5 ms·

Most countries consider having users to be equivalent to having a presence, free or otherwise.

by olliej 3y ago

awei 3y ago
Would it apply to a website like Wikipedia for example ?
- I_am_uncreative 3y ago
  Wikipedia is actually trying to figure that out. Right now WMF legal says no.
  - b800h 3y ago
    That surprises me. The legislation in the form I last saw it says that they're not allowed to show user generated content to children without an age-gated login.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Your understanding of the law may be correct, but do remember that law is basically its own language with its own ideas of "common sense" and that if you're not legally trained (and even if you are but you've not read all the other laws that the law in question interacts with) then all sorts of weird misunderstandings can happen. (As your profile is empty, for all I know you've an actual lawyer in this specific field — NH is this kind of place after all — but most of us aren't, and I've been surprised by legal principles that LegalEagle has described as "law school 101, and I mean literally I taught XYZ in a 101 class").
  - awei 3y ago
    Thanks for your replies.
lynx23 3y ago
There you go. GDPR already made companies stop providing to users based on their location. This trend will likely continue.
- jackjeff 3y ago
  How would these extra territorial laws be enforced? I mean I break Chinese law all the time; I have a blog without the necessary permits delivered by the PRC bureaucracy. How is this UK law any different? Unless you have some kind of tie to the UK why should you care? What are they going to do? They can’t fine you nor put you in jail. Are they going to block your sites? Then everybody in the UK will use VPNs (just like China) undermining the ability of the government to enforce such laws even further. GDPR was a EU law (much bigger than UK), it was not as tedious to comply with, and the PR would have been bad for any company breaching it. None of this is true here. The PR is actually good if you don’t follow this law; you can say you’re defending human rights and stuff.
  - b800h 3y ago
    All it'll do is kill off small businesses and hobby projects in the UK. I'm furious about it; the idiots just made BBSes, MUDs, Git and Telnet illegal. The big companies get regulatory capture of all social communications.
  - toyg 3y ago
    If you're not in the UK and not using major services, yes, you don't have to care. The problem is basically that the major services will likely have to comply, because they do have a sizeable UK presence they'll want to maintain, hence they will introduce anti-features that basically ruin it for everyone. And if they do comply, it gives rope for the government to go after smaller players that don't. As a UK resident, I hope this will go the way of anti-piracy legislation - i.e. enforced against big services only while everyone else just continues to do whatever they want.
  - saithound 3y ago
    How was Saudi law enforced on Jamal Khasogghi? How was Indian law enforced on Hardeep Nijjar? If the law won't be enforced on you in particular, it's because the UK government does not care enough to enforce it on you in particular. It has very little to do with where you live or what courts have "jurisdiction" over you. I doubt that social media execs would avoid traveling to the UK of all places in order to not piss off the handful (and I say this as a long-time EFF member) of people who really care about this law. To make things worse, major services tend to have presence in almost every country, especially the UK, and leadership tend to have personal connections and property in these places. They will just comply (as long as not offering their service in certain locations is an acceptabpe form of compliance, they might opt to do that if the financial calculus works out, but it's not necessarily an option at all). They don't even have to go straight to physical or financial punishment: if a service accept any kind of payment, they can get compliance by ezerting influence through various international card networks as well. If they don't have to comply, and can keep offering their service anyway, it's only because the UK didn't squeeze hard enough: but they could, and if they do, there'll be nothing your government or geographical location will do to protect you. There is no such thing as a sovereign entity "not having jurisdiction" over you: that would be an oxymoron, they do as they please by definition. If they don't make you comply with their orders, it's only because some economic factor prevents them from doing so.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please make your substantive points without fulminating. It's always possible, and it's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
  - lolrwtads 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - hackerdangluck 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 3y ago
      Users flagged those comments; mods didn't touch them.
      - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
        Understood. I will work harder to try to insure my behavior always/consistently remains acceptable. It grates on me that discussions on national issues seems to be extra heavily shut down, and the yolk of moderation & being rate limited is an unceasing aggravation. But I will try to up my expectation of myself at all points, including my weakest. I wish there was some credit gained for being a good community poster, which I think I generally am. The only presence I see or feel is negative actions, is presence when things go bad. It's a one way relationship over only bad things.

Most countries consider having users to be equivalent to having a presence, free or otherwise.

by olliej 3y ago

Most countries consider having users to be equivalent to having a presence, free or otherwise.

awei 3y ago

Would it apply to a website like Wikipedia for example ?

I_am_uncreative 3y ago
Wikipedia is actually trying to figure that out. Right now WMF legal says no.
- b800h 3y ago
  That surprises me. The legislation in the form I last saw it says that they're not allowed to show user generated content to children without an age-gated login.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Your understanding of the law may be correct, but do remember that law is basically its own language with its own ideas of "common sense" and that if you're not legally trained (and even if you are but you've not read all the other laws that the law in question interacts with) then all sorts of weird misunderstandings can happen. (As your profile is empty, for all I know you've an actual lawyer in this specific field — NH is this kind of place after all — but most of us aren't, and I've been surprised by legal principles that LegalEagle has described as "law school 101, and I mean literally I taught XYZ in a 101 class").
- awei 3y ago
  Thanks for your replies.

lynx23 3y ago

There you go. GDPR already made companies stop providing to users based on their location. This trend will likely continue.

jackjeff 3y ago
How would these extra territorial laws be enforced? I mean I break Chinese law all the time; I have a blog without the necessary permits delivered by the PRC bureaucracy. How is this UK law any different? Unless you have some kind of tie to the UK why should you care? What are they going to do? They can’t fine you nor put you in jail. Are they going to block your sites? Then everybody in the UK will use VPNs (just like China) undermining the ability of the government to enforce such laws even further. GDPR was a EU law (much bigger than UK), it was not as tedious to comply with, and the PR would have been bad for any company breaching it. None of this is true here. The PR is actually good if you don’t follow this law; you can say you’re defending human rights and stuff.
- b800h 3y ago
  All it'll do is kill off small businesses and hobby projects in the UK. I'm furious about it; the idiots just made BBSes, MUDs, Git and Telnet illegal. The big companies get regulatory capture of all social communications.
- toyg 3y ago
  If you're not in the UK and not using major services, yes, you don't have to care. The problem is basically that the major services will likely have to comply, because they do have a sizeable UK presence they'll want to maintain, hence they will introduce anti-features that basically ruin it for everyone. And if they do comply, it gives rope for the government to go after smaller players that don't. As a UK resident, I hope this will go the way of anti-piracy legislation - i.e. enforced against big services only while everyone else just continues to do whatever they want.
- saithound 3y ago
  How was Saudi law enforced on Jamal Khasogghi? How was Indian law enforced on Hardeep Nijjar? If the law won't be enforced on you in particular, it's because the UK government does not care enough to enforce it on you in particular. It has very little to do with where you live or what courts have "jurisdiction" over you. I doubt that social media execs would avoid traveling to the UK of all places in order to not piss off the handful (and I say this as a long-time EFF member) of people who really care about this law. To make things worse, major services tend to have presence in almost every country, especially the UK, and leadership tend to have personal connections and property in these places. They will just comply (as long as not offering their service in certain locations is an acceptabpe form of compliance, they might opt to do that if the financial calculus works out, but it's not necessarily an option at all). They don't even have to go straight to physical or financial punishment: if a service accept any kind of payment, they can get compliance by ezerting influence through various international card networks as well. If they don't have to comply, and can keep offering their service anyway, it's only because the UK didn't squeeze hard enough: but they could, and if they do, there'll be nothing your government or geographical location will do to protect you. There is no such thing as a sovereign entity "not having jurisdiction" over you: that would be an oxymoron, they do as they please by definition. If they don't make you comply with their orders, it's only because some economic factor prevents them from doing so.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please make your substantive points without fulminating. It's always possible, and it's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- lolrwtads 3y ago
  [flagged]
- hackerdangluck 3y ago
  [flagged]
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Users flagged those comments; mods didn't touch them.
    - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
      Understood. I will work harder to try to insure my behavior always/consistently remains acceptable. It grates on me that discussions on national issues seems to be extra heavily shut down, and the yolk of moderation & being rate limited is an unceasing aggravation. But I will try to up my expectation of myself at all points, including my weakest. I wish there was some credit gained for being a good community poster, which I think I generally am. The only presence I see or feel is negative actions, is presence when things go bad. It's a one way relationship over only bad things.