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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 b

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.
alphager 3y ago
The same way the US prevents me from buying cuban cigars here in Germany over the internet: * execs are liable for breaches of the law if/when they travel to the US. * companies in the US are forbidden to do business with companies in Germany that breach the US law There are a handful of small companies doing direct sales that are small enough that they do not have US partners. The rest complies because doing otherwise is financially disadvantageous.
baloki 3y ago
They block your site at the ISP level. They’ve been doing that for years. They’d fine you as well but that’s probably less enforceable.

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.

alphager 3y ago

The same way the US prevents me from buying cuban cigars here in Germany over the internet: * execs are liable for breaches of the law if/when they travel to the US. * companies in the US are forbidden to do business with companies in Germany that breach the US law There are a handful of small companies doing direct sales that are small enough that they do not have US partners. The rest complies because doing otherwise is financially disadvantageous.

baloki 3y ago

They block your site at the ISP level. They’ve been doing that for years. They’d fine you as well but that’s probably less enforceable.