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Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

webdevlaw.uk

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

#201

Post by antonymy »

causi wrote: post #190
yaseer wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> instantly erase someone from your perception in person to person interaction. As easily as you can block a message, so too can abuser create a new account. Online harassment can be as persistent as in-person harassment - there's countless stories of people being continuously harassed. If it were so easy to block people online 'cyberstalking' wouldn't be such a big problem in the same area.

That's when you create a new account. The obsession with linking your real life to your online life is the most toxic change to internet culture since the web started.

Thank you. I see so many people here who seem intent on linking their online identity to their real life identity, a trend popularized by social media and which is in direct contravention to the common sense advice we used to give people: don't upload PII on the internet.

I understand many people rely on social media for professional networking but there's absolutely no reason why you have to use this professional networking account to trade verbal jabs with people on contentious topics, or confront trolls, or start political debates, etc. Make an alt if you want to slum it in the comments section. Again, this was common sense 20 years ago, and now seems like it's lost knowledge.

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

#202

Post by manuelabeledo »

canadiantim wrote: post #153
Iv wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives all over the world dream of setting up a chinese-style firewall in their countries. They are angry that it was first done by a clearly authoritarian regime which brings some resistance to the idea, but otherwise, in the name of fight against terrorism or child pornography, they would have set it up already.

From what I can tell it’s more the progressive wing of most countries who are pushing for authoritarian censorship of the internet. Just look at Canada

> ... it’s more the progressive wing of most countries who are pushing for authoritarian censorship of the internet

China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Russia... Aren't progressive by any metric.

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

#203

Post by swores »

yrgulation wrote: post #86
tomjen3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has fewer people than Germany, and only low double digits compared to the EU. With this legalization I would IP ban the UK, then grow the service and look into opening up for the UK when my service was big and the lawyers didn't matter.

Typing this using a british designed arm cpu powered phone using the protocol made by a british guy on a forum cofounded by a british american venture capitalist. But the UK is “small” in the “computer world”. Perhaps we should ban german IP instead so we can read less about german nationalist pride and instead focus more on what makes countries competitive and what not in modern tech.

I think (as a Brit myself) you're being overly defensive and inferring insult where there was none.

Suggesting that the market size of the UK might not be big enough to make up for the costs of complying with a law like this is not at all the same as saying that people from the UK are not capable of making using industry contributions.

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

#204

Post by shadowgovt »

jacooper wrote: post #180
shadowgovt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well that's the websites problem, no body told them to include 50 trackers. And there are many filters to kill cookies banners. Also AFAIK now there is an enforced Reject All button.

It's also the user's problem because there aren't websites to go to that aren't showing those banners.

Well, except the big, commonly-used ones where you've already consented (or not). Facebook, for instance. It's like this law was hand-tuned to consolidate users into only visiting a few commonly-accessed sites to save themselves the UX annoyance at the cost of the broader Internet's discoverability.

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

#205

Post by xoa »

Zak wrote: post #131
xoa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you think about calls to remove platform immunity from algorithms that have an editorial effect? You mean, "repeal Section 230"? Because the entire point of Section 230 is to allow imperfect biased moderation without having to eliminate all user content. Such calls are ridiculous, stupid, or malicious on a host of levels. Making editorial decisions about what to allow on your own private property is core 1A…

The main thing I have in mind is machine learning algorithms that optimize for engagement. Those aren't necessarily biased in favor of a specific political position, but tend to amplify rumors over well-sourced reporting, demagoguery over reasoned debate, and often malicious false claims. Off the top of my head, I don't have a good way to differentiate those algorithms in legal terms. As another comment points out, e…

OK, that's at least a more reasonable thing to be worried about [0], but as you say trying to use the law there would be damn near impossible. Take the case of a law against airplanes/cats again. I'd definitely feel very, very strongly about such an effort, and want very, very much to defeat it. In the democratic system that means rallying a critical mass of fellow citizens. If it so happens my airplane/cat platform is pretty popular and likely would share my interests amplifying that would be a reasonable way to go about it, using algorithms that optimize for results. You might say "well, commercial use restricted only" but how would that be different the typical ad testing runs which have existed forever, where they are constantly testing to try to figure out what engages people and what doesn't? If it's "malicious false claims" then that's already a violation of defamation, there isn't any need for additional law on that front, but for anything else how can we decide in a way that can't be used the other direction?

That's always the rub and the core issue of free speech: there are no oracles. You have to imagine what your worst most hated enemy demagogue would do with the tools you propose to create, because they will have them. Nobody can be trusted with the power. It is hard though, and I won't completely dismiss the idea that the scale networking/storage/ML offers can create emergent effects that don't show up at a smaller level. The legal notion of tracking for example.

----

0: though "amplify rumors over well-sourced reporting, demagoguery over reasoned debate" = the tabloids that exist right there at a large percentage of supermarket checkout aisles, remember nothing new under the sun, you might be surprised at some of the content of regular newspapers for that matter in the 1800s say.

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

#206

Post by stickfigure »

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…

More likely it will result in crippling the domestic UK tech industry while everyone else in the world ignores it. I really don't see most countries extraditing someone for the high crime of "let british users access a website without verifying their age".

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

#207

Post by guerrilla »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #119
guerrilla wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? Simple, because if that because popular, new laws will be drafted to ban all of that from all app stores for circumventing this or some other reason.

There are other methods of distribution than app stores. People didn't buy their copy of Napster from GameStop back in the day, they downloaded it from a website.

> There are other methods of distribution than app stores.

And all of them are completely irrelevant because only us nerds would even know about them let alone how to use them.

> People didn't buy their copy of Napster from GameStop back in the day

Those days are long dead.

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

#208

Post by swayvil »

fguerraz wrote: post #151
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…

Don't worry, blocking p2p is the next step and is extremely easy to do. China has done it already and it's very effective: * Force every service provider to register their IPs and domains (for CDN use) * Force every ISP to do stateful firewalling and block every attempt to establish a new connection unless the destination IP is on a whilelist maintained by the government. Problem solved.

Wifi mesh nets in the city. Sneaker nets in between

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

#209

Post by carom »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #39
_fat_santa wrote: post #29

If this applies to every site that hosts user generated content then that's nuts. When the internet first started, part of the appeal is that you could just make stuff without people looking over your shoulder, asking for forms, etc. Seems that the internet we created today is technically the same as the one from before, but now with governments throwing up red tape at every corner. Makes me wonder what a site like H…

right now or say 10 years ago til now, before the whole encrypted chats came into the picture, how many people have been convicted of CSAM in the UK, USA or somewhere else? is it in thousands? millions? if people were not getting convicted left and right before encryption, why is suddenly encryption the #1 enemy?

In addition to this, if they actually cared about children they would up the penalties for crimes. In the US it is 4 years in prison. Let's make it 20 years per image. That is what Maxwell got for literally trafficking children. But hey, let's add some red tape to the internet, mind numbing.

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

#210

Post by b3rv34v3ev4 »

This is NOT regulation of big tech.

This creates a barrier to entry that allows ONLY big tech access to the playing field.

These types of barriers to entry already exist in other areas like the pharmaceutical business and finance. Now we're getting artificial barriers created in IT.

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