Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill • Hacker News Board

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#101

Post by ChrisKnott » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #67

> If a British child could merely type your URL into a browser, the site is in scope. Seems incorrect, no? The visit is more important than just typing URL. Worst-case scenario I will check your IP and if its in UK/GB scope, you will see "Unable to browse this site due to your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy"

The whole article is written like this - hyperbolically presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law.

> [A pretty reasonable set of questions that companies must consider regarding how children might be harmed on their service]

> "you’re probably curled up in a ball crying"

No actually, I wasn't.

Filtering out the breathless commentary, the actual proposals don't seem that bad...? Certainly no worse than GDPR obligations and nowhere near the kind of regulatory compliance industries like Manufacturing, Construction and Medicine have to meet.

Admittedly I didn't make it to the end of the article because the tone was beginning to grate too much.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#102

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

buscoquadnary wrote: post #11

My belief is that the open internet began to pose a threat to those in power, they now seek to divide the internet back up along national boundaries via absurd regulations in order to for the traditional institutions to maintain their power. We are already seeing it with many sites being unwilling to deal with the compliance headache of GDPR and just blocking European users, plus it seems like half the internet is of…

TBF, it's not just those in power; there are differences between nations (in terms of both culture and rights perceptions), and a lot of policies like these have popular support as well.

From the American point of view, the entire EU has bought into something very heavy-handed in terms of the GDPR, but IIUC the GDPR is pretty popular in the UK (though full compliance with it technically requires one not even run a default-configured Apache server).

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#103

Post by shadowgovt » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

xdfgh1112 wrote: post #18

hyperman1 wrote: post #15

As someone from the EU, with no money or anuthing coming in from the UK, why would I even care about this? The GDPR has teeth only because the EU is big enough to make companies care. It is a watered down version from some privacy rights compared to the old laws in my country. But the old laws were ignorde by US tech because why wouldn't they. So as the UK left the EU, they are now a small country in the computer wor…

Yeah, this already happens to some extent with American and Asian sites blocking Europe and the UK because they don't want to deal with GPDR.

As an American visiting the UK and the EU, I got to see what the GDPR has done to the online experience over there for the first time.

Wow, does that suck. I see about 20% of the "cookie track consent" popups Stateside that I saw browsing from the EU.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#104

Post by HeckFeck » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:39 PM UTC

cowtools wrote: post #75

HeckFeck wrote: post #59

I dread to think what this will mean for the free and open Internet - the source of much mirth, yes, and much dread. But that's just a reflection of the human condition. It should be just left be. Another case of myopic, joyless stodges ruining what they don't understand. I've paid enough taxes to this worthless, bloated institution that claims to 'protect my liberties' - is it too late to get a refund? Don't they ow…

Brits don't have freedom of speech AFIK. it was never in their social contract.

We had it through negative liberty, opposed to positive liberty. The approach was that everything was permitted except that which is forbidden.

So, instead of a 'right to' free speech, rather we _would_ have no laws restricting freedom of speech (libel and incitement excepted). This was the understanding that would've permeated Parliament, the courts, the palace, and the hearts and minds of everyone who understood it.

More or less, until 1997.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#105

Post by flipbrad » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

The worst thing is, with the EU DSA coming in, a lot of this is probably completely unnecessary. So it creates extra bureaucracy, and gives the UK establishment a new boot to place on the necks of those that carry others' speech (and also pose a threat to traditional media), for very limited gain.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#106

Post by HeckFeck » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

fithisux wrote: post #95

HeckFeck wrote: post #59

I dread to think what this will mean for the free and open Internet - the source of much mirth, yes, and much dread. But that's just a reflection of the human condition. It should be just left be. Another case of myopic, joyless stodges ruining what they don't understand. I've paid enough taxes to this worthless, bloated institution that claims to 'protect my liberties' - is it too late to get a refund? Don't they ow…

Well said. Breach of social contract. The problem is that others think it is advantageous to close their mouth. Of course this is not possible by the laws of Nature.

Precisely. What cannot be said will find an outlet elsewhere. We'll soon find that having some potty mouths are far better than the alternatives.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#107

Post by outside1234 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

Just ignore it - if everyone ignores it it will be impossible to enforce.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#108

Post by sbierwagen » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #78

commandlinefan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer This horribly written law can easily be interpreted to apply to ISP's as well - so if the ISP is allowing these peer-to-peer systems that allow "unsafe" content to be shared, they're liable for it too, or they have to shut down the peer-to-peer systems. Which again, is the point - to turn the internet into the easily regulable cable TV that they already understand.

> Which again, is the point - to turn the internet into the easily regulable cable TV that they already understand. Unless the UK significantly increases its military capacity and sets up world government, they will not be able to shut down the internet. The internet will still exist. The best they can hope for is a great firewall / North Korea type situation which would require a much more authoritarian (moreover fu…

1) The point isn't to regulate the internet, it's to regulate what UK citizens can see.

2) The great firewall was complicated by the design goal of accessing some, but not all, foreign websites. The UK could accomplish their goals in a day or two by just cutting all the underwater cables. That sounds like an impossible crazy thing, but so did Brexit a couple years ago.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#109

Post by kodah » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:42 PM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #35

mellavora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean that's even more explicit in a parliamentary system, where members are nearly always expected to vote the party line or face consequences. yes, that is a feature (not a bug) of a parliamentary system. A complementary feature is that parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution. So a party that wins 35% of the vote gets 35% of the seats. And those seats are expected to vote as a block…

> parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution > the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties. What you say is true, but while we're discussing an article about the UK, it is worth stating, for the avoidance of doubt, that the UK also uses the First Past The Post electoral systems (for its national parliament) and therefore doesn't have a representational seat distribution. Indeed…

It would be nice if those who didn't vote actually affected the power of the parties. Not voting is a valid choice, it says, "All the options you gave me suck. Try again." Otherwise you run into a system where people start trying to calculate the delta between two evils and think we're making progress.

Re: Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

#110

Post by zhte415 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 5:43 PM UTC

throwaway4aday wrote: post #53

Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? When government or industry makes it nearly impossible for consumer needs to be met we inevitably see a grey and black market spring up to meet those needs. My prediction is that if legislation like this becomes widespread we'll see a freely distributed application rise to prominence among a ga…

Facebook will be easier than what you mentioned.

Napster took off because it meant not spending 10 or 15 pounds or dollars or euros on a CD. THhe DRM came later, and what really killed DRM was the change in business model to iTunes with individual songs, the transformation of the 'star' from a face on a CD to a bigger product.