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Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

lobste.rs

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Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#41

Post by secondcoming »

bb88 wrote: post #30
Red_Comet_88 wrote: post #13

They also block Brave browsers entirely. I tried reading into it, but it appears to be one of those "programmer personality quirks". The fellow that runs the site appears to think Brave is a scam of some sort, and just decided to block the entire browser. Oh well, I'll stick to HN.

Is it me, or is brave more of a cryptocurrency platform that pretends to be a browser? A lot of people don't really like the toxic discussions that crypto usually tends to devolve in. So it makes sense to block the browser if you don't want those people on your server.

I use Brave for YouTube and other streaming, and I've never encountered any crypto stuff. They have/had their own BAT token that dealt with paid advertising but I've not seen it mentioned in quite some time.

As far as I can tell it's just another browser that blocks a lot of internet crap.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#42

Post by regularjack »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #33
AdrianB1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can be arrested and extradited to UK. Not a high chance, but not zero. And a realistic one is to be arrested while traveling in Europe and extradited to UK.

Are there any previous cases of the UK intercepting and arresting a US citizen traveling through Europe for something that isn't a crime in the US?

Would you take the risk if it were you hosting the site?

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#43

Post by TiredOfLife »

bb88 wrote: post #30
Red_Comet_88 wrote: post #13

They also block Brave browsers entirely. I tried reading into it, but it appears to be one of those "programmer personality quirks". The fellow that runs the site appears to think Brave is a scam of some sort, and just decided to block the entire browser. Oh well, I'll stick to HN.

Is it me, or is brave more of a cryptocurrency platform that pretends to be a browser? A lot of people don't really like the toxic discussions that crypto usually tends to devolve in. So it makes sense to block the browser if you don't want those people on your server.

It's you.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#44

Post by Analemma_ »

basisword wrote: post #39
Analemma_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small forums run as hobby projects need to require little-to-no investment of time and money, or the ROI quickly goes negative and they just shut down instead. A little while back there was the story [0] of a Mastodon admin who hated CloudFlare and its centralized protection, but found that he had no choice but to sign up for it anyway because a disgruntled user kept launching DDoS attacks and he had no other way to…

It would be much easier for me to run a small business if I didn't have to worry about the intricacies of tax law or how the various company structures affect my liability - but that's life. If you want to do various things in life, you may have certain responsibilities. Again - I don't like this particular legislation, but if your hobby is a website where others can post content you have a responsibility that the co…

Yes, I could do that, or I could block the only country which is imposing these burdens on me, keep my website running as it always has been, and call it a day. It’s a pretty easy choice.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#45

Post by sshine »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #33
AdrianB1 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they can be arrested and extradited to UK. Not a high chance, but not zero. And a realistic one is to be arrested while traveling in Europe and extradited to UK.

Are there any previous cases of the UK intercepting and arresting a US citizen traveling through Europe for something that isn't a crime in the US?

There are no documented cases of the UK intercepting and arresting a US citizen traveling through Europe for an act that is not a crime in the United States.

Extradition treaties, such as the UK–US Extradition Treaty of 2003, allow for extradition requests between the two countries.

They generally require that the alleged offense be a crime in both jurisdictions ("dual criminality") which ensures that individuals are not extradited for actions that are not considered crimes in their home country.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#46

Post by blueflow »

Red_Comet_88 wrote: post #13

They also block Brave browsers entirely. I tried reading into it, but it appears to be one of those "programmer personality quirks". The fellow that runs the site appears to think Brave is a scam of some sort, and just decided to block the entire browser. Oh well, I'll stick to HN.

You can scroll through the lobste.rs moderation log to get in impression of how moderation on lobste.rs works:

https://lobste.rs/moderations

Also incidents like this:

https://lobste.rs/s/zp4ofg/lobster_burntsushi_has_left_site

This kind of stuff gives me hugbox vibes, i would not feel safe there. I'm somewhat sure some of the moderators use the website as personal political leverage.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#47

Post by [deleted] »

Red_Comet_88 wrote: post #13

They also block Brave browsers entirely. I tried reading into it, but it appears to be one of those "programmer personality quirks". The fellow that runs the site appears to think Brave is a scam of some sort, and just decided to block the entire browser. Oh well, I'll stick to HN.

[deleted]

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#48

Post by mattlondon »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #40
ok_dad wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China probably can’t get the USA to extradite an American citizen for breaking a Chinese law. The UK can.

Are there any examples in history of the US extraditing someone with no UK ties to the UK?

If you commit a crime in the UK then I would expect extradition to be a genuine risk.

It's a connected world, so online activities are probably pretty grey-areas. If you defraud someone (for example) but they're in another country, where did the crime happen?

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#49

Post by do_not_redeem »

regularjack wrote: post #42
do_not_redeem wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any previous cases of the UK intercepting and arresting a US citizen traveling through Europe for something that isn't a crime in the US?

Would you take the risk if it were you hosting the site?

100%. I'm very confident that, even if the UK wanted to upset this decades-long geopolitical equilibrium, they would not choose a small niche tech forum with a primarily non-UK userbase as the way they make their big splash on the global stage.

Re: Lobsters blocking UK users because of the Online Safety Act

#50

Post by mattlondon »

basisword wrote: post #21

As much as I hate this legislation, this is really just a small forum deciding they don't have the time to understand the legislation and therefore it's easier to block IP's from the UK (while it's not even clear if that will exempt them from liability). Fair enough but hardly earth shattering. I remember several US based websites geo-blocking all of Europe after GDPR came in (I think the LA Times was one of the bigg…

I think the legislation does not name specifically companies (that would be quite shortsighted since new apps etc appear all the time and they don't want to be updating legislation every time something gets popular), but simply says if you have more than 7 million 30-day active UK users of the user-to-user part of your site, then you're in-scope. That's quite a big audience.
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