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Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

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Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#21

Post by exasperaited »

rokkamokka wrote: post #8
exasperaited wrote: post #6

This adds little to the debate. A really interesting question would be to ask Aylo -- the world's largest pornographer -- why they are complying with the UK law and working with the regulator (population ~70M), but blocking whole states in response to the French law (population ~70M also) and Texas (population ~30M). Because there obviously is some nuance and realpolitik here, when Aylo could very easily just block t…

Perhaps they earn more from the UK market? Or decided it was easier to comply with that specific law.

It was a partly rhetorical question.

They have an age verification business.

But they also have a policy position about this and I'm not sure anyone has asked them to talk about those three decisions in the same sentence, as it were.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#22

Post by exasperaited »

fidotron wrote: post #11

Absolutely nothing about it has gone wrong. They have collected some personal data from law abiding pornography consumers: obvious perverts who should know better anyway. If their information gets released it will be their own fault. Some other stuff got hidden, but that's no problem as the BBC will tell you anything that you need to know anyway. They can, and will, readily ban VPNs later, since those have no legitim…

> They have collected some personal data from law abiding pornography consumers:

Who is "they"?

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#23

Post by VikingMiner »

azalemeth wrote: post #15

An obligatory link for either anyone living in Britain or with British citizenship: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903 More people have signed this than the membership of the labour party(!)

The whole country could sign that petition and it will be ignored. There is no legal/political solution to this. The sooner people accept that the better.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#24

Post by exasperaited »

implements wrote: post #10

Any device with a Government service (eg NHS) or a Banking app knows who and old the primary user is, so seems the obvious technological solution is some kind of securely anonymous attestation that websites can request from the OS.

This appears to be what Aylo think, essentially:

https://www.aylo.com/assets/files/age_verification_fact_shee...

And I think this is right. If Apple and Google can add a thing that lets us track Covid exposure they can surely figure out secure age attestation.

As it is, you can use your mobile phone for simple age attestation in the UK anyway, since mobile phone companies block adult content by default until they are unblocked, as a parental control measure.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#25

Post by gotoeleven »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #14

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I really hate this statement: Until we start thinking about the true test of any policy: implementation and enforcement. The true test of policy should be the desired outcome behind that policy.

You're saying the true test of a policy is its stated intentions? This attitude is exactly why we get so many terrible, unworkable policies with terrible unintended consequences (though often the consequences are so obvious that the claims that they are "unintended" are incredible).

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#26

Post by exasperaited »

crimsoneer wrote: post #13
alexisread wrote: post #9

It's mostly deliberate. Current petition to revoke it has half a million signatures, and the government have stated they will ignore that. Censorship is one of the advantages they like: https://freespeechunion.org/protest-footage-blocked-as-onlin...

I mean, this was in the manifesto for both the major parties - this is really not what the petition website is for, and it was never going anywhere. X flagging protest footage as adult content is not the endgame of some great british elitist conspiracy.

> X flagging protest footage as adult content is not the endgame of some great british elitist conspiracy.

No indeed, but it might be the beginning of a political campaign.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#27

Post by hexis »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #14

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I really hate this statement: Until we start thinking about the true test of any policy: implementation and enforcement. The true test of policy should be the desired outcome behind that policy.

Why would the desired outcome be a more true test than the actual outcome?

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#28

Post by snickerdoodle12 »

FerretFred wrote: post #18

For me personally, I agree that wanting non-adults to be able get at online porn is commendable, and the fact that the tech industry is scrambling over itself to comply is evidence that this Act has teeth. However, what bugs me personally is that 1) The Government had nearly 2 years head start to set up a centralised ID repository, hopefully basing it on the same model as the DVLA and Passport Office sharing photo an…

Everyone who is currently an adult and not geriatric could have had access to porn when they were a child. Is everyone fucked up? No? Why are you advocating for eliminating privacy for a made up problem?

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#29

Post by snickerdoodle12 »

TheBigSalad wrote: post #14

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I really hate this statement: Until we start thinking about the true test of any policy: implementation and enforcement. The true test of policy should be the desired outcome behind that policy.

If the desired outcome is world peace and the means of which is murdering every human then I don't think the desired outcome is all that relevant.

Re: Online Safety Act: What went wrong?

#30

Post by Zak »

> a statement like “we should stop young kids watching porn” is so agreeable that only the nuttiest amongst us could even begin to disagree with it

I mostly disagree with it. I don't want prepubescent children watching porn of course, but the vast majority of them aren't doing that with any regularity, nor do they have any desire to. It isn't a problem that demands a robust solution with serious downsides.

I do think an HTTP header saying "no adult content" that can be turned on via both simple browser settings and password-protected parental controls is a good idea. That would reduce accidental or casual exposure to porn and have no meaningful downsides.

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