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

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

#91

Post by Silhouette »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #74
Silhouette wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason to expect them to be as dystopian as you predict? Previous laws relating to policing and investigatory powers have been widely criticised by civil rights groups for their overreach and lack of effective oversight and safeguards. We now know that some of those laws have in fact been abused in ways the critics predicted. Secondary legislation has been widely criticised when used as a vehicle for gov…

> "Previous laws relating to policing and investigatory powers have been widely criticised by civil rights groups for their overreach and lack of effective oversight and safeguards. We now know that some of those laws have in fact been abused in ways the critics predicted." What are you referring to here?

Take RIPA for example. Local authorities have literally deployed drones for covert surveillance. They have invoked powers under the Act in trivial cases such as fly tipping, dog fouling and deciding which school catchment area a child fell within. In some cases they were subsequently criticised for it or even found to have acted unlawfully but that obviously doesn't mean that the intrusion didn't happen or that the victims of that intrusion weren't distressed and possibly harassed as a result prior to some formal legal action going their way often at a much later date.

There is absolutely no legitimate justification for local authorities dealing with those kinds of issues to have access to the kinds of lawful surveillance and intrusion powers that RIPA is primarily concerned with. Even if you accept that those powers are justified and necessary in cases such as imminent national security threats or investigating organised crime that still doesn't explain why so many organisations that are not the police, security services or perhaps HMRC need them.

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

#92

Post by pas »

IshKebab wrote: post #88
osigurdson wrote: post #73

Certainly the online activities that the bill is meant to address will still continue. Criminals don’t care about following the law unfortunately.

While I think this law is bonkers, "then only criminals will have guns" style arguments are terrible counterpoints. They depend on a 5 year old's view of the world where there are "good guys" and "bad guys" and nobody is a bit in-between. They also use the same oversimplification that economists are famous for - that everyone has perfect information, acts completely rationally, has infinite motivation, etc. etc. In t…

offtopic: economists use these models in places where even these oversimplified ones work pretty well

and usually the issues with results are not because information asymmetry

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

#93

Post by KomoD »

> you become a private service provider, and then have a host of responsibilities including annual audits of whether a significant proportion of your users are minors. If they are then you need to use a (commercial?) age verification tool and monitor everything assiduously. Difficult to see most people being able to satisfy those requirements.

And then I just block the UK instead, let's hope this just doesn't go through.

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

#94

Post by osigurdson »

IshKebab wrote: post #88
osigurdson wrote: post #73

Certainly the online activities that the bill is meant to address will still continue. Criminals don’t care about following the law unfortunately.

While I think this law is bonkers, "then only criminals will have guns" style arguments are terrible counterpoints. They depend on a 5 year old's view of the world where there are "good guys" and "bad guys" and nobody is a bit in-between. They also use the same oversimplification that economists are famous for - that everyone has perfect information, acts completely rationally, has infinite motivation, etc. etc. In t…

I think the 5 year old’s bimodal criminality distribution is likely more accurate than your posited normal one - unless the spectrum you refer to includes parking tickets, and bylaw infractions.

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

#95

Post by getwiththeprog »

scandum wrote: post #80
b800h wrote: post #14

Should add MUDs, website guestbooks?

MUDs are easily hosted abroad. Problem solved. This reminds me of UK's 90% tax rate, which caused many multi-millionaires to leave the country.

Could you please provide evidence of a 90% tax rate? I don't believe you.

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

#96

Post by ThrustVectoring »

cjs_ac wrote: post #35

While I'm not a supporter of the Online Safety Bill, I do find that the opprobrium that it has inspired is consistently hyperbolic. The Online Safety Bill bans nothing . What it does do is create a regulatory framework for the Office for Communications (aka Ofcom, HM Government's regulator for the communications industry) to operate and enforce. The regulatory framework is based around risk assessments, and sets out…

Of course the government is going to enforce only a fraction of the offenses it creates. This is nearly always the case, and is mostly irrelevant to a law's actual effectiveness. That is derived from a combination of targeting the highest-profile offenders and the law acting as a press release as to the government's enforcement priorities.

Like, imagine you're running a team developing an end-to-end encrypted application in Britain, and you're seeking funding. The potential investors are going to ask what your plan is to not get owned by this bill, you won't have a good answer outside of "hope they don't notice us", and they won't invest. This happens merely because the British government publicized the Online Safety Bill, and exactly zero enforcement effort was required to stifle the funding, development, and subsequent use of this hypothetical application.

Anyhow, the short of my point is that government laws have a ton of power to shape behavior outside of prosecuting people, and sensible risk-management shapes the behavior of non-government bureaucrats and decisionmakers.

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

#97

Post by jlokier »

getwiththeprog wrote: post #95
scandum wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MUDs are easily hosted abroad. Problem solved. This reminds me of UK's 90% tax rate, which caused many multi-millionaires to leave the country.

Could you please provide evidence of a 90% tax rate? I don't believe you.

It ended 51 years ago in 1972, but there was indeed a top rate of income tax called "super-tax" or "surtax" (only for very high earners) of 90% for a few decades:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni...

"The highest rate of income tax peaked in the Second World War at 99.25%. It was then slightly reduced and was around 90% through the 1950s and 60s.[citation needed]

In 1971 the top rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%. A surcharge of 15% kept the top rate on investment income at 90%. In 1974 the cut was partly reversed and the top rate on earned income was raised to 83%. With the investment income surcharge this raised the top rate on investment income to 98%, the highest permanent rate since the war.[14] This applied to incomes over £20,000 (£221,741 as of 2021).

The Government of Margaret Thatcher, who favoured taxation on consumption, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s in favour of indirect taxation. In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%."

According to the history linked below, the super-tax/surtax was started in 1909, taxed only the top 0.05% of earners, and caused a constitutional crises as the budget was rejected by the House of Lords:

https://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/Economics/History/Paper43/43atkins...

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

#98

Post by b800h »

darkclouds wrote: post #39
b800h wrote: post #5

Interestingly, if you run a BBS through the telephone system, you'll be immune, as the bill specifies "the Internet", but: 1. I think the lines have jitter now they're over IP anyhow. 2. Bit niche...

> you'll be immune, as the bill specifies "the Internet" UK POTS is switching over to an IP based network, so does the bill specify the internet or ip based network? If you submit a GDPR to your local constabulary, every phone call in the UK has a unique call identify much like a GUID now. Its quite insightful seeing just how much info is given out regarding the phone system capabilities via GDPR requests.

It specifies "the Internet" and doesn't seem to define the term.

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

#99

Post by IshKebab »

osigurdson wrote: post #94
IshKebab wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think this law is bonkers, "then only criminals will have guns" style arguments are terrible counterpoints. They depend on a 5 year old's view of the world where there are "good guys" and "bad guys" and nobody is a bit in-between. They also use the same oversimplification that economists are famous for - that everyone has perfect information, acts completely rationally, has infinite motivation, etc. etc. In t…

I think the 5 year old’s bimodal criminality distribution is likely more accurate than your posited normal one - unless the spectrum you refer to includes parking tickets, and bylaw infractions.

It includes everything. Fraud, shoplifting, term time holidays (a criminal offence in the UK), pub fights, stealing office equipment, piracy, taking photos of your own naked children, dangerous driving, manslaughter, criminal negligence, insider trading, murder...

Just curious, do you support the death penalty?

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

#100

Post by DoItToMe81 »

cjs_ac wrote: post #35

While I'm not a supporter of the Online Safety Bill, I do find that the opprobrium that it has inspired is consistently hyperbolic. The Online Safety Bill bans nothing . What it does do is create a regulatory framework for the Office for Communications (aka Ofcom, HM Government's regulator for the communications industry) to operate and enforce. The regulatory framework is based around risk assessments, and sets out…

The UK arrests more people annually for harmless internet activity than any other nation. It does affect them, as its only a matter of time before they actively hunt you down for 'causing psychological harm' over innocent comments.
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