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UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

ofcom.org.uk

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Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#281

Post by libertine »

woodpanel wrote: post #263
nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

let me guess: criticizing this law constitutes “harm” already. better not enter this jurisdiction for the foreseeable future

Do you feel better off in a jurisdiction where, for example, anti-vaxxing is promoted?

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#282

Post by mjburgess »

nvarsj wrote: post #259

Plugging the draft guidance into chatgpt: Age Assurance Methods: Effective methods: Open banking, photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, credit card checks, and digital identity wallets. Ineffective methods: Self-declaration, general disclaimers, or payment methods without age restrictions. So basically, ID verification will be required for any platform that may have adult/harmful materials.

Can you cite the law if you're going to make claims about it

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#283

Post by OJFord »

grayhatter wrote: post #228
nomilk wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's thinspo different to fat-acceptance communities? (I have nothing against either, I think people ought to be free to pursue information on their body-type)

As with everything it depends on the communities you run with. The core tenet of fat acceptance is that your weight doesn't define your value as a human. Proana which is short for pro-anorexia, also known as thinspo (thin inspiration) has the core tenet of advocating and encouraging an eating disorder as how you'd obtain value. The point of thinspo is to provide people inspiration and motivation to starve themselves,…

Depending on the level of fat being accepted, that is also encouraging an eating disorder, is I believe GP's point.

Like don't shame someone a bit 'overweight' they're just thicc and body positive sure fine whatever, but so what they're 'obese' they're an obese human is as unhelpful as encouraging anorexia. ('overweight' & 'obese' being well-defined terms of BMI range)

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#284

Post by vogon_laureate »

EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #99
frikskit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you. I’m not sure why people believe that only the physical world and not the virtual one should have some amount of regulation. I think a good portion of HN has drunk the kool aid of their employers/industry and is almost religiously unwilling to consider an alternative viewpoint without resorting to shouting ‘fascist’ and ‘1984’. Maybe someone needs to write a book called 2024 about the hellscape we curr…

The online communities don't exist within the borders of a nation state. They have their own social norms and rules. You can see this on forums, message boards, online games etc. Therefore a nation state trying to enforce its will on those communities is completely asinine. I don't like that it that American companies enforces it language policing on UK residents, I also don't like that fact that the UK wants to forc…

No one thinks Al-Qaeda/ISIS are moderate. Furthermore, a large part of ISIS' recruitment success was as a result of its slick social media operation.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#285

Post by EpicQuest_246 »

michaelt wrote: post #276
nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

> What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats, with two MPs murdered in the last decade. You and I have the luxury that we can…

> As I understand things, MPs who are on Twitter regularly get anonymous threats of rape, murder etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63330885 - credible threats,

I am sure threats of violence are already illegal. If those people are in the UK, they should be prosecuted. If they are not in the UK they is not threat. I don't believe any if these online threats BTW are credible.

What these MPs do is frequently make outlandish statements, which then gets them a bunch of hate (Jess Phillips has done this her entire political career) and useful idiots will shout their mouth off online. These MPs then point to all the "hate" they are getting. There is even a meme demonstrating this very effect:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/960/143/d7a...

> with two MPs murdered in the last decade.

The murder of David Amess had nothing to do with Social Media. The killer said it was to do with religion when asked by Police.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_David_Amess#Investig...

I believe the individual was deemed at risk of radicalisation.

> You and I have the luxury that we can just not be on Twitter - but when you're an MP, unless you're in a very safe seat you've got to meet voters where they are, not where you'd like them to be.

They don't need to be on Twitter. Twitter isn't their local constituents. They have surgeries for this very reason. Very few people on Twitter are relevant to what happens on election day in their constituency.

> So from an MP's perspective? In one hand they've got a report about revenge porn, cyber-bullying, 4chan /pol/ and pro-anorexia facebook groups. In the other hand they've got their phone where someone's just told them to kill themselves.

Even if that is true that doesn't mean we restrict everyone's rights because a minority are engaging in illegal/immoral acts.

> They believe in these "illegal harms" because they've got a front row seat, and experience them on a daily basis.

That is what they say to sell the narrative that they need to censor social media. If you look over the last 20 years. It is as if nobody has learned anything from the early 2000s and the war on terror. They will exploit (or create) any crisis.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#286

Post by wkat4242 »

dang wrote: post #115

Looks like https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/16/britains-ofcom-brings-tough-... has some background. Readers may want to look at both.

And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42433044

It shows the dark side of this coin. It's killing a lot of genuine volunteer initiatives because complying with all the red tape.

I find that a huge loss because it drives us more and more in the arms of big tech who only have dollars as a goal, not helping people or establishing a community like these initiatives do.

This law is aimed at big tech but it actually hurts the smallest players which don't need this legislation because they're already ethical. The big players will just hire more lawyers to contest any fines and find as many loopholes as they can.

An 18 million pound fine is just a massive risk for a hobbyist. It would basically ruin their entire life.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#289

Post by Angostura »

nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

You may me familiar with Instagram

Fears over Instagram eating disorder posts https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47637377

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#290

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ksec wrote: post #245
nomilk wrote: post #194

> People in the UK will be better protected from illegal harms online What are these 'illegal harms'? I'm online 10+ hours a day for 10 years straight and never seen one. (not assuming they don't exist, but their prevalence/impact might be inflated). If you have to go looking for them, isn't this just 'whack a mole' (since 'online harms' will hard to 100% eradicate), but at the expense of destroying parts of the inte…

>How would a site admin determine what is acceptable and what is not? I remember there were stories about GDPR at the time that some site simply decide to block all IPs from EUR, and some sadly because they believe they dont comply, simply shut down the site. In a world ( well US at least ) where the trend is moving to deregulate things. UK decided to quite literally regulate everything. This is sad.

The trend is to talk about deregulating things. I have doubts about any actual deregulation.
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