Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 110 posts

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#11

Post by rovr138 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #9

My understanding is that the OSB creates a responsibility for Ofcom to create a regulatory system for discouraging online harms. Has Ofcom actually said what these regulations will be? Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? The interim codes of practice that the government published don't even apply at all to individuals. They also acknowledge that smaller companies should not be expect…

> My experience with online activists' predictions of imminent dystopia is that they generally turn out to be extremely overblown.

The questions in my opinion then become,

Is it the law preventing these? Is it some people not yet seeing why they should do it? Are they purposefully not doing it initially to calm people?

If they don’t want to be able to do it, it could be rephrased.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#13

Post by rovr138 »

austin-cheney wrote: post #8

Why isn't VPN to an out of country relay a solution? At any rate situations like these are what partially motivated me to write something like this: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

Costs would be one. That’s yet another cost you have to take on.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#15

Post by OJFord »

austin-cheney wrote: post #8

Why isn't VPN to an out of country relay a solution? At any rate situations like these are what partially motivated me to write something like this: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

I assume:

1) we're talking about the legal situation, not what would be physically possible;

2) that it applies to citizens, not server location (otherwise affected companies wouldn't be saying they'll exit the UK market, they'd just serve UK users from a further away but friendlier 'edge')

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#16

Post by tm2t »

austin-cheney wrote: post #8

Why isn't VPN to an out of country relay a solution? At any rate situations like these are what partially motivated me to write something like this: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

I don't think it would be legal either since VPNs require encryption, too. Maybe some kind of proxy?

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#17

Post by b800h »

tm2t wrote: post #16
austin-cheney wrote: post #8

Why isn't VPN to an out of country relay a solution? At any rate situations like these are what partially motivated me to write something like this: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

I don't think it would be legal either since VPNs require encryption, too. Maybe some kind of proxy?

It's important to distinguish this from the encryption provisions of the bill. This part of the bill is distinct and means that social sites will need to verify ages of users and fill in lots of forms while they're at it.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#18

Post by tm2t »

b800h wrote: post #17
tm2t wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be legal either since VPNs require encryption, too. Maybe some kind of proxy?

It's important to distinguish this from the encryption provisions of the bill. This part of the bill is distinct and means that social sites will need to verify ages of users and fill in lots of forms while they're at it.

I see. Thanks for the explanation :)

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#19

Post by ChrisKnott »

rovr138 wrote: post #11
ChrisKnott wrote: post #9

My understanding is that the OSB creates a responsibility for Ofcom to create a regulatory system for discouraging online harms. Has Ofcom actually said what these regulations will be? Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? The interim codes of practice that the government published don't even apply at all to individuals. They also acknowledge that smaller companies should not be expect…

> My experience with online activists' predictions of imminent dystopia is that they generally turn out to be extremely overblown. The questions in my opinion then become, Is it the law preventing these? Is it some people not yet seeing why they should do it? Are they purposefully not doing it initially to calm people? If they don’t want to be able to do it, it could be rephrased.

By way of analogy, the government might make a law that allows, in secondary legislation, the setting of a driving speed limit.

These activists are claiming that the government is secretly intending the speed limit to be 1mph. The government are trying to ban driving!! The activists are demanding the enabling legislation be amended so that the speed limit, when set, must be no lower than Xmph.

But all this does is force all regulation to be done in primary legislation.

The debate about what the regulations should be is separate to there being a regulatory system at all.

It is right that the primary legislation just lays out in broad terms that the regulations must be "reasonable" and "proportionate" etc because it's only real purpose is to allow those regulations to be challenged in court in future.

Re: Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK Online Safety Bill

#20

Post by b800h »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #19
rovr138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My experience with online activists' predictions of imminent dystopia is that they generally turn out to be extremely overblown. The questions in my opinion then become, Is it the law preventing these? Is it some people not yet seeing why they should do it? Are they purposefully not doing it initially to calm people? If they don’t want to be able to do it, it could be rephrased.

By way of analogy, the government might make a law that allows, in secondary legislation, the setting of a driving speed limit. These activists are claiming that the government is secretly intending the speed limit to be 1mph. The government are trying to ban driving!! The activists are demanding the enabling legislation be amended so that the speed limit, when set, must be no lower than Xmph. But all this does is fo…

That's not my understanding of the legislation. I see no exemptions from the child access provisions. The criterion is "any site with a significant number of child users" or where additionally OFCOM decides to intervene, and where significant is not defined.

And of course you seem to have to perform an audit to determine how many child users you have in order to be exempted.

Again, this is my reading of the very complex bill. The article from Taylor Wessing seems to concur though.

Post reply on HN