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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

#311

Post by pessimizer »

wkat4242 wrote: post #286
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 actuall…

> This law is aimed at big tech

The law is not aimed at big tech. It is aimed at any online forum that the government wants to shut down, and gives an lengthy, arbitrary, and vague list of pretenses that they can base a shutdown on. Big tech has shown itself to be eager to conform to government expectations at every turn. Big tech helps even to shape government expectations, and continually shares personnel with government itself.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#312

Post by kmlx »

wkat4242 wrote: post #286
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 actuall…

besides big tech i assume it will push more people underground (this is what i would do). and VPNs will get (yet another) big boost.

myopic governments pushed by myopic voters are apparently the new norm.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#313

Post by pjfin123 »

EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #240
defrost wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not telling you it isn't happening - I linked to the current UK summaries of all the cases referred by police to the CPS for prosocution. The 7 cases a day to which you referred to above will be in there and quite likly flagged as Hate Crime related. > I believe the 3000 a year number was banded about for speech offences. ( Bandied ? ) Sure, I dare say it was, the real question was that a reliable bit of infomati…

I appreciate you wasn’t but a lot of the discussion about these issues follows the same pattern of people pretending there isn’t an issue, then pretending that it isn’t as bad and then arguing over the minutia. This convo thread the same route of someone disputing the fact the journalists were having their homes raided, I couldn’t remember the name of the journalist or the exact time, so when someone does find it, we…

You were vindicated in this thread. It's insane that the U.K. is throwing thousands in people a year in jail for speech "crimes". I remember ten years ago when free speech was a sacred value in the West; as soon as non-institutionally-connected people got a platform with social media elites changed their mind though.

They're estimates but I've seen some numbers that suggest the U.K. is imprisoning more people (per capita and absolute) for speech crimes than Russia.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#314

Post by daveoc64 »

pc86 wrote: post #149
cjs_ac wrote: post #56

As a software engineer in the UK (and former schoolteacher) I'm supportive of the Online Safety Act. People prefer to interact with people who are similar to them, so they end up with a belief that most people are like them, but as a teacher, I had to grapple with the full distribution of human intelligence. It's wider than I'm comfortable with. Most people struggle to deal with the complexity of everyday life in the…

I'm trying to give this comment a gracious reading. You can find videos on YouTube from the last couple months of police talking to people about comments they left online, and tweets, and FB posts, etc. So saying that practice "was put to an end a couple of years ago" is a complete fiction. The freedom/security quote, why should that be uniquely American? Human rights are human rights, and if something infringes on t…

>As an American (the horror, I know, that I deign to comment on something British), I'd love to know where your freedom of speech is codified and what a government would have to do if they wanted to change what counts as speech, what doesn't, and what's protected and what isn't. I suspect that you and I have very different definitions of what qualifies as free speech.

There is nothing easy to point to, like the first amendment to the US constitution, but it probably wouldn't matter anyway.

The key differences between the UK and US, particularly in this area are that:

1) Governments in the UK tend to have large parliamentary majorities - the current government has a majority in excess of 150 seats. So if there was some sort of written constitution guaranteeing Free Speech, and it required a supermajority to change, it's likely that many UK governments would easily be able to do that.

2) Politicians and the public at large in the UK have very different attitudes to Free Speech (or rather, they take a more pragmatic approach to things and can see the need to compromise). Polling has shown that the Online Safety Act has over 70% of the public supporting it. Parts of the act see even higher support than that. Consequently, most of the major political parties support the act or even think it should go further.

This is in deep contrast to the US, where imagining a scenario in which you could amend the constitution would be virtually impossible in the current climate.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#315

Post by desas »

systemstops wrote: post #159
jahewson wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone else will make a joke about police officers investigating tweets. That practice - which was put to an end a couple of years ago This claim is 100% false. We’ve seen multiple people jailed for tweets this year alone. > I have much greater faith in my government to protect my freedom of speech You don’t have free speech. The U.K. has no such general right. That’s why people are in jail for tweets.

You're right - they have no free speech. They can't even speak freely about the horrible crimes being committed in their nation by grooming gangs. Many US companies won't capitulate to these regulations. The UK is going to simply be cut off from many social media services.

> They can't even speak freely about the horrible crimes being committed in their nation by grooming gangs.

Unsure what exactly you're referring to, which might be ironic, but there's lots of news reports about grooming gangs, as well as the surrounding controversy and debate around ethnicity and political correctness see: https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=grooming+gang&d=NEWS_PS

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#316

Post by benj111 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #280
michaelt wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Poor MPs. Being power hungry must really suck in the age of social media :(

Really?

You can disagree with the position, whilst accepting that MPs have been murdered, and MPs do get threatened online.

What specific level of power hunger makes a threat to life acceptable?

Further, I wasn't in favour of these proposals, but if you have people on HN of all places thinking its acceptable to threaten people, maybe we do need this law.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#317

Post by EpicQuest_246 »

vogon_laureate wrote: post #284
EpicQuest_246 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The UK government is changing it tune on this and are pivoting slowly.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7qenxy8r2

I have to check older news articles but I suspect these are the ones that were presented as moderate rebels by the media when it was convienient.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#318

Post by libertine »

pjfin123 wrote: post #307
libertine wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wouldn't trust the science on something I'm injecting into my body if it was illegal for people to disagree about it.

The point isn't about people disagreeing, but promoting that disagreement with the intent to misinform others.

People are free to disagree as long as they don't put others and their children at risk - if that's the case it should be considered illegal.

I'm all for people who promote misinformation to be allowed to present their peer-reviewed research in a special court.

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#319

Post by nxm »

libertine wrote: post #281
woodpanel wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, I'd rather be where opposing views are allowed. Remember when Covid vax was promoted as it'd prevent you from spreading the disease, or that they were "safe" (no heart related side effects).

People don't win when government officials are guardians of "the truth".

Re: UK's Online Safety Act comes into force

#320

Post by benj111 »

wruza wrote: post #236
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)

I guess one is acceptance and another is driving oneself into starvation. If fat communities encourage becoming fat by eating more/worse, they are as delusional. The key idea of thinspo and other look-related movements is to become someone who you biologically aren’t by extreme measures. Some people are naturally thin-built, for them it’s sort of normal. For others it’s basically a destructive body modification which…

That line is blurry though.

Anorexics aren't happy with their body. If they go to a site where they find acceptance and understanding, thats good?

And on the other hand, it used to be the case that Models were stick thin. If the fat acceptance crowd succeeds, and fat becomes the standard of beauty and people try and emulate that, thats bad.

The difference is that Anorexics don't accept themselves, and try to achieve an unhealthy weight. Obese people are trying to gain acceptance for the unhealthy weight they are.

The danger is that acceptance is an overloaded term. It isn't just accepting one individual who is already fat. Its shifting culture to the point where it becomes a standard for beauty, which is where people start emulating it.

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