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Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

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Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#161

Post by thrance »

milesrout wrote: post #145
thrance wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The point the person you are responding to is saying is that even discussing this is, under his interpretation, "illegal content". Which presumably would make your comment illegal content. I am not sure I agree but either this law is very poorly communicated to the public, or it is batshit insane authoritarian nonsense, if that is what people are taking away from it, but either way it is a major fuckup.

Well it's not obviously, otherwise the text of law would be illegal content too. It's just another bad faith interpretation of this kind of laws that I very often see on American-centered socials.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#162

Post by teamonkey »

mihaaly wrote: post #133
rich_sasha wrote: post #59

It's awkward. It's clear this law affects terribly bona fide grassroots online communities. I hope HN doesn't start geoblocking the UK away! But then online hate and radicalization really is a thing. What do you do about it? Facebook seems overflowing with it, and their moderators can't keep up with the flow, nor can their mental health keep up. So it's real and it's going to surface somewhere. At some level, I think…

UK is sensitive about verbal manners, that is 'of utmost importance' (among all the others of course), just to use one of the most popular phrase here. If you suffer some outrageous impact in your life and complain in bad manner you may be punished further some way, socially or even contractually. One example is the TOC of Natwest. They close your account immediately if your conduct is offensive or discriminatory tow…

I once saw someone propose a national service where you are required to work in a customer-facing job for a year, and I think about that a lot.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#163

Post by fuzzfactor »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #141

Fear/risk is at work here. Government by clear guidance, not guesswork is needed. The word "unlikely" is doing too much lifting in the guidance. OFCOM need to hard clarity with the kind of detail to satisfy lawyers. OSB is sound in its aims, a fumbled hot potato in its long-long discussion, a hash of an implementation, and the explication/communication is a regurgitated dogs dinner. Normally our gov communication is…

When lawmaking gets stupid, the stupid turn pro :0

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#164

Post by Dylan16807 »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #139
multjoy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the proposal is that there is a power of entry where the police have reasonable grounds to believe stolen property is on the premises and that this is supported by tracking data and that authority to enter is provided and recorded by a police inspector. This is analogous to s18 PACE post-arrest powers, grafted onto s17 PACE. The alternative is that we continue to require police to try and get a fast-time warrant…

The topic here is how they made running public forums a crime. After making secure communications a crime. And you think a state like that cares about the formalities? lol.. They just doing what every other monarchy and dictatorship has done in a desperate bid to hold onto power while the state collapses due to inept leadership.

> The topic here is how they made running public forums a crime.

You brought up warrants, they counterpointed the warrants.

> And you think a state like that cares about the formalities? lol..

The warrant is a formality, isn't it? I'm pretty sure you're arguing against your own point now.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#165

Post by sva_ »

josephg wrote: post #157
mjburgess wrote: post #44

What is the meaning of "illegal content" given in the OSA? What will social media platforms be forced to censor (, remove, ..) ... let's take a look: Table 1.1: Priority offences by category ( https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/onli... ) Disucssion of offenses related to: prostitution, drugs, abuse & insults, suicide, "stiring up of racial/religious hatred", fraud and "foreign interference". So o…

> This free-thinking university student's entire online life seems to have been criminalised in mere discussion by the OSA There's nothing illegal about hosting a forum. The problem is that you as the site operator are legally required to take down certain kinds of content if and when it appears. Small sites with no money or staff don't have the resources to pay for a full time moderator. That cost scales with the nu…

> Maybe an LLM can carry some of the load here for free forums like this to keep operating?

It can't give you any guarantees, and it can't be held liable for those mistakes.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#166

Post by hnlmorg »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #153
RLN wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I knew when I left (I was the last of my school year to do so) it was going to get bad once Elizabeth died How small was your school year?! What does Elizabeth (presumably the 2nd) dying have to do with anything?

>What does Elizabeth (presumably the 2nd) dying have to do with anything? Lets just say her replacements brother is Andrew, and his best mate was Jimmey Saville. Should tell you all you need to know about her replacement with less chance of me ending up like David Kelly. Heads of state do matter, regardless of how much propaganda they push that they only matter in other countries. These laws are not something the lab…

First of all, the King isn’t Prince Andrew. That guy simply isn’t the head of state and nor will he ever be.

Secondly, the British monarchy have absolutely nothing to do with politics and have remained impartial for nearly 100 years.

The UK government has always been right wing compared to most of the rest of western Europe. It sucks, but it is what it is. But the way you’re talking is as if the UK has suddenly gone to hell when the reality is just that this is just more of the same.

If anything, the biggest footgun the UK has done was leaving the EU, and that was something the dumb British public voted for. We did it to ourselves.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#167

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #84
observationist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't. "Hate speech" is code for "the government knows better and controls what you say." Yes, racism exists and people say hateful things. Hate speech is in the interpretation. The US has it right with the first amendment - you have to be egregiously over the line for speech to be illegal, and in all sorts of cases there are exceptions and it's almost always a case-by-case determination. Hateful things said by p…

I see no reason why hate speech should be given the benefit of the doubt. And no, it's not because my government told me so, I have my own opinion, which is that freedom of speech ends where threats of violence appear. If you don't want it tolerated online, which I don't, you need some kind of legal statement saying so. Like a law that says, you can't do it, and websites can't just shrug their shoulders and say it's…

I agree that threats of violence cross a line, but I think that many countries interpret hate speech to be much broader than this, and there's certainly room for people to disagree, or for one person to say something in a neutral and non-hateful way that another person interprets as a hateful attack.

Some edge cases might include: arguing about interpretations of historical events (eg. Holocaust denial, colonialism, nuclear bombings); arguing about the economic effects of immigration policy; suggesting that one country or another is currently committing genocide; suggesting that one country or another is not currently committing genocide; expressing support for a country or political party that some consider to be committing genocide; arguing that travel restrictions should be imposed on certain countries to contain an epidemic; writing "kill all men" on reddit; publishing a satirical political cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammad; advocating political independence for some geographic region; expressing support for the police in an instance in which they took a state-authorized violent action; expressing support for a vigilante; expressing support for one's country during a violent conflict; expressing sympathy with the opposing side during a conflict; demanding stronger legal penalties for criminals (eg. supporting Singapore's death penalty for drug dealers); publishing a fiction novel in which the villain is a member of a minority group and acts in accordance with a stereotype.

Personally, while I think limits are necessary, the guidelines should be extremely specific and the interpretation extremely narrow to minimize any chilling effect on legitimate expression and discussion. Even where speech can verge into hurtful or offensive territory, I think it's important to allow it in the open, because I think dialogue builds more bridges than it burns. I am concerned that a lot of internet hate-speech legislation goes too far into leaving hatred open to interpretation, which results in conversation spaces being closed down because of the potential liability.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#168

Post by [deleted] »

aimazon wrote: post #86
ziddoap wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll avoid searching for other examples, as you seem to want to latch onto the example itself rather than the broader message the examples communicate. The fact is that some people are shutting down operations of websites, deleting data, etc. in response to this law. Just considering that the law is forcing people to think about shutting down operations is a sign that the law is having a chilling effect. Both for exi…

Some people are protesting against this law by threatening to shut down their websites or by deleting content. The founder of lfgss explicitly said they’re against the law on principle. I think historic content is very valuable which is why I am offended by this absurd response on hacker news where people are conflating the actions of a protest with the consequence of a law. If someone chooses to protest this law by…

[deleted]

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#169

Post by Out_of_Characte »

ryandrake wrote: post #142
jltsiren wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the actual risk is minimal, countries do have reach beyond their borders. For example, if you ever leave your home country to visit a third country, that country could arrest you and extradite you to the country that doesn't like you. Or they could force any financial institution (or even any company) that wants to do business within their territory to stop doing business with you. The EU probably wouldn't do t…

What are the chances that someone who runs a tiny, hobby motorcycle forum is going to be extradited from his vacation abroad for breaking a U.K. law? 0.1%? 0.01%? 0.001%? Less? If we only did zero-risk things, nobody would do anything.

That probability is entirely based on the premise that the extradition treaties that the UK has signed with other countries would NOT follow UK law despite the treaty soley based on the premise of being a political refugee for their free expression. What will likely happen, and what often happens with other countries in the third world, is that 'politically problematic' people are being caught in neighbouring countries only to be sent back based on friendly geopolitics. There's no law for lawlessness. This is what happens when north koreans escape and get caught in china or russia. This is what could happen when you accidently post something of political consequence on a tiny motorcycle website that isn't usually being watched but one angry user could be someone's worst nightmare. Also, gangs of motorcycle enthousiasts havent been the most inconsequential group of people you could have used as an example.

Re: Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act

#170

Post by Dylan16807 »

aimazon wrote: post #86
ziddoap wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll avoid searching for other examples, as you seem to want to latch onto the example itself rather than the broader message the examples communicate. The fact is that some people are shutting down operations of websites, deleting data, etc. in response to this law. Just considering that the law is forcing people to think about shutting down operations is a sign that the law is having a chilling effect. Both for exi…

Some people are protesting against this law by threatening to shut down their websites or by deleting content. The founder of lfgss explicitly said they’re against the law on principle. I think historic content is very valuable which is why I am offended by this absurd response on hacker news where people are conflating the actions of a protest with the consequence of a law. If someone chooses to protest this law by…

> there’s not a single risk to anyone who leaves a website online in read only mode

Your posts make sense if this is true, but I really don't think it's true.

Your argument that they won't be fussed to do anything about archived websites is very much not zero risk.

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