety Bill are about protecting children, which they aren’t.
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  And ideas like this will be the reason why we won't have good programmers for the next generation. Or worse, a more ignorant population.
Guthur 4y ago
This makes more sense when you realise we are all to be treated like children. And more crudely, we're to be kept in the dark and fed shit.
golemiprague 4y ago
[dead]
ChewFarceSkunk 4y ago
Yet another nail in the Internet's coffin. It's more telescreen now than in 1984.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

155 points by AlexandrB 4y ago

csense 4y ago

RIP UK tech industry

everyone 4y ago
But think of the children!!
edgyquant 4y ago
If having to protect children and consider their outcomes (like basically every other industry has to) kills big tech then good riddance.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- donmcronald 4y ago
  > It now appears that tech company executives found to be "deliberately" exposing children to harmful content could soon risk steep fines and jail time of up to two years. The subjective definitions of "deliberately" and "harmful" are what makes it problematic. Also, harmful to what or who? Is the Wikipedia article on the theory of evolution harmful? Probably not. Is it harmful to some people's religious beliefs? Probably.
danjac 4y ago
The only industry the UK government cares about is providing real estate and money-laundering services to Russian oligarchs and Middle Eastern despots.

zarzavat 4y ago

I hope this causes websites to start blocking UK users. That would cause VPNs to become more common, undermining the government's enforced logging of internet use.

rainforest 4y ago
IIRC some of the Snowden leaks alleged that (at least at the time) domestic traffic couldn't be surveilled (but this was solved by mutual assistance across the Atlantic - the British would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1]). VPNs seem useful to guarantee that your traffic is designated as foreign, so this might be a net gain for the intelligence services rather than a loss - the mandatory collection of ICRs only relates to IP addresses and time of access. [1]:https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/edward-snowden-leaks-uk-officials-let-nsa-access-british-citizens-personal-data-8953537.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/edward-snowden-leaks-uk-o...
- b112 4y ago
  the British would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1]). Five eyes has been a known thing, to everyone I knew (friends, parents, teachers, everywone) even in the 80s. This is not much of a revelation. (Back then, it was phone calls, letters, and even foreign friendly spies operating domestically etc)
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    What you're describing as "known" was not known. If you remember, the ACLU attempted to take the government to court over the Presidential Surveillance Program several years before the Snowden Revalations. They lost because they didn't have evidence. The government had classified evidence of their crimes making possessing evidence of them breaking the law illegal. SCOTUS ruled that they couldn't charge the government of a crime without possessing that evidence. Snowden gave us that evidence allowing citizens to, once again, bring charges against the government in 2013 and winning the case in 2017. Some rumors are true. Some rumors are false. Rumors do not a court case make. The Snowden Revalations do.
    - b112 4y ago
      I had thought this was about the NSA spying on US citizens, not about five eyes' actions, which is still ongoing I thought. Note: re rumours, there are rumours, and then there are facts widely known. No one I knew had even a shred of doubt re:five eyes, it was not "tinfoil hat" stuff, merely "this is how this works". Even now, I do not see how five eyes is even remotely illegal.

matthewdgreen 4y ago

"The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children to grow up online" is the first line of this article. Not presented as a quote, or a claim made by a source in the article. Just a fact. From that point it just gets worse. There's basically no description of what terms like "protecting kids online" actually means. The actual description of the law is extremely vague and doesn't answer basic questions about how the law would work. Would it only involve social media (published) content, or would it cover private text messages as well? Can providers simply ban children from using their platform, or will the law hold them accountable even for unauthorized users? These are the details one might expect answers to in a reasonable article, but I'm not sure if this is a journalistic exercise or some sort of PR puff piece.

bjt2n3904 4y ago
No one should grow up online. There is no "safe" way to "grow up" online.
- danuker 4y ago
  I saw all kinds of crazy stuff on the early web as a teen. I grew [up?] both tolerant and thick-skinned.
  - bjt2n3904 4y ago
    This isn't about content! There is a real world, and a virtual one. The virtual one is a mere imitation of the real one. We weren't born to live inside a machine.
  - birdyrooster 4y ago
    Even if you are right it’s survivor bias, but to the parent commenters point being raised on the internet is sad because of the lost opportunity.
- goatlover 4y ago
  The internet has replaced growing up on tv, rock and roll and video games. Before then, the wrong books.

kodah 4y ago

Now if only we could jail lawmakers that crash the economy with their stupid ideas. /s This seems brainless. Companies do need more accountability, but starting with a "for the children" issue is pretty bad sampling.

edgyquant 4y ago
I disagree. Social media has amplified all of the worst aspects of being a kid and they’ve done so either on purpose or through gross negligence.
- stu432 4y ago
  So add those sites to the standard blocklists most ISPs already put in place for new customers and let parents decide if they want to remove them, just as they have to for porn and gambling. This is just a gimme for the security services under the "think of the kids" mantra.
- twblalock 4y ago
  This law wouldn't solve any of the problems caused by social media. Maybe it aims to, but it wouldn't.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mcv 4y ago

Can they perhaps start by jailing execs for crimes that their companies are actively committing? That rarely gets them more than a slap on the wrist, but now failing to do something poorly defined is going to land them in jail?

luckylion 4y ago
Hey, if you want to go after that company dumping sewage into the river, just have a child visit their website and get a tracking cookie and send in the cops to get them to stop stalking minors.
thinking4real 4y ago
Lol that would happen if they were actually concerned with exec/elite behavior. This is not about protecting children. This is about clamping down on civilian rights to control the internet and indeed, civilian ability to communicate freely. If children are being harmed (and they are, more than we’d like to imagine), the answer is simple: shut down social media. Seriously. Yes we’d lose time wasting places like this. Yes we wouldn’t be as tuned into media ongoings. I’m sure many here will chime in to say how HN or similar has saved their life. Don’t care, social media isn’t more important than the health of our children. And these companies have shown they don’t care and that profit is more important. Thus, they needn’t exist. But that won’t ever even be on the table. Because they don’t give a flying fuck about children. They want profits and control.
- substation13 4y ago
  Indeed. This is coming from the same people who dragged their feet on expanding free school meals until it become politically untenable.
- valdiorn 4y ago
  > This is about clamping down on civilian rights to control the internet and indeed, civilian ability to communicate freely. You're giving them way too much credit. MPs are not evil geniuses, they're highly motivated self absorbed politicians with no understanding of the internet, but the one thing they understand is that "protect the children" and "blame internet for bad stuff" is great for their career and ballot count. Trying to oppose this will get you a soundbite on the evening news with the headline "Tory MP defends online suicide porn". Good luck bouncing back from that.

alar44 4y ago

Maybe they should jail the parents instead? Your kids, your responsibility.

LinuxBender 4y ago
That may be a bit harsh but is not far from what I have been suggesting [1][2] The liability for protecting kids must be on the parents and there are simple technical ways to solve this. In my opinion laws should just require websites to add RTA headers and the most popular ways small children access content must be required to once again read these headers and integrate with parental controls. I say once again because some browsers used to implement this ages ago. If browser devs are opposed to this then it could be done by writing an add-on. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260167#34262400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260167#34262400 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34352923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34352923
- edgyquant 4y ago
  If one or two children are effected it’s the parents fault, when all children are statistically impacted in a negative way it’s systemic and is the fault of organization.
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    This may be the case but I would rather not spend tax money playing whack-a-mole with businesses thus artificially creating new revenue models for lawyers. I would rather just put a technical solution in place that empowers good parents to have some control over their own devices and let them decide when their small children are somewhat psychologically armed to handle the internet. RTA headers do not require integration with any third party sites and does not add tracking or additional identification. Sunak and others have been pushing for rules that would require sites to use third party identification sites. This is a non-starter for me personally. It is very obvious to me someones pockets are getting lined by people interested in adding more tracking to the internet. I see this as the UK trying to extend its CCTV system to the rest of the world but perhaps I am a bit skeptical after watching the behavior of governments for many decades. It is also a bit curious that US politicians have also been pushing for this at the same time. These recent events really smell like a startup trying to get funded by multiple governments. Investors love government contracts because they are usually multi-year and get written into policy. In terms of disciplining parents that neglect their children there is already a system in place for this. The first time should be an infraction that requires the parent to do an online training course. Perhaps under extreme circumstances a misdemeanor and at some point social services step in just like in any other repeat neglect case. In reality this should not affect most parents. There should not be any jail involved unless the parents are intentionally putting the children in harms way such as encouraging the kids to pose nude for strangers and inviting said strangers over.

vezycash 4y ago

> fail to protect kids online Actually means, refusing to provide backdoors, provide user data; or the crime of supporting a different candidate. My personal favorite, collateral damage, no crime committed, arrest as a favor to a competitor.

0xdeadbeefbabe 4y ago

I'm too excited about GDPR to pay any attention.

themaninthedark 4y ago

Will the UK lawmakers also jail the UK lawmakers and those who implement policy for failing to protect kids? I remember a story about Birmingham...

adolph 4y ago
Context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring
pjc50 4y ago
The Birmingham "Trojan Horse" story was entirely made up. Real child protection is often difficult to discuss, because it's necessarily anonymous, and we tend to find out what's happened only very late. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806

coldcode 4y ago

Nothing like vague laws referencing Simpson memes, instead of actually solving real problems.

LatteLazy 4y ago

This is a shitty bill. But the chance of it becoming law is very low. Various leaders from this party have been (very half heartedly) trying to pass it for a decade. If passed it would fail (in dozens of ways). And the problem is more useful to scare voters and whip votes than solving it would get them actual benefits. This is just the bill going from one committee to another (with some extreme additional parts the other committee will take out, likely leading to deadlock)

rwmj 4y ago
Unfortunately I think this time it'll pass (not least because of the exact failure you mention - they are desperate to pass something and it's got cross-party support apart from a few symbolic edge cases). Whether or not it will be fully enacted and then enforced is questionable.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  The fact labour will support it (the even crazier version) is why the government will not bring it to a vote. It will die in committee like the last 17 drafts. It's already been sent to the Lords committee with Rishi saying it will be a "long hard journey" (or words to that effect). Given the terrible polls you'd have to be pretty suicidal to risk bringing down your own government and forcing an election. Not to say there are not plenty of crazy tories, just that they're usually more self-interested than that...

kwhitefoot 4y ago

As the bulk of such services are based in other countries I imagine that the most obvious result would be that the executives of the companies concerned would simply never visit the UK for fear of arrest and nothing else would change. Would other countries, such as China or the US, extradite their own citizens to face prosecution for this?

deleted 4y ago

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guy98238710 4y ago

As a parent, I can tell you how the current laws work in practice. When you admit you are younger than 18, average website will, with significant probability, lock your account immediately with no way to correct the situation and no way to setup new account with the same email address. After this happens a few times, you learn to dutifully tell all websites that you are 18. I fear the mandatory age checking tech/laws. Being a kid is becoming increasingly illegal. How about equal access laws for children before passing any new laws that encourage websites to block all children?

londons_explore 4y ago
I think the obvious solution to this is to require websites not ask the visitors age or name. Like, that stuff is private info, and they don't need it to provide whatever service they're providing.
- guy98238710 4y ago
  It is however nice to warn younger kids that something scary is ahead. Images of violence can be traumatizing. Attracting adult attention to suspected bullying is also nice.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    What's the percentage of those websites hosted in the UK? You aren't achieving anything with those laws. You should rather focus on content filtering on the device.
- gergov 4y ago
  or if you're going to ask them their age just display age appropriate content. Automatic categorizing of even user generated stuff should be a pretty much solved problem by now
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    What is "age appropriate" changes by the year, and is not universally agreed upon by everyone. I'm not sure that is a problem that will ever actually be solved. As for categorizing content in general, I think it's pretty safe to look at Facebook and Twitter for examples of content moderation failing in spectacular ways, just as it is by all of the horror stories of Google accounts being automatically locked for utterly unclear reasons because some automated system picked up some cue and erroneously banned the account.

Pigalowda 4y ago

Why not just make a license to get on the “information super highway”? Obviously this excludes IOT devices but for smart phone, desktop/laptop, tablets, etc maybe a card reader should be installed. The backfacing camera can use facial recognition tech to intermittently check if the correct user is on. Licenses can be renewed every year until 18 years of age. If needed, licenses can be extended to adults to keep track of certain undesirable behaviors and to maybe even reward prosocial behavior. Disclosure: I’m not a UK citizen, I would vehemently oppose these ideas if they were ever proposed in the US.

kypro 4y ago

[flagged]

xkbarkar 4y ago
Not sure I follow here. Seems weirdly arbitrary to accuse somone of being racist when they speak up about abuse that they suffered.
- kypro 4y ago
  My comment was flagged which is basically the kind of response I've come to expect. While this is just one example of what happens when you try to talk about this issue, this is generally the pattern we have to come to expect. I'm not a direct victim though, so while it upsets me when my girlfriend talks about what happened to her, I don't really care about being called a racist or silenced when discussing this topic. What bothers me is when my partner tries to talk about it she gets the same response so she's learnt to stay silent. No one wants to hear what I said in my comment because it's a difficult thing to hear. And I kinda get it because when someone is talking about the systematic rape of tens of thousands of children by immigrants it does sound like a racist conspiracy theory... I myself thought that. But turns out it was true, we all just refused to listen. The same is true of issues like knife crime which is impacting kids in the UK today too. It's one of those issues which is very difficult to talk about honestly, and I'd argue subsequently deal with in an adequate way without acknowledging the demographic realities. But we can't talk about those realities, because they sound bad. So kids will continue to get stabbed because anyone who wants to do something about it would first need to sound racist then implement policies which would risk being perceived as racist. And that was the larger point I was trying to make. This is just an easy way for the government to pretend they care about kids in a country which allows working class to be killed and raped every day because the alternative would risk being called a racist.
- VLM 4y ago
  The right people were doing the raping, which explains the entire situation.
- LarryMullins 4y ago

danuker 4y ago

All I see is $GOVERNMENT wants tyrannical surveillance due to $EXCUSE.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

Why do kids need special protections online? How about we jail parents who don't teach their kids how to behave online? Imagine way-too-young kids printing out their bathing suit pictures and sellotaping them to a tree with their phone number written underneath... is the city (or whoever is responsible for the trees there) guilty if some pedophille calls the number and does something bad? Or have the parents failed in educating the kid on what is good and bad, right and wrong? Replace the tree with instagram (or whatever), and you're there. The kids will just change their birth date everywhere to something 18+, and online services will ban everyone below. The next step is mandatory government ID for registering to any service online... and everyone laughing at Sunak asking a homeless man if he's "working in business" will get police on their doors.

kderbyma 4y ago
.....stopped reading after your first sentence. A simple second would bring many reasons
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  But why the rest of society has to pay because some parents couldn't do what should be their responsibilites?

wonderwonder 4y ago

"The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children to grow up online". Or they could actually arrest the people responsible for child rape and prostitution. UK Police ignored the rape of 1400+ kids because they didn't want to be accused of racism. UK criminal justice system and laws are a circus. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscruton/2014/08/30/why-did-british-police-ignore-pakistani-gangs-raping-rotherham-children-political-correctness/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscrut...

tasubotadas 4y ago

How about we jail MPs and police when they fail to protect citizens?

bluescrn 4y ago

Maybe they'd be better off punishing parents who allow kids unfiltered and unsupervised Internet access at far too young an age.

frogpelt 4y ago

What about their parents??

golemotron 4y ago

I'm curious about how extraterritoriality plays with this. Are there any UK-based online platforms or do are they obliging themselves to pursue Zuckerberg, Elon, and whomever runs Reddit?

squarefoot 4y ago

An always relevant cartoon in serious need of adaptation to other countries beside the US. https://teddit.net/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/how_would_you_like_this_wrapped_john_jonik/ https://teddit.net/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/how_w...

Throwawayjan 4y ago

[flagged]

passwordoops 4y ago

I'm all for jailing execs who break the law (e.g, HSBC's entire C-suite and board should have probably been in cuffs after the bank was caught laundering money again for terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers AFTER paying a substantial fine for laundering money on behalf of terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers [0]). But the "protect the children" angle is a steep, nebulous, subjective and very slippery slope that will likely target small fry who are not really harming anyone... Unlike the execs running HSBC who enabled money laundering for terrorists, drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers. [0] https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-vast-sums-of-dirty-money-after-paying-record-laundering-fine/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...

from 4y ago
The ICIJ investigation showed that HSBC reported on a bunch of suspected criminals and it turns out some of them were in fact criminals. There is no law that requires closing accounts after a suspicious activity report, some banks do so after multiple of them but it is not a requirement at all. Generally companies are not penalized for what they report on. And like what is this? > The records show HSBC worked with a bank in Tiraspol, within Moldova’s breakaway territory of Transnistria, for four years after the U.S. Treasury Department issued a 2011 advisory warning of the risks of doing business with the Tiraspol bank. An advisory warning is not binding, is not an act of Congress, does not show up in the Federal Register, and just generally means the bank should monitor customers specified in the notice more, not that they should deny service entirely. These articles never say it directly but they are basically arguing for "derisking" which in practice means excluding large numbers of customers based solely on nationality.

Havoc 4y ago

UK loves invoking children whenever some shady oppressive online stuff needs passing.

croes 4y ago

Are these the same lawmakers that allowed this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/metropolitan-police-officer-david-carrick-revealed-as-serial-rapist https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/metropolitan... Which exec will be jailed?

Beaver117 4y ago

Unpopular but I think kids should not be allowed on the public internet at all. Let alone porn or social media, only certain apps like youtube kids or similar with extremely filtered content should be allowed if at all. The danger/addiction is too high and the benefit is really low. On the other hand I became quite a good programmer since I started tinkering at age 10. But today is a different era than when I was growing up.

shortcake27 4y ago
While I don’t agree with your reasoning, I do agree with your approach. All of these laws require restricting/removing content or invasive identity verification, in order to “protect” a tiny fraction of internet users. Preventing those people from accessing the internet would be cheaper, more effective, and less problematic for the rest of the population. The problem is that we’re assuming laws like the Online Safety Bill are about protecting children, which they aren’t.
charlieyu1 4y ago
And ideas like this will be the reason why we won't have good programmers for the next generation. Or worse, a more ignorant population.

Guthur 4y ago

This makes more sense when you realise we are all to be treated like children. And more crudely, we're to be kept in the dark and fed shit.

golemiprague 4y ago

[dead]

ChewFarceSkunk 4y ago

Yet another nail in the Internet's coffin. It's more telescreen now than in 1984.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]