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Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

express.co.uk

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Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#321

Post by agedclock »

cjs_ac wrote: post #74
satellite2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get your conclusion from?

If you mean the opinion polls, I don't have any to hand, but there have been a few articles submitted to /r/ukpolitics since the Online Safety Act took effect detailing opinion polls showing that the UK Government's regulation of internet content has been well-received by the wider public (although the userbase of that subreddit has vociferously disagreed).

You are probably talking about the YouGov poll. The poll asked a clearly leading question IMO.

You can get any result you want by asking leading questions on polling. This was of course satirised by Yes Minister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA

I can counter any of the iffy polls by simple point to the official online petitions service. There were a huge number of signatures to revoke OSA and two million signatures to abolish the plans for the Digital ID. While the Digital ID is technically a separate issue, many of the same privacy concerns are present.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903?pubDate=2025...

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/730194

The number of people that signed these petitions is far more representative than any polling.

On top of that, recently I've seen reportrs of both the Liberal Democrats and Reform (the two largest parties after the main two) recongising the OSA as unpopular and are likely to suggest reforming/removing it.

On top of that. The labour government and the conservative government that proceeded it which created the OSA were/are both deeply unpopular.

So any notion that there is a popular mandate for this is nonsense.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#322

Post by lurk2 »

ljm wrote: post #297
zmmmmm wrote: post #267

There's an opportunity for a service like CloudFlare here give people a simple toggle that manages geoblocks on legal liability factors. It's way too much for every organisation to individually track every country's laws day by day in case just by being accessible there you incur a liability. And it sounds like the UK would have just self-selected out of the list of "safe" countries. If something like this was in wid…

So a service like CloudFlare is the Great firewall of the world and CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their interests as a supranational gatekeeper. Smart thinking Batman.

> CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their interests as a supranational gatekeeper

They already can.

> Smart thinking Batman.

“Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#323

Post by zmmmmm »

ljm wrote: post #297
zmmmmm wrote: post #267

There's an opportunity for a service like CloudFlare here give people a simple toggle that manages geoblocks on legal liability factors. It's way too much for every organisation to individually track every country's laws day by day in case just by being accessible there you incur a liability. And it sounds like the UK would have just self-selected out of the list of "safe" countries. If something like this was in wid…

So a service like CloudFlare is the Great firewall of the world and CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their interests as a supranational gatekeeper. Smart thinking Batman.

agreed on that ... I'm not too happy with how CloudFlare tried to flex their influence on AI training, so I certainly wouldn't want them in charge of gatekeeping the whole internet.

But the truth is, we are already there. CloudFlare can already do this, they just won't because the their customers will leave if they violate their trust.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#324

Post by martimarkov »

MammaMia2025 wrote: post #309
bapak wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this so bad. You know that the solution will be that EU will block US companies (who do not comply) so EU users will eventually get their own WhatsApp called MsgMeNow. The result is that nobody can talk to people outside their own jurisdiction. This is effectively what we see in China. They only use WeChat, I was unable to register because it says I need someone to verify my account when I try to do it (this h…

No worries! Trump will call Den Von Deleten, whatever her name is -- and she will just do what she is told whatever is the thing she is told to do. Exactly like it already happened with EU buying $700B of natural gas. We paid just a bit over $100B to Russians for the same thing... but you know... Trump told, so here we go!

Any source for this comparison? Also did the EU buy it or said they will?

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#325

Post by Aeolun »

ljm wrote: post #297
zmmmmm wrote: post #267

There's an opportunity for a service like CloudFlare here give people a simple toggle that manages geoblocks on legal liability factors. It's way too much for every organisation to individually track every country's laws day by day in case just by being accessible there you incur a liability. And it sounds like the UK would have just self-selected out of the list of "safe" countries. If something like this was in wid…

So a service like CloudFlare is the Great firewall of the world and CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their interests as a supranational gatekeeper. Smart thinking Batman.

Only if you want to keep using CloudFlare. You can make your site available without.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#326

Post by missedthecue »

blibble wrote: post #234
missedthecue wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder who builds this stuff. I appreciate at the end of the day that everyone has bills, but I feel like I'd rather apply for public housing before I work on that. They're not even getting rich, just a wagie. I have never met someone in the tech industry that was ideologically anti-privacy. It's always the lawyers and politicians. But someone builds it.

> Sometimes I wonder who builds this stuff. the "secure" chat app supplied by some rando israeli company to the US government? have a guess

Talking more in reference to EU initiatives

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#327

Post by hactually »

cudgy wrote: post #69
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opinion polls are clear: the normies want this. Giving normies the vote was a mistake.

So only snobby elitists get to vote?

yeah damn, i guess that's it.

That's the dichotomy. You're either an elitist snobs or a normies. No nuance, no qualification.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#328

Post by thewebguyd »

zmmmmm wrote: post #267

There's an opportunity for a service like CloudFlare here give people a simple toggle that manages geoblocks on legal liability factors. It's way too much for every organisation to individually track every country's laws day by day in case just by being accessible there you incur a liability. And it sounds like the UK would have just self-selected out of the list of "safe" countries. If something like this was in wid…

> in case just by being accessible there you incur a liability.

This is a dangerous precedent though that IMO everyone should fight against.

It's how we get the balkanization of the internet, and the death of it as a global network.

TBH we also shouldn't put the onus on blocking "unsafe" countries on the website owners, nor an intermediary like CloudFlare. If a nation wants to block certain content, let the nation deal with it by getting their own ISPs to block and make sure the citizen's anger gets correctly placed on their government and not the site operators.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#329

Post by widerworldweb »

zerocrates wrote: post #253
josephg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. We had a chance to invent our own governance on the internet. But we abdicated, and made the internet a free for all. As a result, national governments have stepped in to provide the governance we didn’t program in. And they do it - of course - in an inconsistent, ad hoc way. There was a period a couple hundred years ago when it was all the rage internationally to write constitutions. Lots of countries got cons…

I don't think it would make much difference; an internet constitution would be worth about as much as the paper it's not written on.

Paper is so wasteful, prone to the vagaries of time, and also to forgery.

It could be written into blockchain to avoid this, as I hear that is quite popular nowadays.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#330

Post by widerworldweb »

adventured wrote: post #133
noir_lord wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same - frankly google/alphabet should just HTTP 451 the UK (and I say that as a brit/someone in the UK). It'd be interesting to see how fast the policy would get reversed then. This was always a stupid policy and so protesting it by pulling services is one way to draw attention to that.

If big tech wants a reaction, pull all investment out of the UK. Microsoft + Google + Amazon + Nvidia + Meta + Apple = $630 billion in annual operating income. They'll react to a change in capital investment faster than anything else.

I'm sure the UK would cope. They did ok without them less than 30 years ago.

Damage to stock value would be the bigger blocker (from both sides of the pond).

Might kickstart some actual competition though, as that happening would create a large hole to fill.

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