17 ms·

UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

212 points by AndrewDucker 2y ago

jonathanstrange 2y ago
I have a question about that. I'm currently developing a platform with strong end-to-end encryption. My servers only store the public keys of individual accounts, the platform doesn't allow me to see what content people post or transmit without actively eavesdropping, and there are no means for me to moderate the content. However, there will be means for paying end-consumers to moderate the content of people they have invited. It's mostly intended as a collaborative tool for small business. However, other than steering it with marketing, I see no easy way for me to control who buys a subscription. From what I can gather, my tools will fall under the Online Safety Act and are incompatible with it. So how do I properly exclude all UK customers from purchasing subscriptions? Will it suffice to geo-block the website where you buy subscriptions?
- tpxl 2y ago
  Any decent payment provider and bank will include the country code with the payment. Have a ToS preventing them from buying, warn UK users (geoip?) and then reject any payments from the UK.
  - jonathanstrange 2y ago
    Yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm using Fastspring so that wouldn't be a problem. However, a paying subscriber will still be able to invite someone from the UK and I don't have any mechanism to prevent that.
throw646577 2y ago
[flagged]
DarkmSparks 2y ago
Brought to you by the people who read Orwells 1984 and thought it was a handbook rather than a warning. I really have zero respect for this law. Watch the BBC interview with Elon Musk over twitter to see how moronic the people behind it are. When you mix in all the war mongering they do vv Russia and the massive crack downs they have been engaging in to cover up how fast living standards have been falling, and the whole thing is a sad joke.
nvarsj 2y ago
Plugging the draft guidance into chatgpt: Age Assurance Methods: Effective methods: Open banking, photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, credit card checks, and digital identity wallets. Ineffective methods: Self-declaration, general disclaimers, or payment methods without age restrictions. So basically, ID verification will be required for any platform that may have adult/harmful materials.
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Can you cite the law if you're going to make claims about it
  - nvarsj 2y ago
    It's not in the law... it's the guidance Ofcom is providing, linked in TFA, which I believe will be enforceable. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/272586-consultation-guidance-for-service-providers-publishing-pornographic-content/associated-documents/annex-2-guidance-for-service-providers-publishing-pornographic-content-online/?v=368675 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/cons...
DaveMcMartin 2y ago
they always use a good cause to push for more authoritarian polices
rayiner 2y ago
[flagged]
pomatic 2y ago
The biggest issue is that legislation seems to be drafted by people who have little or no expertise in their area. We've seen other examples of poorly drafted legislation in the UK - eg Computer Misuse Act 1990, which is intended to address hacking but can be read in such a way as to outlaw firewalls, and so on. Parliament as a whole is in desperate need of reform, it's based on archaic principles that just don't work anymore, but those in a position to enact reform seem to prefer the status quo.
- stephen_g 2y ago
  I’m not sure if it’s similar in the UK, but here they don’t even seem to care. We have public consultation periods for most bills here in Australia, and it’s basically only ever a box-ticking exercise. You can have literally hundreds of experts carefully articulate all the obvious problems with a bill in a detailed submission, then some will be invited to give testimony and answer questions of Senators with concerned looks on their faces, and then those senators (of both parties) will happily vote the flawed legislation through with no amendments. The only changes that do happen are arrived at through secretly negotiated political horse-trading between the parties, with literally none of the expert, industry and public consultation taken into account. The only way to win is to lobby hard (with a lot of political donations) so your views get put forward in the secret negotiations. Literally none of the feedback from experts or voters matters. Because it’s always going to be one or the other major party (although there is some encouraging movement towards possible minority government, which in our current political landscape is the only way I can see any positive change possibly happening - but it depends massively on the quality of those who end up with the balance of power).
- mhh__ 2y ago
  Parliament is fine. Or at least the reforms people have in mind are usually insane slop that would only mean ramming more, worse, shit through the pipe.
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
Crazy stuff. This feels very Soviet and dystopian. This looks like something that would come from a Watchtower cult magazine. Anonymous experiences that can't be checked and conveniently and unanimously support the agenda, extended control over people's private life with severe punishment for even the slightest disagreement or god forbid an alternative opinion.
rlaksh 2y ago
Ok, "think of the children" again. If it were about the children, they'd simply forbid phones and unsupervised Internet for anyone under 16. Problem solved. The issue of course is that the Internet is too valuable of a propaganda instrument. Children need propaganda, but they need our propaganda. The offense list is in classic CoC style. Vague terms like terrorism have been abused in the U.K. for a long time and applied against journalists like the husband of Glenn Greenwald, who had been arrested in London for communicating with Laura Poitras. Many journalists have been stopped and digitally stripped searched in the U.K. while traveling. So what are websites to do to escape that? Perhaps put up permanent banners like "NATO must be prepared for a great patriotic land war with Russia" and "We need more immigration" in order to be safe.
NoImmatureAdHom 2y ago
The U.K. is jailing people for mean tweets, and has been for a while: - "More than 30 people found themselves arrested over social media posts. From what I’ve found, at least 17 of those have been charged." -- the BBC, this is specifically for the Southport riots. They have been doing this for years, of course.[1] - "First people jailed over social media posts during unrest 9 August Today's live coverage has mainly come from the courts, with jail sentences handed down for those involved in the violent disorder since the fatal stabbings in Southport last Monday. Here's a quick summary of key events today: In the first case of a person going to jail for posting on social media during the disorder, Jordan Parlour, 28, of Seacroft, Leeds, received a 20 month sentence for inciting others to target a Leeds building which housed asylum seekers At least two others also received jail sentences for social media posts that stirred up racial hatred Suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones appeared in court charged with encouraging violent disorder after he was filmed apparently telling a crowd that far-right demonstrators should have their throats cut 6000 officers with specialist training in public order are "prepared and ready" to deal with any potential unrest over the weekend About 600 people have been arrested this week with hundreds more expected in the coming days and weeks, police say, with the use of facial recognition technology fast tracking the process "[2] - This woman merely livestreamed other people doing naughty things, and called some people "tramps". "Much of the TikTok stream had been rather amateurish, Mr Rudge argued, giving a view of the cobblestones in Tamworth but showing no acts of violence." LOL. 9 months in prison. [3] - More: [4] - More: [5] - "This is in relation to some comments you made on Facebook (police arrest old man in his home, good video): [6] - "We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests." - Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales. Video worth a watch. [7] - Punishment is often also extremely swift. Facebook video --> court --> prison in a matter of a week and a half. Of course, if you stand accused of e.g. raping children, it will take a year and a half. - This country has gone right off a cliff and is currently in free-fall. - [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpdlvz80pjzt?post=asset%3A3678492d-7550-46f8-979d-50ed624b9f65#post https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpdlvz80pjzt?post=asset%3A3678... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdkvwwwqyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdkvwwwqyo [4] https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857720874146664670 https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857720874146664670 [5] https://x.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/1857928002014761201 https://x.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/1857928002014761201 [6] https://x.com/i/status/1823087302886965636 https://x.com/i/status/1823087302886965636 [7] https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1821178852397477984 https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1821178852397477984 And more https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-post-the-u-k-is-now-jailing-people-for-social-media-comments/ https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-... https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-tory-councillor-jailed-for-31-months-over-social-media-post-stirring-up-racial-hatred-13234756 https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-tory-councillor-jailed-fo...
ksymph 2y ago
The future this (and similar legislature from other countries) points toward is extremely concerning. I run a small site with some user interaction; though it doesn't seem the intended target of this particular legislature, it seems inevitable that there will be a law enacted somewhere that leaves the site vulnerable unless I'm constantly staying on top of the increasingly varied and specific requirements across the world. I don't see how anyone but big corporations can expect to deal with that, frankly. I wish there was an international standard of reasonable moderation and data handling specifically for small sites. A static checklist of requirements like manual screening of user-generated content within a certain time period, gdpr-esque transparency of user data - things that any responsible webmaster should be doing anyway. I suppose there are potential problems with that too, but either way that ship has already sailed. Instead we're all on the Titanic, ignoring alarm bells as we careen towards the iceberg of siloed corporatocracy.
webspinner 2y ago
This is the worst piece of legislation ever! If the US ever passes something like this in my lifetime, I'm planning on ending it.
rolandthomas 2y ago
[dead]
JoshTriplett 2y ago
Better alternative to first-party propaganda: https://www.eff.org/pages/uk-online-safety-bill-massive-threat-online-privacy-security-and-speech https://www.eff.org/pages/uk-online-safety-bill-massive-thre...
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  Ofcom is an independent regulator; it's far from the "first-party" you're implying it is.
  - pixxel 2y ago
    JFC. You probably think the BBC is impartial.
    - blitzar 2y ago
      Everyone knows the BBC is biased against their side.
  - nohuck13 2y ago
    This is a press release, though. Whether or not Ofcom is independent, their press release writers are not independent, they are part of Ofcom's PR team, a team that absolutely exists.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Mindwipe 2y ago
    Ofcom really isn't actually independent on Online Safety in any way. It has to obey instructions on prioritisation from the secretary of state and has no real operational flexibility. As with much of the (dire) UK legislation here, the government saying something is true until it is blue in the face does not make it true.
    - vogon_laureate 2y ago
collyw 2y ago
The steady march towards authoritarianism continues. Is there any way that we can overwhelm them?
- turblety 2y ago
  We can support projects like Autonomi [1] (the rebranded MaidSafe [2]). It should create what (I feel) the internet was always ment to be. Peer to peer communications. I think the only solution to this is to stop the centralised mess the internet has become. 1. https://autonomi.com/ https://autonomi.com/ 2. https://maidsafe.net/ https://maidsafe.net/
  - demarq 2y ago
    I looked at all three website sites but no docs, it's a rough start with no headline app, or docs to create an app.
    - turblety 2y ago
      Thanks demarq. I agree the marketing needs some improvements. They recently did a rebrand and it's added a lot of confusion.
- postepowanieadm 2y ago
  Vote.
  - EpicQuest_246 2y ago
    People say as a pithy answer and it is very frustrating. Unfortunately it is utterly unrealistic that voting will solve this situation. 1) The majority of the UK's populace are onboard with the vast majority of these laws. Even if all the people that opposed this voted for another party, due to how the constituencies work, your vote will be effectively made moot. 2) Both major UK parties essentially agree that these laws should be implemented. The only solution to any problem that UK government can envisage is banning something. You can look into the Lotus Carlton ram raids of 40RR, they were singing the same tune back in the late 80s/early 90s. 3) There is no realistic pro-liberty / anti-censorship movement at all in the UK This has been going for longer than I have been alive in the UK (I am now in my early 40s). I am not an anarchist, but I've heard the phrase repeated by anarchists of "You cannot vote yourself free". The only way to resist such laws is to subvert them via technology.
gadders 2y ago
[flagged]
briandear 2y ago
My problem with all of these sorts of things is the idea of who determines “harmful.” Because that’s a term of such ambiguity that it could literally mean anything. “Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’” “Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest. “Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because it promotes behaviors that contribute heavily to climate change. “Young motorcycle racers should be allowed to train on big tracks before the age of 16” — harmful because it promotes a ‘dangerous’ sport to kids. I could go on and you could replace whatever I said to whatever you want to say and depending on who is the arbiter of “harmful,” that speech could be regulated in a way that creates criminals out of simply stating facts or opinions. If the lead up to WW2 were today, if these regulations existed, then suggesting that a Germans in the U.K. were a national security risk could get you in trouble for “promoting harmful stereotypes about German people.” In my mind, if we are to regulate speech at all, it should have a very very strict standard as to what speech is demonstrably harmful rather than politically uncomfortable. I’m not an Alex Jones fan at all, but for example, nobody died from anything he said, people have been offended and perhaps disgusted, but the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist aren’t causing anyone actual harm. In the US, we have libel and slander laws, we also have laws against speech that cause an imminent threat of danger — but we should never have laws that protect people from being offended, or even misinformed. We have websites supporting Chinese Traditional Medicine despite some practices in that field being demonstrably harmful and contrary to modern medical science — should those be banned? I would think most people would say not. This online “safety” regulation is really a regulation to regulate political speech under the guise of “protecting the children.”
- throw646577 2y ago
  > nobody died from anything he said This is a little difficult to prove. From the Parkland libels, sure. From the rest of the culture he promotes? Are you so sure? Whenever Americans lecture us on our culture of preferring safety we tend to just count back the number of days to your last school shooting. Be aware you're on ZERO right now. A teenage girl! At a Christian school. And consider that there are other perspectives on how bad that is. Because you collectively don't seem that bothered.
- 2y ago
userbinator 2y ago
1984 was not an instruction manual.
- EpicQuest_246 2y ago
  It may not have been but it seems that any dystopian piece of literature will be used as one.
- ImHereToVote 2y ago
  It was more like a discovery of underlying structures of anthropods. Especially the part about positive, negative, and transmutive nationalism. Hit the nail on the head with that one.
red_admiral 2y ago
The UK has a thing called non-crime hate incidents (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice-on-the-recording-and-retention-of-personal-data-accessible https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-in...) where the police records alleged complaints about discrimination, even if they are not a crime (otherwise they would be hate crimes). This could be used to direct policing resources sensibly ("lots of incidents recorded at such-and-such a place, maybe we should patrol there a bit more") or to build a dystopian database, or to waste police time. There's certainly a push by some of the media to stop the police spending time on this and focus on solving crimes instead. Similarly, this regulation could be used to prosecute child abusers, or it could be used to suppress free speech, or it could mean that people start using properly secure messaging apps.
- bratbag 2y ago
  This is overblown. The police are responsible for deciding how to classify a report. Their decisions need to be audited to avoid corruption. Ergo they have to maintain a record of reports they decided were not hate crimes.
  - zahllos 2y ago
    This is true but, non crime hate incidents can appear on enhanced DBS checks (criminal records): https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-crime-hate-incidents-how-they-can-affect-your-dbs-check/ https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-c... and https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/non-crime-hate-incidents https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do... - but bizarrely not on security clearances at least according to the London link. I would hope that this along with any other disclosure where the police decided on no action would be treated appropriately and only disclosed/acted upon if the incident was really worrying. On the other hand, I can't help but feel if the incident is worrying enough would it not also meet the bar for a criminal incident? I'm not really comfortable with the naming and the lack of due process to be honest. On the other hand, being careful what you say on social media is a requisite in many careers as companies can and do perform private background checks.
DrBazza 2y ago
We love our regulation, especially if the government can't easily tax it. Yet, we still have gambling adverts on UK TV and on football shirts. At the same time we've also banned adverts for "certain types" of porridge. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrwzx8er9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrwzx8er9o
- AJRF 2y ago
  Unlikely to change as Gambling companies are major donors to the Labour Party. https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/28/tory-betting-scandal-labour-gambling-industry-regulation https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/28/tory-bet...
- shreddit 2y ago
  Well "porridge" is not a synonym for "healthy", but i see your point in gambling ads...
  - DrBazza 2y ago
    Goldilocks aside, I’ve not seen a family ruined by porridge. I have seen it first hand with gambling.
- thih9 2y ago
  About banning ads for “certain types of porridge”: > …the majority of porridge, muesli and granola products will not be affected by the advertising restrictions but some less healthy versions (with added sugar, chocolate, syrup) could be affected. > Sometimes products may be marketed as, or perceived by consumers to be, healthy but in fact contain surprisingly high levels of saturated fat, salt or sugar. Source: https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/06/here-are-the-facts-about-our-junk-food-ban/ https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/06/here-are-the-fact... More details; the pdf in the last link has examples on how scoring (computing NPM score) is done for particular products: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-adver... , https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nutrient-profiling-model https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nutrient-prof...
hyhconito 2y ago
[dead]
benfrain 2y ago
I’d like to see all social media sites require proper age verification, much like any gambling sites in the UK have to. No under 18 needs social media. Feel, especially for children, they are a net negative.
- EpicQuest_246 2y ago
  Which kills any sort of online anonymity as all social media posts will be directly linked to your ID. This will make it much easier to go after anyone that is a dissident in the UK. Many these awful laws such as one being discussed are sold to us under the guise of protecting the children. The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related crimes in the UK (and I checked a while ago). Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.
  - ccozan 2y ago
    Ok but UK is not an oppresive regime, so that we talk about "dissidents" in UK. As anywhere, the freedom of speech is regulated. But even if you spout racist or other nonsense, you are not a dissident, you are just breaking the law, to which I agree, hate speech, racism should not be openly promoted.
    - EpicQuest_246 2y ago
      The definition of hate speech used to be centered around terrorism and was initially sold to the UK public as stopping "Islamic hate preachers and stopping terrorism". This has now expanded far past that and people are being investigated and arrested for simply opposing immigration (which is often conflated with racism disingenuously), or criticising the actions of Israel, teenagers posting rap lyrics on facebook, and numerous others that I have forgotten about. If you are not bothered by the expansion of these powers because some people have said things you disapprove of there is nothing I can say to convince you.
    - pjc50 2y ago
      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/11/britain-leads-the-world-in-cracking-down-on-climate-activism-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/11/britain-... Certain types of demonstrator get very heavily cracked down on, and it's not usually the anti-immigrant ones.
csmattryder 2y ago
> crisis response protocols for emergency events (such as last summer’s riots). Or maybe the proles organising mass protests at the government. No, surely not.
z3t4 2y ago
I tell my kids to not share any personal information online, never use their real name or birth date, and don't trust random people on the internet. And they wouln't even think about posting images of themselves.
- pc86 2y ago
  Ok
cjs_ac 2y ago
As a software engineer in the UK (and former schoolteacher) I'm supportive of the Online Safety Act. People prefer to interact with people who are similar to them, so they end up with a belief that most people are like them, but as a teacher, I had to grapple with the full distribution of human intelligence. It's wider than I'm comfortable with. Most people struggle to deal with the complexity of everyday life in the twenty-first century. My grandparents used to fall for every scam phone call or email they received. It wasn't until I showed them a compilation[0] of the George Agdgdgwngo character from Fonejacker - and the rest of my extended family sat around laughing at the ridiculous scenarios - that my grandparents realised that giving their bank details to anyone claiming to be calling from Microsoft and then expecting the bank to refund them their money wasn't an acceptable way to handle their financial affairs. In the end, they disabled their Internet banking and now have to catch a bus to their nearest bank branch to do anything. I'm sure there will be flurry of Americans along shortly to monotonously repeat that quote about not trading freedom for security. That's their political tradition, not ours. The people of Thetford in Norfolk don't give a flying fuck about the gold statue of Thomas Paine that the Federalist Society (or some other group, I'm not terribly interested in which it was) put up in their town, but they love the fact that a sitcom about the Second World War was filmed there. Someone else will make a joke about police officers investigating tweets. That practice - which was put to an end a couple of years ago - stemmed from a particular interpretation of a law that required police forces to investigate all threats of violence made by post, that was enacted in the 1980s during a period of increased religiously-motivated terrorism. The following decade brought the negotiations that put an end to that terrorism; negotiations that were the culmination of nearly five centuries of religious conflict. It is much harder to make glib assertions that principles are more important than physical safety when the violence happens in your city. I shall leave it to others to make the usual accusations about who funded the aforementioned terrorism. The Online Safety Act is vague and non-specific. Social media platforms differentiate themselves in the market on the bases of: with whom users can interact (people they know personally or the user base at large); and the ways in which they can interact (photos, videos, comments, likes, &c.). Each platform therefore poses its own unique set of risks to its user base, and so needs to have its own unique regulations. The Act acknowledges by empowering Ofcom to negotiate the specific policies that platforms will need to follow on a platform-by-platform basis. And if those policies should turn out to be too strict, and a few social media companies should find it no longer profitable to operate in the United Kingdom, that is not all that much of an issue for His Majesty's Government. They're not British companies, after all. You can't talk about the Forbidden Meatballs[1] on Reddit or HN. In the 90s, AOL users from Scunthorpe and Penistone were banned from user forums for telling the community where they lived to help diagnose their connectivity issues. Americans have enforced - and continue to enforce - their cultural norms on the entire Anglophone web, and now the rest of the world has started to do the same. I have much greater faith in my government to protect my freedom of speech (no matter how much I may object to their policies) than some foreign company. For those who are concerned that they will have to engage a solicitor to write reams of policies for their small Mastodon instance, need I remind you how utterly half-arsed everything in this country is? 'Maximum effect for minimum effort and cost' has been the guiding principle of all government in Britain for decades - it's how Britain ruled its Empire, it's what drove the Thirteen Colonies to rebel, it's why the East India Company was allowed to rule a subcontinent, it's why many of the former colonies were given independence despite not wanting it, it's why the roads are so consistently bad, it's why the water companies are dumping sewage into rivers, it's why there aren't enough police officers. To anyone who thinks that regulating social media is some sort of prelude to a totalitarian state, I suggest you watch Britons at a traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing. This isn't the end of the world; it's not going to lead to any social changes of any sort at all. The Act requires protections for free speech, after all. When it's all finally implemented, it'll just be enforcement of social norms that no one finds controversial. NB: I read through the Act to see whether an idea for a social media platform was still a viable business idea, and apart from sending policy documents to Ofcom, it wouldn't require the business to do anything that wasn't already in that idea. If you want to argue about what the Act requires, I will expect you to have read the Act[2]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9biM_ZfIdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9biM_ZfIdo [1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/282049626 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/282049626 [2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/contents https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/contents
highcountess 2y ago
Thank you, Ministry of Safety.
- throw646577 2y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dang 2y ago
Looks like https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/britains-ofcom-brings-tough-online-safety-act-duties-into-force.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/britains-ofcom-brings-tough-... has some background. Readers may want to look at both.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044 It shows the dark side of this coin. It's killing a lot of genuine volunteer initiatives because complying with all the red tape. I find that a huge loss because it drives us more and more in the arms of big tech who only have dollars as a goal, not helping people or establishing a community like these initiatives do. This law is aimed at big tech but it actually hurts the smallest players which don't need this legislation because they're already ethical. The big players will just hire more lawyers to contest any fines and find as many loopholes as they can. An 18 million pound fine is just a massive risk for a hobbyist. It would basically ruin their entire life.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    > This law is aimed at big tech The law is not aimed at big tech. It is aimed at any online forum that the government wants to shut down, and gives an lengthy, arbitrary, and vague list of pretenses that they can base a shutdown on. Big tech has shown itself to be eager to conform to government expectations at every turn. Big tech helps even to shape government expectations, and continually shares personnel with government itself.
  - kmlx 2y ago
    besides big tech i assume it will push more people underground (this is what i would do). and VPNs will get (yet another) big boost. myopic governments pushed by myopic voters are apparently the new norm.
    - PeterStuer 2y ago
      Understand that 99% of VPNs can be trivialy shut down if they wanted. The loophole is tolerated. For now.
dang 2y ago
Related. Others? Hash matching proposals for the Online Safety Act's implementation are dangerous - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38217439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38217439 - Nov 2023 (17 comments) The UK's Controversial Online Safety Act Is Now Law - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38048811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38048811 - Oct 2023 (159 comments) King Charles III signs off on Online Safety Act with unenforceable spying clause - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38044973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38044973 - Oct 2023 (72 comments)
jimnotgym 2y ago
The furore below reminds me of the GDPR apocalypse predictions...none of which came true.
- weberer 2y ago
  One of the predictions was that some websites would just geoblock people connecting from Europe. That happened with a lot of small news sites. And some retail sites. For example, I can't access www.homedepot.com right now.
archagon 2y ago
I wonder what happens with these sorts of regulations if an entirely decentralized social media platform becomes popular. Who do the authorities go after if there's no owner or server?
- goodlinks 2y ago
  Each server is moderated independently and if any nasty ones are allowed to fester they get shut down? Imho the long term answer to these problems is trust networks and decentralised moderation. Howbwe get there.. dunno
- cesarb 2y ago
  > Who do the authorities go after if there's no owner or server? A "decentralized social media platform" implies the exact opposite of "there's no owner or server": there are many owners (in the extreme, each user is the owner of their own slice of the platform) and many servers (in the extreme, each user runs a separate server).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
systemstops 2y ago
The UK is building their own digital gulag. Most social media companies are not going to institute these authoritarian measures for one small nation that wants to regulate the world. You are going to see yourselves cut off.
- simmo9000 2y ago
  Australia is following suit with it's 'Social Media Minimum age bill' that will require ALL users to prove their age. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2425/25bd39 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...
nomilk 2y ago
> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the internet run by people who can't afford the time/cost of lawyers in order to comply with and refute claims of breach of this legislation? Also 'online harms' pertaining to 'eating disorders'. What content promotes eating disorders?! Is there a single site that authors/proponents of this regulation can point to that literally 'promotes eating disorders'? How would a site admin determine what is acceptable and what is not? See: chilling effect [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
- intended 2y ago
  > he 15 different kinds of illegal harms set out in Ofcom’s draft risk assessment guidance are: Terrorism offences; Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA), including Grooming and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM); Encouraging or assisting suicide (or attempted suicide) or serious Self Harm; Hate offences; Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse; Controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB); Drugs and psychoactive substances offences; Firearms and other weapons offences; Unlawful immigration and human trafficking; Sexual exploitation of adults; Extreme pornography offence; Intimate Image Abuse; Proceeds of crime offences; Fraud and financial services offences; and the Foreign interference offence (FIO). ——- Online harms are always going to be impossible. Same as crime. Parts of the internet are already being destroyed, and will continue to be destroyed.
- ksec 2y ago
  >How would a site admin determine what is acceptable and what is not? I remember there were stories about GDPR at the time that some site simply decide to block all IPs from EUR, and some sadly because they believe they dont comply, simply shut down the site. In a world ( well US at least ) where the trend is moving to deregulate things. UK decided to quite literally regulate everything. This is sad.
scratchyone 2y ago
> Hash-matching tools link known images of CSAM from police databases to encrypted digital fingerprints known as “hashes” for each piece of content to help social media sites’ automated filtering systems recognize and remove them. I know this is a little bit of a nitpick, but I really feel like it hurts the credibility of a news organization to make a mistake this obvious that also shows they completely misunderstand the entire concept they're explaining. That's fundamentally a wrong definition and implies that that these social media sites could simply decrypt the hash to access the source material. The entire purpose of hashing as a cryptographic tool is that it isn't encryption.
fungiblecog 2y ago
[flagged]
Jackosas 2y ago
[dead]

212 points by AndrewDucker 2y ago

I have a question about that. I'm currently developing a platform with strong end-to-end encryption. My servers only store the public keys of individual accounts, the platform doesn't allow me to see what content people post or transmit without actively eavesdropping, and there are no means for me to moderate the content. However, there will be means for paying end-consumers to moderate the content of people they have invited. It's mostly intended as a collaborative tool for small business. However, other than steering it with marketing, I see no easy way for me to control who buys a subscription. From what I can gather, my tools will fall under the Online Safety Act and are incompatible with it. So how do I properly exclude all UK customers from purchasing subscriptions? Will it suffice to geo-block the website where you buy subscriptions?

tpxl 2y ago
Any decent payment provider and bank will include the country code with the payment. Have a ToS preventing them from buying, warn UK users (geoip?) and then reject any payments from the UK.
- jonathanstrange 2y ago
  Yeah that's what I was thinking. I'm using Fastspring so that wouldn't be a problem. However, a paying subscriber will still be able to invite someone from the UK and I don't have any mechanism to prevent that.

throw646577 2y ago

[flagged]

DarkmSparks 2y ago

Brought to you by the people who read Orwells 1984 and thought it was a handbook rather than a warning. I really have zero respect for this law. Watch the BBC interview with Elon Musk over twitter to see how moronic the people behind it are. When you mix in all the war mongering they do vv Russia and the massive crack downs they have been engaging in to cover up how fast living standards have been falling, and the whole thing is a sad joke.

nvarsj 2y ago

Plugging the draft guidance into chatgpt: Age Assurance Methods: Effective methods: Open banking, photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, credit card checks, and digital identity wallets. Ineffective methods: Self-declaration, general disclaimers, or payment methods without age restrictions. So basically, ID verification will be required for any platform that may have adult/harmful materials.

mjburgess 2y ago
Can you cite the law if you're going to make claims about it
- nvarsj 2y ago
  It's not in the law... it's the guidance Ofcom is providing, linked in TFA, which I believe will be enforceable. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/272586-consultation-guidance-for-service-providers-publishing-pornographic-content/associated-documents/annex-2-guidance-for-service-providers-publishing-pornographic-content-online/?v=368675 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/cons...

DaveMcMartin 2y ago

they always use a good cause to push for more authoritarian polices

rayiner 2y ago

[flagged]

pomatic 2y ago

The biggest issue is that legislation seems to be drafted by people who have little or no expertise in their area. We've seen other examples of poorly drafted legislation in the UK - eg Computer Misuse Act 1990, which is intended to address hacking but can be read in such a way as to outlaw firewalls, and so on. Parliament as a whole is in desperate need of reform, it's based on archaic principles that just don't work anymore, but those in a position to enact reform seem to prefer the status quo.

stephen_g 2y ago
I’m not sure if it’s similar in the UK, but here they don’t even seem to care. We have public consultation periods for most bills here in Australia, and it’s basically only ever a box-ticking exercise. You can have literally hundreds of experts carefully articulate all the obvious problems with a bill in a detailed submission, then some will be invited to give testimony and answer questions of Senators with concerned looks on their faces, and then those senators (of both parties) will happily vote the flawed legislation through with no amendments. The only changes that do happen are arrived at through secretly negotiated political horse-trading between the parties, with literally none of the expert, industry and public consultation taken into account. The only way to win is to lobby hard (with a lot of political donations) so your views get put forward in the secret negotiations. Literally none of the feedback from experts or voters matters. Because it’s always going to be one or the other major party (although there is some encouraging movement towards possible minority government, which in our current political landscape is the only way I can see any positive change possibly happening - but it depends massively on the quality of those who end up with the balance of power).
mhh__ 2y ago
Parliament is fine. Or at least the reforms people have in mind are usually insane slop that would only mean ramming more, worse, shit through the pipe.

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

Crazy stuff. This feels very Soviet and dystopian. This looks like something that would come from a Watchtower cult magazine. Anonymous experiences that can't be checked and conveniently and unanimously support the agenda, extended control over people's private life with severe punishment for even the slightest disagreement or god forbid an alternative opinion.

rlaksh 2y ago

Ok, "think of the children" again. If it were about the children, they'd simply forbid phones and unsupervised Internet for anyone under 16. Problem solved. The issue of course is that the Internet is too valuable of a propaganda instrument. Children need propaganda, but they need our propaganda. The offense list is in classic CoC style. Vague terms like terrorism have been abused in the U.K. for a long time and applied against journalists like the husband of Glenn Greenwald, who had been arrested in London for communicating with Laura Poitras. Many journalists have been stopped and digitally stripped searched in the U.K. while traveling. So what are websites to do to escape that? Perhaps put up permanent banners like "NATO must be prepared for a great patriotic land war with Russia" and "We need more immigration" in order to be safe.

NoImmatureAdHom 2y ago

The U.K. is jailing people for mean tweets, and has been for a while: - "More than 30 people found themselves arrested over social media posts. From what I’ve found, at least 17 of those have been charged." -- the BBC, this is specifically for the Southport riots. They have been doing this for years, of course.[1] - "First people jailed over social media posts during unrest 9 August Today's live coverage has mainly come from the courts, with jail sentences handed down for those involved in the violent disorder since the fatal stabbings in Southport last Monday. Here's a quick summary of key events today: In the first case of a person going to jail for posting on social media during the disorder, Jordan Parlour, 28, of Seacroft, Leeds, received a 20 month sentence for inciting others to target a Leeds building which housed asylum seekers At least two others also received jail sentences for social media posts that stirred up racial hatred Suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones appeared in court charged with encouraging violent disorder after he was filmed apparently telling a crowd that far-right demonstrators should have their throats cut 6000 officers with specialist training in public order are "prepared and ready" to deal with any potential unrest over the weekend About 600 people have been arrested this week with hundreds more expected in the coming days and weeks, police say, with the use of facial recognition technology fast tracking the process "[2] - This woman merely livestreamed other people doing naughty things, and called some people "tramps". "Much of the TikTok stream had been rather amateurish, Mr Rudge argued, giving a view of the cobblestones in Tamworth but showing no acts of violence." LOL. 9 months in prison. [3] - More: [4] - More: [5] - "This is in relation to some comments you made on Facebook (police arrest old man in his home, good video): [6] - "We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media to look for this material, and then follow up with arrests." - Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales. Video worth a watch. [7] - Punishment is often also extremely swift. Facebook video --> court --> prison in a matter of a week and a half. Of course, if you stand accused of e.g. raping children, it will take a year and a half. - This country has gone right off a cliff and is currently in free-fall. - [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr548zdmz3jo [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpdlvz80pjzt?post=asset%3A3678492d-7550-46f8-979d-50ed624b9f65#post https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cpdlvz80pjzt?post=asset%3A3678... [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdkvwwwqyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgdkvwwwqyo [4] https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857720874146664670 https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1857720874146664670 [5] https://x.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/1857928002014761201 https://x.com/SamanthaTaghoy/status/1857928002014761201 [6] https://x.com/i/status/1823087302886965636 https://x.com/i/status/1823087302886965636 [7] https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1821178852397477984 https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1821178852397477984 And more https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-post-the-u-k-is-now-jailing-people-for-social-media-comments/ https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2024/08/think-before-you-... https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-tory-councillor-jailed-for-31-months-over-social-media-post-stirring-up-racial-hatred-13234756 https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-tory-councillor-jailed-fo...

ksymph 2y ago

The future this (and similar legislature from other countries) points toward is extremely concerning. I run a small site with some user interaction; though it doesn't seem the intended target of this particular legislature, it seems inevitable that there will be a law enacted somewhere that leaves the site vulnerable unless I'm constantly staying on top of the increasingly varied and specific requirements across the world. I don't see how anyone but big corporations can expect to deal with that, frankly. I wish there was an international standard of reasonable moderation and data handling specifically for small sites. A static checklist of requirements like manual screening of user-generated content within a certain time period, gdpr-esque transparency of user data - things that any responsible webmaster should be doing anyway. I suppose there are potential problems with that too, but either way that ship has already sailed. Instead we're all on the Titanic, ignoring alarm bells as we careen towards the iceberg of siloed corporatocracy.

webspinner 2y ago

This is the worst piece of legislation ever! If the US ever passes something like this in my lifetime, I'm planning on ending it.

rolandthomas 2y ago

[dead]

JoshTriplett 2y ago

Better alternative to first-party propaganda: https://www.eff.org/pages/uk-online-safety-bill-massive-threat-online-privacy-security-and-speech https://www.eff.org/pages/uk-online-safety-bill-massive-thre...

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Ofcom is an independent regulator; it's far from the "first-party" you're implying it is.
- pixxel 2y ago
  JFC. You probably think the BBC is impartial.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    Everyone knows the BBC is biased against their side.
- nohuck13 2y ago
  This is a press release, though. Whether or not Ofcom is independent, their press release writers are not independent, they are part of Ofcom's PR team, a team that absolutely exists.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Mindwipe 2y ago
  Ofcom really isn't actually independent on Online Safety in any way. It has to obey instructions on prioritisation from the secretary of state and has no real operational flexibility. As with much of the (dire) UK legislation here, the government saying something is true until it is blue in the face does not make it true.
  - vogon_laureate 2y ago

collyw 2y ago

The steady march towards authoritarianism continues. Is there any way that we can overwhelm them?

turblety 2y ago
We can support projects like Autonomi [1] (the rebranded MaidSafe [2]). It should create what (I feel) the internet was always ment to be. Peer to peer communications. I think the only solution to this is to stop the centralised mess the internet has become. 1. https://autonomi.com/ https://autonomi.com/ 2. https://maidsafe.net/ https://maidsafe.net/
- demarq 2y ago
  I looked at all three website sites but no docs, it's a rough start with no headline app, or docs to create an app.
  - turblety 2y ago
    Thanks demarq. I agree the marketing needs some improvements. They recently did a rebrand and it's added a lot of confusion.
postepowanieadm 2y ago
Vote.
- EpicQuest_246 2y ago
  People say as a pithy answer and it is very frustrating. Unfortunately it is utterly unrealistic that voting will solve this situation. 1) The majority of the UK's populace are onboard with the vast majority of these laws. Even if all the people that opposed this voted for another party, due to how the constituencies work, your vote will be effectively made moot. 2) Both major UK parties essentially agree that these laws should be implemented. The only solution to any problem that UK government can envisage is banning something. You can look into the Lotus Carlton ram raids of 40RR, they were singing the same tune back in the late 80s/early 90s. 3) There is no realistic pro-liberty / anti-censorship movement at all in the UK This has been going for longer than I have been alive in the UK (I am now in my early 40s). I am not an anarchist, but I've heard the phrase repeated by anarchists of "You cannot vote yourself free". The only way to resist such laws is to subvert them via technology.

gadders 2y ago

[flagged]

briandear 2y ago

My problem with all of these sorts of things is the idea of who determines “harmful.” Because that’s a term of such ambiguity that it could literally mean anything. “Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’” “Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest. “Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because it promotes behaviors that contribute heavily to climate change. “Young motorcycle racers should be allowed to train on big tracks before the age of 16” — harmful because it promotes a ‘dangerous’ sport to kids. I could go on and you could replace whatever I said to whatever you want to say and depending on who is the arbiter of “harmful,” that speech could be regulated in a way that creates criminals out of simply stating facts or opinions. If the lead up to WW2 were today, if these regulations existed, then suggesting that a Germans in the U.K. were a national security risk could get you in trouble for “promoting harmful stereotypes about German people.” In my mind, if we are to regulate speech at all, it should have a very very strict standard as to what speech is demonstrably harmful rather than politically uncomfortable. I’m not an Alex Jones fan at all, but for example, nobody died from anything he said, people have been offended and perhaps disgusted, but the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist aren’t causing anyone actual harm. In the US, we have libel and slander laws, we also have laws against speech that cause an imminent threat of danger — but we should never have laws that protect people from being offended, or even misinformed. We have websites supporting Chinese Traditional Medicine despite some practices in that field being demonstrably harmful and contrary to modern medical science — should those be banned? I would think most people would say not. This online “safety” regulation is really a regulation to regulate political speech under the guise of “protecting the children.”

throw646577 2y ago
> nobody died from anything he said This is a little difficult to prove. From the Parkland libels, sure. From the rest of the culture he promotes? Are you so sure? Whenever Americans lecture us on our culture of preferring safety we tend to just count back the number of days to your last school shooting. Be aware you're on ZERO right now. A teenage girl! At a Christian school. And consider that there are other perspectives on how bad that is. Because you collectively don't seem that bothered.
2y ago

userbinator 2y ago

1984 was not an instruction manual.

EpicQuest_246 2y ago
It may not have been but it seems that any dystopian piece of literature will be used as one.
ImHereToVote 2y ago
It was more like a discovery of underlying structures of anthropods. Especially the part about positive, negative, and transmutive nationalism. Hit the nail on the head with that one.

red_admiral 2y ago

The UK has a thing called non-crime hate incidents (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice-on-the-recording-and-retention-of-personal-data-accessible https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-in...) where the police records alleged complaints about discrimination, even if they are not a crime (otherwise they would be hate crimes). This could be used to direct policing resources sensibly ("lots of incidents recorded at such-and-such a place, maybe we should patrol there a bit more") or to build a dystopian database, or to waste police time. There's certainly a push by some of the media to stop the police spending time on this and focus on solving crimes instead. Similarly, this regulation could be used to prosecute child abusers, or it could be used to suppress free speech, or it could mean that people start using properly secure messaging apps.

bratbag 2y ago
This is overblown. The police are responsible for deciding how to classify a report. Their decisions need to be audited to avoid corruption. Ergo they have to maintain a record of reports they decided were not hate crimes.
- zahllos 2y ago
  This is true but, non crime hate incidents can appear on enhanced DBS checks (criminal records): https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-crime-hate-incidents-how-they-can-affect-your-dbs-check/ https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-c... and https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/non-crime-hate-incidents https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do... - but bizarrely not on security clearances at least according to the London link. I would hope that this along with any other disclosure where the police decided on no action would be treated appropriately and only disclosed/acted upon if the incident was really worrying. On the other hand, I can't help but feel if the incident is worrying enough would it not also meet the bar for a criminal incident? I'm not really comfortable with the naming and the lack of due process to be honest. On the other hand, being careful what you say on social media is a requisite in many careers as companies can and do perform private background checks.

DrBazza 2y ago

We love our regulation, especially if the government can't easily tax it. Yet, we still have gambling adverts on UK TV and on football shirts. At the same time we've also banned adverts for "certain types" of porridge. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrwzx8er9o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrwzx8er9o

AJRF 2y ago
Unlikely to change as Gambling companies are major donors to the Labour Party. https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/28/tory-betting-scandal-labour-gambling-industry-regulation https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/28/tory-bet...
shreddit 2y ago
Well "porridge" is not a synonym for "healthy", but i see your point in gambling ads...
- DrBazza 2y ago
  Goldilocks aside, I’ve not seen a family ruined by porridge. I have seen it first hand with gambling.
thih9 2y ago
About banning ads for “certain types of porridge”: > …the majority of porridge, muesli and granola products will not be affected by the advertising restrictions but some less healthy versions (with added sugar, chocolate, syrup) could be affected. > Sometimes products may be marketed as, or perceived by consumers to be, healthy but in fact contain surprisingly high levels of saturated fat, salt or sugar. Source: https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/06/here-are-the-facts-about-our-junk-food-ban/ https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/06/here-are-the-fact... More details; the pdf in the last link has examples on how scoring (computing NPM score) is done for particular products: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope/restricting-advertising-of-less-healthy-food-or-drink-on-tv-and-online-products-in-scope https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-adver... , https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nutrient-profiling-model https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nutrient-prof...

hyhconito 2y ago

[dead]

benfrain 2y ago

I’d like to see all social media sites require proper age verification, much like any gambling sites in the UK have to. No under 18 needs social media. Feel, especially for children, they are a net negative.

EpicQuest_246 2y ago
Which kills any sort of online anonymity as all social media posts will be directly linked to your ID. This will make it much easier to go after anyone that is a dissident in the UK. Many these awful laws such as one being discussed are sold to us under the guise of protecting the children. The last time I checked 7 people a day were being prosecuted for speech related crimes in the UK (and I checked a while ago). Parents should be the ones that should be controlling their children's social media usage.
- ccozan 2y ago
  Ok but UK is not an oppresive regime, so that we talk about "dissidents" in UK. As anywhere, the freedom of speech is regulated. But even if you spout racist or other nonsense, you are not a dissident, you are just breaking the law, to which I agree, hate speech, racism should not be openly promoted.
  - EpicQuest_246 2y ago
    The definition of hate speech used to be centered around terrorism and was initially sold to the UK public as stopping "Islamic hate preachers and stopping terrorism". This has now expanded far past that and people are being investigated and arrested for simply opposing immigration (which is often conflated with racism disingenuously), or criticising the actions of Israel, teenagers posting rap lyrics on facebook, and numerous others that I have forgotten about. If you are not bothered by the expansion of these powers because some people have said things you disapprove of there is nothing I can say to convince you.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/11/britain-leads-the-world-in-cracking-down-on-climate-activism-study-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/11/britain-... Certain types of demonstrator get very heavily cracked down on, and it's not usually the anti-immigrant ones.

csmattryder 2y ago

> crisis response protocols for emergency events (such as last summer’s riots). Or maybe the proles organising mass protests at the government. No, surely not.

z3t4 2y ago

I tell my kids to not share any personal information online, never use their real name or birth date, and don't trust random people on the internet. And they wouln't even think about posting images of themselves.

pc86 2y ago
Ok

cjs_ac 2y ago

As a software engineer in the UK (and former schoolteacher) I'm supportive of the Online Safety Act. People prefer to interact with people who are similar to them, so they end up with a belief that most people are like them, but as a teacher, I had to grapple with the full distribution of human intelligence. It's wider than I'm comfortable with. Most people struggle to deal with the complexity of everyday life in the twenty-first century. My grandparents used to fall for every scam phone call or email they received. It wasn't until I showed them a compilation[0] of the George Agdgdgwngo character from Fonejacker - and the rest of my extended family sat around laughing at the ridiculous scenarios - that my grandparents realised that giving their bank details to anyone claiming to be calling from Microsoft and then expecting the bank to refund them their money wasn't an acceptable way to handle their financial affairs. In the end, they disabled their Internet banking and now have to catch a bus to their nearest bank branch to do anything. I'm sure there will be flurry of Americans along shortly to monotonously repeat that quote about not trading freedom for security. That's their political tradition, not ours. The people of Thetford in Norfolk don't give a flying fuck about the gold statue of Thomas Paine that the Federalist Society (or some other group, I'm not terribly interested in which it was) put up in their town, but they love the fact that a sitcom about the Second World War was filmed there. Someone else will make a joke about police officers investigating tweets. That practice - which was put to an end a couple of years ago - stemmed from a particular interpretation of a law that required police forces to investigate all threats of violence made by post, that was enacted in the 1980s during a period of increased religiously-motivated terrorism. The following decade brought the negotiations that put an end to that terrorism; negotiations that were the culmination of nearly five centuries of religious conflict. It is much harder to make glib assertions that principles are more important than physical safety when the violence happens in your city. I shall leave it to others to make the usual accusations about who funded the aforementioned terrorism. The Online Safety Act is vague and non-specific. Social media platforms differentiate themselves in the market on the bases of: with whom users can interact (people they know personally or the user base at large); and the ways in which they can interact (photos, videos, comments, likes, &c.). Each platform therefore poses its own unique set of risks to its user base, and so needs to have its own unique regulations. The Act acknowledges by empowering Ofcom to negotiate the specific policies that platforms will need to follow on a platform-by-platform basis. And if those policies should turn out to be too strict, and a few social media companies should find it no longer profitable to operate in the United Kingdom, that is not all that much of an issue for His Majesty's Government. They're not British companies, after all. You can't talk about the Forbidden Meatballs[1] on Reddit or HN. In the 90s, AOL users from Scunthorpe and Penistone were banned from user forums for telling the community where they lived to help diagnose their connectivity issues. Americans have enforced - and continue to enforce - their cultural norms on the entire Anglophone web, and now the rest of the world has started to do the same. I have much greater faith in my government to protect my freedom of speech (no matter how much I may object to their policies) than some foreign company. For those who are concerned that they will have to engage a solicitor to write reams of policies for their small Mastodon instance, need I remind you how utterly half-arsed everything in this country is? 'Maximum effect for minimum effort and cost' has been the guiding principle of all government in Britain for decades - it's how Britain ruled its Empire, it's what drove the Thirteen Colonies to rebel, it's why the East India Company was allowed to rule a subcontinent, it's why many of the former colonies were given independence despite not wanting it, it's why the roads are so consistently bad, it's why the water companies are dumping sewage into rivers, it's why there aren't enough police officers. To anyone who thinks that regulating social media is some sort of prelude to a totalitarian state, I suggest you watch Britons at a traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing. This isn't the end of the world; it's not going to lead to any social changes of any sort at all. The Act requires protections for free speech, after all. When it's all finally implemented, it'll just be enforcement of social norms that no one finds controversial. NB: I read through the Act to see whether an idea for a social media platform was still a viable business idea, and apart from sending policy documents to Ofcom, it wouldn't require the business to do anything that wasn't already in that idea. If you want to argue about what the Act requires, I will expect you to have read the Act[2]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9biM_ZfIdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9biM_ZfIdo [1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/282049626 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/282049626 [2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/contents https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/contents

highcountess 2y ago

Thank you, Ministry of Safety.

throw646577 2y ago
[flagged]

deleted 2y ago

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dang 2y ago

Looks like https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/britains-ofcom-brings-tough-online-safety-act-duties-into-force.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/britains-ofcom-brings-tough-... has some background. Readers may want to look at both.

wkat4242 2y ago
And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044 It shows the dark side of this coin. It's killing a lot of genuine volunteer initiatives because complying with all the red tape. I find that a huge loss because it drives us more and more in the arms of big tech who only have dollars as a goal, not helping people or establishing a community like these initiatives do. This law is aimed at big tech but it actually hurts the smallest players which don't need this legislation because they're already ethical. The big players will just hire more lawyers to contest any fines and find as many loopholes as they can. An 18 million pound fine is just a massive risk for a hobbyist. It would basically ruin their entire life.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > This law is aimed at big tech The law is not aimed at big tech. It is aimed at any online forum that the government wants to shut down, and gives an lengthy, arbitrary, and vague list of pretenses that they can base a shutdown on. Big tech has shown itself to be eager to conform to government expectations at every turn. Big tech helps even to shape government expectations, and continually shares personnel with government itself.
- kmlx 2y ago
  besides big tech i assume it will push more people underground (this is what i would do). and VPNs will get (yet another) big boost. myopic governments pushed by myopic voters are apparently the new norm.
  - PeterStuer 2y ago
    Understand that 99% of VPNs can be trivialy shut down if they wanted. The loophole is tolerated. For now.

dang 2y ago

Related. Others? Hash matching proposals for the Online Safety Act's implementation are dangerous - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38217439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38217439 - Nov 2023 (17 comments) The UK's Controversial Online Safety Act Is Now Law - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38048811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38048811 - Oct 2023 (159 comments) King Charles III signs off on Online Safety Act with unenforceable spying clause - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38044973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38044973 - Oct 2023 (72 comments)

jimnotgym 2y ago

The furore below reminds me of the GDPR apocalypse predictions...none of which came true.

weberer 2y ago
One of the predictions was that some websites would just geoblock people connecting from Europe. That happened with a lot of small news sites. And some retail sites. For example, I can't access www.homedepot.com right now.

archagon 2y ago

I wonder what happens with these sorts of regulations if an entirely decentralized social media platform becomes popular. Who do the authorities go after if there's no owner or server?

goodlinks 2y ago
Each server is moderated independently and if any nasty ones are allowed to fester they get shut down? Imho the long term answer to these problems is trust networks and decentralised moderation. Howbwe get there.. dunno
cesarb 2y ago
> Who do the authorities go after if there's no owner or server? A "decentralized social media platform" implies the exact opposite of "there's no owner or server": there are many owners (in the extreme, each user is the owner of their own slice of the platform) and many servers (in the extreme, each user runs a separate server).
deleted 2y ago
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systemstops 2y ago

The UK is building their own digital gulag. Most social media companies are not going to institute these authoritarian measures for one small nation that wants to regulate the world. You are going to see yourselves cut off.

simmo9000 2y ago
Australia is following suit with it's 'Social Media Minimum age bill' that will require ALL users to prove their age. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2425/25bd39 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...

nomilk 2y ago

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the internet run by people who can't afford the time/cost of lawyers in order to comply with and refute claims of breach of this legislation? Also 'online harms' pertaining to 'eating disorders'. What content promotes eating disorders?! Is there a single site that authors/proponents of this regulation can point to that literally 'promotes eating disorders'? How would a site admin determine what is acceptable and what is not? See: chilling effect [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

intended 2y ago
> he 15 different kinds of illegal harms set out in Ofcom’s draft risk assessment guidance are: Terrorism offences; Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA), including Grooming and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM); Encouraging or assisting suicide (or attempted suicide) or serious Self Harm; Hate offences; Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse; Controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB); Drugs and psychoactive substances offences; Firearms and other weapons offences; Unlawful immigration and human trafficking; Sexual exploitation of adults; Extreme pornography offence; Intimate Image Abuse; Proceeds of crime offences; Fraud and financial services offences; and the Foreign interference offence (FIO). ——- Online harms are always going to be impossible. Same as crime. Parts of the internet are already being destroyed, and will continue to be destroyed.
ksec 2y ago
>How would a site admin determine what is acceptable and what is not? I remember there were stories about GDPR at the time that some site simply decide to block all IPs from EUR, and some sadly because they believe they dont comply, simply shut down the site. In a world ( well US at least ) where the trend is moving to deregulate things. UK decided to quite literally regulate everything. This is sad.

scratchyone 2y ago

> Hash-matching tools link known images of CSAM from police databases to encrypted digital fingerprints known as “hashes” for each piece of content to help social media sites’ automated filtering systems recognize and remove them. I know this is a little bit of a nitpick, but I really feel like it hurts the credibility of a news organization to make a mistake this obvious that also shows they completely misunderstand the entire concept they're explaining. That's fundamentally a wrong definition and implies that that these social media sites could simply decrypt the hash to access the source material. The entire purpose of hashing as a cryptographic tool is that it isn't encryption.

fungiblecog 2y ago

[flagged]

Jackosas 2y ago

[dead]