5 ms·

I decided I will block signups to my web platform for UK users as well. Just because I don’t understand any of the requirements.

dumbfounder 1y ago
I hope you inform the user and show them how to easily complain to their representatives.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  Nah, just send them code 451 and ignore them. UK is still democracy adjacent, uk citicens voted for this nonesense, let them deal with the consequences.
  - vlod 1y ago
    Surely, an ideal opportunity to put a funny dog 451 page.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    They voted for representatives, not for a particular law and may have not understood the details of this law when it was passed.
    - HPsquared 1y ago
      In 2024, only about 15% of MPs were elected by a local majority. This is a historic low, I think. There was a lot of "vote splitting" and spoiler effect going on due to FPTP. Labour have a very weak mandate.
    - Silhouette 1y ago
      Most of the UK didn't even vote for a Labour representative at the last general election. The Labour party's current control of our government is the result of one of the most disproportionate parliamentary majorities ever relative to its actual popular vote at the election. It's a consequence of our broken "first past the post" voting system. There's a certain irony in our politics right now that FPTP has been maintained by two dominant political parties because it has served their purposes to have little real challenge from smaller parties despite those parties collectively having quite a lot of popular support. That same system has now all but ended one of those two dominant parties as a force in British politics and at the next election it might well do the same for the other. The scariest question is who we might then get instead if Labour don't force through a radical change to our voting system while they still have the (possibly last) chance.
      - Nursie 1y ago
        But don't worry, Labour have already ruled that sort of thing out, they aren't interested. They think they can keep riding the FPTP thing indefinitely and changing would voluntarily hand power to smaller parties, which is unthinkable. Towards the end of the last Labour government in the UK, in the lead up to the election that ended it, I heard a Labour MP on the radio being asked about bringing in PR and transferrable vote systems (like we have here in Aus). His attitude was that PR is for losers. FPTP puts the winner in place. Anyone disputing this, or trying to bring up ideas about systems which give power to candidates representing a wider slice of the electorate - they're just losers who couldn't get the votes they needed to win. It was sickening to listen to. The problem, of course, is that any party that gets into power gets in via the existing system, and asking them to change it is like asking someone to train their replacement and fire themselves.
        Silhouette 1y ago
        The problem, of course, is that any party that gets into power gets in via the existing system, and asking them to change it is like asking someone to train their replacement and fire themselves. Indeed. But Labour might be facing an electoral wipe out next time anyway like the Tories last year. Even if they do a decent job they're starting from such a bad position that it will be tough to rebuild enough public support for another election victory. Unfortunately that becomes tougher if they actually try to fix some of our long-term problems by doing sensible things that won't pay off in time for the next election. If they realise that their current strategy of giving the vote to 16 and 17 year olds isn't going to be enough to stay in power and Reform (populist right-wingers) look like they're going to win big instead then there will be a lot of soul searching going on at Labour HQ. Making a change that will at least see them avoiding the fate of the Tories last time might be a bit more palatable for them even if it would still be a bitter pill to swallow for the many Labour MPs who were going to lose their positions either way.
        Nursie 1y ago
        I very much agree, but I wonder how politically possible it would be, especially not having gone into an election with that on the manifesto. Can but hope I suppose, perhaps when they're staring down the barrel of a Farage government... but I'm not seeing it.
  - aosaigh 1y ago
    Citizens don’t vote on legislation in the UK.
  - jonplackett 1y ago
    We did not
    - kypro 1y ago
      Most people in the UK are very pro-regulation like this though. We would vote for it if we could.
UrineSqueegee 1y ago
i opened the ofcom link and it has this really easy to follow guide with 17 illegal contents the users my encounter on your website like terrorism/pdf content etc like extremely bad stuff and all you have to do is asses how likely the user is to run into one of these on your site if its over 0% how do you plan on mitigating that. thats literally all there is to it.
- landl0rd 1y ago
  I have also blocked yookayers from my site because I would rather spend my time on GTM for my more valuable markets or have free time than waste it on the tiny chunk of my users who are yookay based. Also I don't know what sort of weight "guidance" from a reg agency vs statute carries there, how much of a defense it is, etc.
- fmajid 1y ago
  Keep in mind UK terrorism legislation has been abused and is continuing to be, from prosecuting the failed Icesave bank to proscribing the non-violent Palestine Action activist group. If the Terrorism Act 2000 had been in effect in the 1980s, you could have risked 14 years in prison for advocating for the ANC against Apartheid (Thatcher's government's official policy was that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who had been convicted in a fair trial). The UK doesn't have a First Amendment or a Bill of Rights other than the European Convention on Human Rights, that leading parties campaign of abolishing (if a bill of rights can be abolished by the legislature, it's not worth the paper it's printed on). Heck it doesn't even have a proper written constitution, it doesn't have separation of powers or an independent judiciary (the previous Parliament considered passing a law saying "Rwanda is a safe country to deport inconvenient asylum seekers to" in response to a court ruling (correctly) saying it manifestly isn't. The UK and Australia are in a race to the bottom to see which one is going to be the worst enemy of the Internet. The only check against these authoritarian powers is popular juries, and they are trying to get rid of these as well.
  - flumpcakes 1y ago
    > the non-violent Palestine Action activist group https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/25062337000014/PalestineActionProscription https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/250...

dumbfounder 1y ago

I hope you inform the user and show them how to easily complain to their representatives.

IlikeKitties 1y ago
Nah, just send them code 451 and ignore them. UK is still democracy adjacent, uk citicens voted for this nonesense, let them deal with the consequences.
- vlod 1y ago
  Surely, an ideal opportunity to put a funny dog 451 page.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  They voted for representatives, not for a particular law and may have not understood the details of this law when it was passed.
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    In 2024, only about 15% of MPs were elected by a local majority. This is a historic low, I think. There was a lot of "vote splitting" and spoiler effect going on due to FPTP. Labour have a very weak mandate.
  - Silhouette 1y ago
    Most of the UK didn't even vote for a Labour representative at the last general election. The Labour party's current control of our government is the result of one of the most disproportionate parliamentary majorities ever relative to its actual popular vote at the election. It's a consequence of our broken "first past the post" voting system. There's a certain irony in our politics right now that FPTP has been maintained by two dominant political parties because it has served their purposes to have little real challenge from smaller parties despite those parties collectively having quite a lot of popular support. That same system has now all but ended one of those two dominant parties as a force in British politics and at the next election it might well do the same for the other. The scariest question is who we might then get instead if Labour don't force through a radical change to our voting system while they still have the (possibly last) chance.
    - Nursie 1y ago
      But don't worry, Labour have already ruled that sort of thing out, they aren't interested. They think they can keep riding the FPTP thing indefinitely and changing would voluntarily hand power to smaller parties, which is unthinkable. Towards the end of the last Labour government in the UK, in the lead up to the election that ended it, I heard a Labour MP on the radio being asked about bringing in PR and transferrable vote systems (like we have here in Aus). His attitude was that PR is for losers. FPTP puts the winner in place. Anyone disputing this, or trying to bring up ideas about systems which give power to candidates representing a wider slice of the electorate - they're just losers who couldn't get the votes they needed to win. It was sickening to listen to. The problem, of course, is that any party that gets into power gets in via the existing system, and asking them to change it is like asking someone to train their replacement and fire themselves.
      - Silhouette 1y ago
        The problem, of course, is that any party that gets into power gets in via the existing system, and asking them to change it is like asking someone to train their replacement and fire themselves. Indeed. But Labour might be facing an electoral wipe out next time anyway like the Tories last year. Even if they do a decent job they're starting from such a bad position that it will be tough to rebuild enough public support for another election victory. Unfortunately that becomes tougher if they actually try to fix some of our long-term problems by doing sensible things that won't pay off in time for the next election. If they realise that their current strategy of giving the vote to 16 and 17 year olds isn't going to be enough to stay in power and Reform (populist right-wingers) look like they're going to win big instead then there will be a lot of soul searching going on at Labour HQ. Making a change that will at least see them avoiding the fate of the Tories last time might be a bit more palatable for them even if it would still be a bitter pill to swallow for the many Labour MPs who were going to lose their positions either way.
        Nursie 1y ago
        I very much agree, but I wonder how politically possible it would be, especially not having gone into an election with that on the manifesto. Can but hope I suppose, perhaps when they're staring down the barrel of a Farage government... but I'm not seeing it.
- aosaigh 1y ago
  Citizens don’t vote on legislation in the UK.
- jonplackett 1y ago
  We did not
  - kypro 1y ago
    Most people in the UK are very pro-regulation like this though. We would vote for it if we could.

UrineSqueegee 1y ago

i opened the ofcom link and it has this really easy to follow guide with 17 illegal contents the users my encounter on your website like terrorism/pdf content etc like extremely bad stuff and all you have to do is asses how likely the user is to run into one of these on your site if its over 0% how do you plan on mitigating that. thats literally all there is to it.

landl0rd 1y ago
I have also blocked yookayers from my site because I would rather spend my time on GTM for my more valuable markets or have free time than waste it on the tiny chunk of my users who are yookay based. Also I don't know what sort of weight "guidance" from a reg agency vs statute carries there, how much of a defense it is, etc.
fmajid 1y ago
Keep in mind UK terrorism legislation has been abused and is continuing to be, from prosecuting the failed Icesave bank to proscribing the non-violent Palestine Action activist group. If the Terrorism Act 2000 had been in effect in the 1980s, you could have risked 14 years in prison for advocating for the ANC against Apartheid (Thatcher's government's official policy was that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who had been convicted in a fair trial). The UK doesn't have a First Amendment or a Bill of Rights other than the European Convention on Human Rights, that leading parties campaign of abolishing (if a bill of rights can be abolished by the legislature, it's not worth the paper it's printed on). Heck it doesn't even have a proper written constitution, it doesn't have separation of powers or an independent judiciary (the previous Parliament considered passing a law saying "Rwanda is a safe country to deport inconvenient asylum seekers to" in response to a court ruling (correctly) saying it manifestly isn't. The UK and Australia are in a race to the bottom to see which one is going to be the worst enemy of the Internet. The only check against these authoritarian powers is popular juries, and they are trying to get rid of these as well.
- flumpcakes 1y ago
  > the non-violent Palestine Action activist group https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/25062337000014/PalestineActionProscription https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-06-23/debates/250...