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Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#181

Post by therealdrag0 »

owisd wrote: post #155
supermatt wrote: post #99

Why can't these measures be handled via parental control? Children are using mobiles and tablets almost exclusively, both major providers of which supply tools for parental administration. Content filtering is already facilitated by existing parental control. Mobile browsers could be made to issue a header if the user is under a certain age. Mobile apps could have access to a flag. Parents should be responsible for p…

There's a cognitive dissonance to the opposition to this: a) Content controls don't work, what are the government thinking? b) This is parents' problem, they should use content controls. Individual action doesn't work because it only takes one kid in the class who doesn't have parental controls then everyone loses. There's also obvious workarounds such as VPNs and a teenager walking into a pawn shop with £50 for a se…

Is there better evidence to the harms of porn than “dopamine” and “lost innocence”? That article written by a 17 year old, I’m old enough to be her parent and I saw hardcore internet porn in 5th grade. This isn’t new. Personally I don’t think it harmed me. But I’m open to hearing studies showing otherwise, not just hand waving.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#182

Post by phendrenad2 »

exasperaited wrote: post #175
phendrenad2 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know nothing about us And I'd like to keep it that way, which is why I'm all in favour of the option to geo-block the UK if the UK's laws prove onerous.

Ignorance is currency over there, I guess.

Your completely meaningless reply and five pounds will get you a cup of tea, I suggest you spend it that way instead of polluting the internet with it.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#183

Post by mytailorisrich »

ijk wrote: post #82
mytailorisrich wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very skeptical that the Online Safety Act forces community forums and wikis to close. By and large the Act forces forums to have strong moderation and perhaps manual checks before publishing files and pictures uploaded by users, and that's about it. Likewise, I suspect that most geoblocks are out of misplaced fear not actual analysis.

It has caused many community forums to close, past tense. Many cited the uncertainty about what is actually required, the potential high cost of compliance, the danger of failing to correctly follow the rules they're not certain about, and the lack of governmental clarity as significant aspects of their decision to close. The fear may be misplaced, but the UK government has failed to convince people of that.

I don't think it is so much a failure of the government to communicate as a vocal opposition to this law that has focussed on and amplified the maximum penalties and caused fear.

Now, I don't think this is a positive law but it is not armageddon, either, and objectively many reactions do seem overblown. Time will tell.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#184

Post by hackable_sand »

dan-robertson wrote: post #141
jajuuka wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what blows my mind anytime I hear someone complain about all the vile content on the internet today and that we need to protect children. What about "be a parent" is so impossible to do today? Every device and OS has parental controls for a reason. Yeah they aren't perfect but they will prevent 99% of the content from getting to your kids.

It does feel like the online environment is pretty adversarial and hard for parents to deal with. In particular, it seems hard to pick and choose something reasonable. It doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to want some kind of state action to help represent the many parents and encourage creating better reasonable options. Lots of things that feel relatively common online feel like they would be very alien and weird s…

Grow up in the woods;

Teach the kids to hike and make fire.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#185

Post by anthk »

lysace wrote: post #49
Roark66 wrote: post #41

Somehow I have the deja-vu of when Theresa May (as a Home Secretary) tried to ban personal encryption altogether. Let me remind everyone this is in a country that already has a law that says you're legally required to give your encryption key to the police and if you do not, even if there is no other crime you can get 2 years in jail... This told me all I needed to know about her level of understanding of complex top…

Even low-grade encryption was actually forbidden in France for a while in the mid 90s. I remember snickering about the whole thing back then, in a much smaller but also quite similar forum. https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_... > Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month…

From Minitel to the telecomms irrelevance against the US and UK. I'd guess the French investors's would love to kick the nuts of the whole parliament members signing that crap.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#186

Post by Lio »

I think one of the most chilling aspects of this roll out has the attempts to shutdown debate about security concerns with handing over biometrics to unknow entities.

That's even to just access mainstream services such as direct messaging on social media sites.

The most high profile example of this is the Technology Secretary Peter Kyle comparing Nigel Farage to a sex offender, specifically Jimmy Saville.

Regardless of what you think of Farrage[1], that's a terrible thing to say. There are ligitimate concerns about this Act.

The ICO is charged with protecting privacy and punishing breaches of personal information due to incompetence. Well they've never prosecuted an organisation for a biometric data breach.

Until the ICO actually has teeth, and uses them, they shouldn't have introduced these restrictions and that's before we even get to the fact that the Act doesn't achieve what it say it will.

1. ...and I have very little positive to say about him but he is still an opposition MP and it is his job to oppose the government.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#188

Post by Lio »

tomck wrote: post #45
miohtama wrote: post #33

In related news, the Labour party is already considering banning VPNs. We almost got like two days of Online Safety Act in effect. https://www.gbnews.com/politics/labour-ban-vpn-online-safety...

You're repeating propaganda from a far right newspaper headline, written misleadingly to make it sound like labour have said something recently about VPNs (they haven't)

It may not be recent but it is something that Labour MPs have said before in the context of the OSA.

The Labour think tank Labour Together also recently brought up a manditory goverenment ID called BritCard, ostensibly for government services but to be rolled out else where.

At the same time they've just set up an elite police force to monitor social media.

Labour must know people are rattled by all this, they just published a response to the petiion they recieved.

They're not addressing any concerns though, it's all we know best or shutting down debate with slurs.

In the absence of anything new we just have to take Labour policy on the last things they've said or done.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#189

Post by DonHopkins »

nsksl wrote: post #167
boffinAudio wrote: post #166

This is a failure of Operating System Vendors, in my opinion. If Operating Systems had a way for parents to adequately monitor/administer the machines of their children, this would not be such a huge, massive hole, in which to pour (yet more) human rights abuses. Parents have the right to have an eye on their children. This is not repressive, it is not authoritarian, it is a right and a responsibility. The fact that…

Mobile operating systems have very great children controls. You should research the topic yourself and you will see.

Too bad they can't prevent fully grown adults from acting like children.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#190

Post by waste_monk »

GeekyBear wrote: post #140
alsetmusic wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple made an advertisement about the PowerMac G4 as a "supercomputer" because of onerous export controls related to encryption way back. It's more cheeky, I think, than serious. But then again, I haven't looked into it beyond just remembering that it happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoxvLq0dFvw

When you go back a few decades, "supercomputer" level performance doesn't seem all that impressive now. A Raspberry Pi outperforms a Cray-1 supercomputer, for instance.

>A Raspberry Pi outperforms a Cray-1 supercomputer, for instance.

In terms of compute power this is true. However in terms of design and aesthetics I still find the Cray much more charming than the Pi (even if you start adding fancy cases and so on).

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