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UK to force social media to remove abusive pics in 48 hours
- jgbuddy 8mo agoI wonder how 'abusive' is categorized. By some committee maybe?
- superkuh 8mo agoThey're both underdefining what "intimate images" means and using the term images instead of photos. So this means they want this to apply to everything that can be represented visually even if it has nothing to do with anything that happened in reality. Which means they don't care about actual harms. The way they're using the word 'harm' seems be to more in line with the word 'offend'. So now in the UK if there is an offensive image (like a painting) posted on a web site (or other internet protocol) they are going to be, " treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content,". That's wild. And dangerous. This policy will do far more damage than any painting or other non-photo images would.
- iMark 8mo agoI agree that laws such as this to be defined very carefully, but I think "images" is the appropriate term to use, rather than "photos". LLMs make it near trivially easy to render a photo in countless styles, after all, such as paintings, or sketches.
- actionfromafar 8mo agoI hate to appear to defend this, but generative AI has sort of collapsed the distinction between a photo and an image. I could generate an image from a photo which told the same story, then delete the photo, and now everything is peachy fine? So that could have been a motivation for "images". Though I wonder if not existing frameworks around slander and libel could be made to address the brave new world of AI augmented abuse.
- pjc50 8mo agoLibel is both incredibly expensive (£100k average per case, not eligible for legal aid) and unreliable (can be used to silence true information).
- actionfromafar 8mo agoMaybe we should tweak some of those laws, then.
- vr46 8mo agoWhat bit of "intimate images shared without a victim's consent" is lacking context in the article?
- Manuel_D 8mo agoWhat qualifies as an "intimate image"? A photo of someone in a swimsuit at the beach? Fictional content is also covered by this law. How do we determine what fictional content counts as an intimate image of a real person? What if the creator of an AI image adds a birthmark that the real life subject doesn't have, is that sufficient differentiation to no longer count as an intimate image of a real person? What if they change the subject's eye color, too?
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo agoIf you envision yourself as a potential victim of such content, I think the answers to these questions all become pretty obvious. A swimsuit photo might or might not be intimate, depending on what kind of swimsuit it is and the context in which the person posting the photo is presenting it. A birthmark you don't have or a different eye color obviously do not make a fictionalized image become "not you" because they would not reduce the violation you'd feel.
- Manuel_D 8mo ago> A birthmark you don't have or a different eye color obviously do not make a fictionalized image become "not you" because they would not reduce the violation you'd feel. What if someone claims to feel violated by an image of a person that looks totally different: different skin color, different build, different facial structure, etc?
- SpicyLemonZest 8mo agoThen they'll try to convince the authorities that the image is of them, and presumably mostly fail although in some cases they may succeed. (If you're worried about something like the US DMCA, that's almost certainly not going to be the proposal; the UK has a number of existing 48 hour takedown policies, and they all involve orders from the authorities rather than self-certified requests from random third parties.)
- SamoyedFurFluff 8mo agoI think if I produced inappropriate images that are identifiable as a specific child victim, who obviously cannot consent to have inappropriate images generated of their likeness, I believe images and photos are a distinction without a difference.
- noobermin 8mo agoI had to google a bit, but this Guardian article[1] goes into a lot more detail than the Register piece here. I was of the opinion that this sounds too onerous and ill-defined when I first read the Register piece especially with censorship on the rise in Europe recently, but the Guardian piece made me side more with this particular policy. It doesn't sound as broad as the Register piece puts it, it sounds like it's specifically for revenge porn and generating deep fake porn non-consensually, not any "intimate image" which I agree is far too broad. Albeit, of all governments, I'd suspect especially the current UK government is to be amongst the most likely to say expand these powers to speech they don't like or general pornography one day, etc, it doesn't sound like this specific policy is broad yet according to the Guardian article. The Register piece is using "intimate image" as a euphemism I think whereas the intent of the policy is a bit more defined and specific. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/18/tech-firms-must-remove-revenge-porn-in-48-hours-or-risk-being-blocked-says-starmer https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/feb/18/tech-firms-m...
- femiagbabiaka 8mo agoBlame xAI. It has to be worded in this way to capture the behavior they allowed to persist.
- Ray20 8mo ago[flagged]
- femiagbabiaka 8mo agolol, in fact, lmao
- Quarrelsome 8mo agohow is blaming X's ai product victim blaming? It was allowing its users to generate CSA images and X's first response(s) to the problem didn't appear to take the issue seriously.
- logankeenan 8mo agoRegardless of how you feel about content moderation, 48 hours is a ridiculously long time given what AI can do today. That “bad” image could have been propagated around the world to millions of people in that time. It can and should be removed in minutes because AI can evaluate the “bad” image quickly and a human moderator isn’t required anymore. However, the compute costs would eat into profits… Again, I’m not judging about content moderation, but this is an extremely weak initiative.
- Manuel_D 8mo agoThe issue is that if you need to achieve 0% false negatives, you're going to get a lot of false positives.
- timr 8mo agoAnother, related issue is that the takedown mechanism becomes a de facto censorship mechanism, as anyone who has dealt with DMCA takedowns and automated detectors can tell you. Someone reports something for Special Pleading X, and you (the operator) have to ~instantly take down the thing, by law. There is never an equally efficient mechanism to push back against abuses -- there can't be, because it exposes the operator to legal risk in doing so. So you effectively have a one-sided mechanism for removal of unwanted content. Maybe this is fine for "revenge porn", but even ignoring the slippery slope argument (which is real -- we already have these kinds of rules for copyrighted content!) it's not so easy to cleanly define "revenge porn".
- bluGill 8mo agoDMCA isn't directly that bad. DMCA is under penalty of perjury, so false take downs are rare. The problem is most take downs are not actually DMCA, they are some other non-legal process that isn't under any legal penalty. Though if it ever happens to you I suspect you have a good case against whoever did this - but the lawyer costs will far exceed your total gain. (as in spend $30 million or more to collect $100). Either we need enough people affected by a false non-DMCA take down that a class action can work (you get $0.50 but at least they pay something), or we need legal reform so that all take downs against a third party are ???
- pjc50 8mo agoActual non-reg statement: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tech-firms-will-have-to-take-down-abusive-images-within-48-hours-under-new-law-to-protect-women-and-girls https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tech-firms-will-have-to-t... The key phrase is "non-consensual intimate image" commonly known as "revenge porn". It seems this includes fakes as well. Edit: full text of draft legislation https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-and-policing-bill-2025 https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/crime-and-policing... ; still very much in the process of being amended. I note that publishing NCII is already an offence in Scotland, although it doesn't have this kind of liability for platforms. Primarily used against ex-partners publishing real or fake revenge images.
- bArray 8mo ago> The UK is bracketing "intimate images shared without a victim's consent" along with terror and child sexual abuse material, and demanding that online platforms remove them within two days. Bare in mind, this would have been used to stop the Epstein images of the former Prince Andrew from being viewed [1]. > Platforms that do not do so would potentially face fines of 10 percent of "qualifying worldwide income" or have their services blocked in the UK. Why on earth would it be 10% of their world wide income and not their UK-based income? These politicians really think they have more power than they really do. > The amendment follows outrage over the Elon Musk-owned chatbot Grok's willingness to generate nude or sexualized images of people, mainly women and girls, which forced a climbdown earlier this year. The AI didn't just randomly generate NSFW content, it did it at the request of the user. Remember, there was no interest in removing the CP content from Twitter prior to Musk buying it, and then they all moved to Mastodon / BlueSky where they now share that content. > The government said: "Plans are currently being considered by Ofcom for these kinds of images to be treated with the same severity as child sexual abuse and terrorism content, digitally marking them so that any time someone tries to repost them, they will be automatically taken down." Ofcom simply doesn't have this kind of power. 4chan are showing as much [2]. This is simply massive overreach by the UK government, and I would advise tech giants to stop complying. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g5490xmkeo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g5490xmkeo [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6ejedj59no https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6ejedj59no
- pjc50 8mo ago> Why on earth would it be 10% of their world wide income and not their UK-based income? These politicians really think they have more power than they really do. Regardless of whether the actions of the British state are correct, I do not think it is a good position that a foreign tech company is more powerful than the British state. This is basically the same argument for the US forced divestiture of TikTok.
- thaumasiotes 8mo ago> I do not think it is a good position that a foreign tech company is more powerful than the British state. Britain is a weak state. There will always be foreign companies more powerful than it is. The only way to change that would be for the British state to become extremely powerful. Does it bother you if a British company is more powerful than the state of Turkmenistan?
- Frieren 8mo ago> The amendment follows outrage over the Elon Musk-owned chatbot Grok's willingness to generate nude or sexualized images of people, mainly women and girls, which forced a climbdown earlier this year. Laws are reactive. When abuses of the system happen lawmakers need to find ways to minimize the damage. This is one of the reasons that Google used to follow the "do not do evil" doctrine. It was a smart way to minimize regulation. The new big tech has thrown any aparence of morality thru the windows and that creates a strong need to regulate their actions.
- ronsor 8mo agoReactivity is not a virtue. If your existing laws are already not being followed, then adding more is a folly that merely possesses the illusion of effectiveness.
- throwa356262 8mo agoIn the meantime, Zoom is refusing to help police track down peddos that use Zoom meetings to broadcast live sexual abuse of children.
- cap11235 8mo agoKeep fellating those boots.
- throwa356262 8mo agoZoom is currently refusing to hand over IP of people joining live molestation meetings despite being shown the recording of those meetings. They are knowingly protecting pedophiles. This is not a "think about the children, add backdoors to everything" comment.
- cap11235 8mo agoThen it should be easy for the cops to get a subpeona. No need for backdoors if you just want people to bend over willingly.
- throwa356262 8mo agoNo backdoor, this is zoom literally refusing request from the police in EU.
- aunty_helen 8mo agoSorry, building surveillance and control infrastructure isn't intended to "help the children," that's just a confusing part of the name. Our mistake whoops.
- whywhywhywhy 8mo agoThe threats of demanding the handing over of revenue by ofcom mean nothing. Offenders outside the UK just laugh and ridicule at the demands or block uk traffic which uk people can bypass with a VPN. They have no power to enforce the demands. You’d have to essentially police all VPN use beyond China levels to get the worst offenders of this.
- pjc50 8mo agoI think the UK is capable of suing a US-based publicly traded corporation. It's not like they're hiding. (keyword appears to be Recognition Acts: https://www.uniformlaws.org/committees/community-home?CommunityKey=ae280c30-094a-4d8f-b722-8dcd614a8f3e https://www.uniformlaws.org/committees/community-home?Commun... )
- delichon 8mo agoThey can sue a US company in a US court under US law, but won't get far in a US court trying to enforce UK law. Preston Byrne is a good follow on this: https://x.com/prestonjbyrne https://x.com/prestonjbyrne
- mrbluecoat 8mo agoHence their threat to block the platform in the UK
- delichon 8mo agoYes, and that is all of their leverage on US companies. They don't need US courts or any US cooperation for that. 4chan doesn't care, so they don't care about the £20,000 fine that Ofcom imposed on them. We will likely find out how much X cares soon.
- lunias 8mo agoI'm not a fan of forcing sites to police themselves. As far as I'm concerned, that's what the police are for. Simply removing such an image does not necessarily mean that the uploader is being held accountable. This also only affects the lowest of IQ predators while creating an additional barrier to entry (regulatory capture) for anyone that wants to run their own "social media site". Can we also get a legal definition of "social media"? Is that really just as simple as "services which allow multi-directional communication"? Hate to break it to them, but the internet proper is, itself, a service which allows multi-directional communication. No matter how many walled gardens are created, the 1s and 0s will continue to flow unimpeded.
- silexia 8mo ago[flagged]