UK Expands Online Safety Act to Mandate Preemptive Scanning

Post by immibis » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

enderforth wrote: post #52

6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote: post #44

I understand the rage generated here, but what is the alternative? If a service implements privacy invading 'features' then we have the choice not to use that service. Letting tech companies self-regulate has failed, and too many people leave morality at the door when engaging online, something which doesn't happen at scale IRL. What are we to do if not monitor? And how to make that scalable if not to introduce autom…

I don't know what the alternative is, but I don't think I've ever found a situation yet where the solution has been His Majesty's Government being able to exercise more control over what people can see and hear.

Post by xethos » Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 10:24 PM UTC

cheeseomlit wrote: post #94

flumpcakes wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes, because it is designed to protect UK citizens. As much as GDPR applies "everywhere in the world" when interacting with EU citizens. Just as much as my communications are scanned when interacting with US citizens with PRISM. I'd argue that is exponentially more dangerous and nefarious given it's apparently illegality and (once) top secrecy.

>it is designed to protect UK citizens Is that really what it's designed for? And as far as the PRISM comparison goes, I'd rather mass surveillance not be done at all, but if it's being done no matter what I'd rather it be illegitimate than official policy. At least they have to jump through some hoops for parallel construction that way, and it doesn't normalize the practice as morally/socially acceptable- it's a "se…

Post by array_key_first » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 7:19 AM UTC

yladiz wrote: post #57

HPsquared wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The things you mention are already illegal. The effective proven solution is to enforce existing laws, to punish and deter bad behaviour like any other crime. This incongruence is why a lot of people don't take the reasoning at face value and see it as only rhetorical justification for increased surveillance, which is widely understood as something the state wants do do anyway.

How do you deal with a crime that isn’t reported due to things like shame? Not to say that we need to scan messages to enforce nudes not to be sent, but I don’t think you can say “just enforce existing laws” and be done with it, it’s not that simple.

Post by Natfan » Thu, Jan 15, 2026, 11:17 AM UTC

like_any_other wrote: post #92

Natfan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if it provably isn't networked and is ephemeral with no logging, then i potentially don't have an issue with it

You have no issue with censorship, as long as there's no surveillance to go with it?