3 ms·

The act does seem poorly thought out practically & I really dislike the UK's overall mindset to online safety. The laws consistently feel like they were written

by Havoc 1y ago

The act does seem poorly thought out practically & I really dislike the UK's overall mindset to online safety. The laws consistently feel like they were written by someone that prints out emails to read... That said the thinking that smaller platform should equal exemptions seems a touch flawed too given topic. If you're setting out to protect a child from content that say is promoting suicide the size of the platform isn't a relevant metric. If anything the smaller less visible corners (like the various chan sites) of the internet may even be higher risk

crote 1y ago
Smaller entities are rarely looking for a full exception, they just want the regulations to be implementable without being a megacorp. Take something like a plastic packaging tax, for example. A company like Amazon won't have too much trouble setting up a team to take care of this, and they can be taxed by the gram and by the material. But expecting the same from a mom-and-pop store is unreasonable - the fee isn't the problem, but the administrative overhead can be enough to kill them. Offering an alternative fixed-fee structure for companies below certain revenue thresholds would solve that problem, while still remaining true to the original intention.
- Havoc 1y ago
  I get the impossible bind this puts small companies in & having people resort to IP blocking the entire country is clearly a sign of a broken setup But playing devils advocate a bit here if the risk profile to the kid is the same on big and small platforms then there isn't any ethical room a lighter regime. Never mind full exemption, any exemption. The whole line of reasoning that you can't afford it therefore more kids potentially getting hurt on your platform is more acceptable just doesn't play. And similarly if you do provide a lighter touch regime, then the big players will rightly say well if that is adequate to ensure safety then why exactly can't we do that too? Platform size just isn't a relevant metric on some topics - child safety being one of them. Ethically whether a child is exposed to harm on a small or big website is the same thing. Not that I think this act will do much of anything for child safety. Which is why I think this needs to go back to drawing board entirely. Cause if we're not effectively protecting children yet killing businesses (and freedoms) then wtf are we doing
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gathering6678 1y ago
    "Platform size just isn't a relevant metric on some topics - child safety being one of them." Agreed, but I guess it could be the case that the current regulation is too burdensome even for large corps, but they could afford to have the resources necessary to deal with the regulation?
  - lukev 1y ago
    The big players actually like this sort of thing, since it stifles any nascent competition. Sure, it hurts margins a bit, but also really entrenches their position.
nine_k 1y ago
The question is whether the laws are efficient. Imagine that as a protection from the occasional meteorite, all buildings are mandated to upgrade their roofs to be 1 meter of solid concrete. We cannot allow another random space rock kill another innocent inhabitant. This, or course, would disproportionately burden smaller buildings, while some larger buildings would have little trouble to comply. Guess who would complain more often. But it, while outwardly insane, would clear small huts off the market, while the owners of large reinforced buildings would be able to reclaim the land, as if by an unintended consequence. Driving the risk tolerance of a society lower and lower interestingly dovetails with the ease of regulatory capture by large incumbent players, as if by coincidence.
pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
Aurornis 1y ago
> I really dislike the UK's overall mindset to online safety. The laws consistently feel like they were written by someone that prints out emails to read The UK is a leading example of what calls for regulation turn into in the real world. I’ve noticed a lot of calls for regulation in Hacker News comments lately. In the past week I’ve read multiple threads here where people angrily called for regulations and consequence for anything LLM related they didn’t like: When LLMs produced mistakes, when they produce content too close to copyrighted works, and so on. There’s an idea that regulation is a magical function that you apply and then the big companies suffer consequences, products improve to perfection to avoid the regulations, and nothing is lost for consumers. Then you look at real-world heavy handed technology regulation and see what really happens: Companies just have to turn off access to countries with those regulations and continue on with their business. People who use the tools get VPNs and continue operating with a little extra hassle, cost, and lag. Businesses avoid those countries or shut down because it doesn’t make sense to try to comply. There’s a constant moving of goalposts, too: Every time someone points out the downsides of these regulations it’s imagined that better regulation would have exempted the small companies or made it cheap to comply (without details, of course). I think heavy handed technology regulation is yet another topic where the closer it gets to reality, the less people like it. When you point out real world examples, the response is always “No, not like that”
- Timwi 1y ago
  > When you point out real world examples, the response is always “No, not like that” My impression from this thread is that this is because the law was implemented in a way that's indicative of a lack of technical understanding on the part of the lawmakers and falls into a number of pitfalls that a law written by people competent in the field would avoid. Am I wrong?
ChrisRR 1y ago
UK's final goal to anything online always seems to be spying. They never seem to have a clue what to do with the data after that, but they're always damn eager to implement laws to allow for spying

by Havoc 1y ago

crote 1y ago

Smaller entities are rarely looking for a full exception, they just want the regulations to be implementable without being a megacorp. Take something like a plastic packaging tax, for example. A company like Amazon won't have too much trouble setting up a team to take care of this, and they can be taxed by the gram and by the material. But expecting the same from a mom-and-pop store is unreasonable - the fee isn't the problem, but the administrative overhead can be enough to kill them. Offering an alternative fixed-fee structure for companies below certain revenue thresholds would solve that problem, while still remaining true to the original intention.

Havoc 1y ago
I get the impossible bind this puts small companies in & having people resort to IP blocking the entire country is clearly a sign of a broken setup But playing devils advocate a bit here if the risk profile to the kid is the same on big and small platforms then there isn't any ethical room a lighter regime. Never mind full exemption, any exemption. The whole line of reasoning that you can't afford it therefore more kids potentially getting hurt on your platform is more acceptable just doesn't play. And similarly if you do provide a lighter touch regime, then the big players will rightly say well if that is adequate to ensure safety then why exactly can't we do that too? Platform size just isn't a relevant metric on some topics - child safety being one of them. Ethically whether a child is exposed to harm on a small or big website is the same thing. Not that I think this act will do much of anything for child safety. Which is why I think this needs to go back to drawing board entirely. Cause if we're not effectively protecting children yet killing businesses (and freedoms) then wtf are we doing
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Gathering6678 1y ago
  "Platform size just isn't a relevant metric on some topics - child safety being one of them." Agreed, but I guess it could be the case that the current regulation is too burdensome even for large corps, but they could afford to have the resources necessary to deal with the regulation?
- lukev 1y ago
  The big players actually like this sort of thing, since it stifles any nascent competition. Sure, it hurts margins a bit, but also really entrenches their position.

nine_k 1y ago

The question is whether the laws are efficient. Imagine that as a protection from the occasional meteorite, all buildings are mandated to upgrade their roofs to be 1 meter of solid concrete. We cannot allow another random space rock kill another innocent inhabitant. This, or course, would disproportionately burden smaller buildings, while some larger buildings would have little trouble to comply. Guess who would complain more often. But it, while outwardly insane, would clear small huts off the market, while the owners of large reinforced buildings would be able to reclaim the land, as if by an unintended consequence. Driving the risk tolerance of a society lower and lower interestingly dovetails with the ease of regulatory capture by large incumbent players, as if by coincidence.

pinoy420 1y ago

[dead]

Aurornis 1y ago

> I really dislike the UK's overall mindset to online safety. The laws consistently feel like they were written by someone that prints out emails to read The UK is a leading example of what calls for regulation turn into in the real world. I’ve noticed a lot of calls for regulation in Hacker News comments lately. In the past week I’ve read multiple threads here where people angrily called for regulations and consequence for anything LLM related they didn’t like: When LLMs produced mistakes, when they produce content too close to copyrighted works, and so on. There’s an idea that regulation is a magical function that you apply and then the big companies suffer consequences, products improve to perfection to avoid the regulations, and nothing is lost for consumers. Then you look at real-world heavy handed technology regulation and see what really happens: Companies just have to turn off access to countries with those regulations and continue on with their business. People who use the tools get VPNs and continue operating with a little extra hassle, cost, and lag. Businesses avoid those countries or shut down because it doesn’t make sense to try to comply. There’s a constant moving of goalposts, too: Every time someone points out the downsides of these regulations it’s imagined that better regulation would have exempted the small companies or made it cheap to comply (without details, of course). I think heavy handed technology regulation is yet another topic where the closer it gets to reality, the less people like it. When you point out real world examples, the response is always “No, not like that”

Timwi 1y ago
> When you point out real world examples, the response is always “No, not like that” My impression from this thread is that this is because the law was implemented in a way that's indicative of a lack of technical understanding on the part of the lawmakers and falls into a number of pitfalls that a law written by people competent in the field would avoid. Am I wrong?

ChrisRR 1y ago

UK's final goal to anything online always seems to be spying. They never seem to have a clue what to do with the data after that, but they're always damn eager to implement laws to allow for spying