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Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

bbc.com

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Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#491

Post by isatty »

hliyan wrote: post #81

On a slightly related note, has anyone else noticed an increase in social media attacks on Wikipedia, kind of like this? https://x.com/benlandautaylor/status/1954276775560966156 Post reads: "Periodic reminder that Wikipedia has a squillion times more money than they need to operate the actual website, and all marginal donations go to the fake paper-shuffling NGO that attached itself to the organization for the purpos…

I happened to come across some of this recently and after an independent review, decided to stop donating to them.

There’s just no way to donate to just Wikipedia (to specially only the server costs or upkeep) but ignore whatever else the organization is up to.

Same story with Mozilla, there’s no way to donate to just the development of Firefox.

It’s all good though, there’s loads of other charities that I can donate to.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#492

Post by callahad »

djeastm wrote: post #437
alphager wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to UK law, it is.

Can you cite said law for us?

It's the Online Safety Act. As the government says about the OSA:

"Ofcom is the independent regulator for Online Safety. [...] Ofcom has strong enforcement powers"

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/online-safety-act

Okay, so what does Ofcom say?

"It doesn’t matter where you or your business is based. The new rules will apply to you (or your business) if the service you provide has a significant number of users in the UK, or if the UK is a target market."

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-c...

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#493

Post by dghughes »

Here in Canada there is Bill S-210 Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act aka "think of the children".

I don't think the politicians thought of or could conceive of the technological requirements needed if this passes. It's just a knee-jerk bill sponsored by self-professed Conservative Senator Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne. Conservatives of the CPC party in Canada are much farther right of center more evangelical religious than the old Progressive Conservatives PCs were.

Note that Senators in Canada are not like US Senators.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#494

Post by weavejester »

adamm255 wrote: post #266
drawfloat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government (which, by the way, there is still a non zero chance could be Labour) will necessarily reverse this. Maybe Reform would tweak the topics, but I’m not convinced any party can be totally trusted to reverse this.

If the current government reversed it, the 'oh think of the children' angle from the Tories/Reform against them would be relentless. I cant say they have been amazing at messaging as it is.

The current leaders of both the Conservatives and Reform are on record as being against the Act. While this doesn't preclude them changing their mind, it does make it more difficult for them to reverse course.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#495

Post by autoexec »

mrandish wrote: post #302
drawfloat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government (which, by the way, there is still a non zero chance could be Labour) will necessarily reverse this. Maybe Reform would tweak the topics, but I’m not convinced any party can be totally trusted to reverse this.

> I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government will necessarily reverse this. Agreed. I think the supposed justifications for mass population-wide online surveillance, restrictions and de-anonymization are so strong most political parties in western democracies go along with what surveillance agencies push for once they get in power. Even in the U.S. where free speech & personal privacy rights are constitutionally…

> The reason is that the surveillance state has gotten extremely good at presenting scary scenarios and examples of supposed "disaster averted because we could spy on everyone", or the alternative, "bad thing happened because we couldn't spy on everyone" to politicians in non-public briefings.

Those politicians who are vocal against mass surveillance tend to change their tune the moment they're in office and I doubt they were all intending to go back on their campaign promises from the start or that they were really convinced by horror stories of terrorists told over powerpoint in closed door briefings.

I wouldn't doubt if they were also giving politicians examples of the kind of dirt they already have on them and their families. This is one of the biggest risks of the surveillance state. Endless blackmail material made up of actual skeletons, as well as the resources to install new ones into anyone's closets whenever needed.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#496

Post by johnnyanmac »

exasperaited wrote: post #13
amiga386 wrote: post #11

> If Ofcom permissibly determines that Wikipedia is a Category 1 service, and if the practical effect of that is that Wikipedia cannot continue to operate, the Secretary of State may be obliged to consider whether to amend the regulations or to exempt categories of service from the Act. In doing so, he would have to act compatibly with the Convention. Any failure to do so could also be subject to further challenge. S…

But this is how the law works? Even in the USA, the Supreme Court doesn't act on hypotheticals. They wait until someone brings an actual case. Ofcom haven't ruled Wikipedia is Category 1. They haven't announced the intention to rule it Category 1. The Category 1 rules are not yet in effect and aren't even finalised . They aren't pointing any gun. Wikipedia have a case that they shouldn't be Category 1 if that happens…

>Even in the USA, the Supreme Court doesn't act on hypotheticals.

Yes. To rephrase it, they cannot act until it's already too late, and the damage has already been done.And we wonder why things are so broken.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#497

Post by john01dav »

mrandish wrote: post #302
drawfloat wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law was passed by the previous government and everyone assumed the next government would take great delight in reversing it. I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government (which, by the way, there is still a non zero chance could be Labour) will necessarily reverse this. Maybe Reform would tweak the topics, but I’m not convinced any party can be totally trusted to reverse this.

> I wouldn’t be so sure that any next government will necessarily reverse this. Agreed. I think the supposed justifications for mass population-wide online surveillance, restrictions and de-anonymization are so strong most political parties in western democracies go along with what surveillance agencies push for once they get in power. Even in the U.S. where free speech & personal privacy rights are constitutionally…

If these claims are accurate, then the solution is obvious: elected officials who are themselves domain experts in this. They can then explain to their colleagues why these arguments are bullshit.

But, I expect that that won't help because your claims don't tell the while story. Most representatives don't act in good faith and like the government that they're a part of having such power.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#498

Post by DaSHacka »

anon-3988 wrote: post #141
nickslaughter02 wrote: post #10

Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind. Remember the "Repeal the Online Safety Act" petition? It has gotten over half a million signatures and the response from the government was a loud "no". > The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and eff…

This after the gaffe with the postal services, we are going to see some innocent folks being branded. In general, I think we need a shift in society to say "yea, screw those kids". We don't put 20km/h limits everywhere because there's a non-zero chance that we might kill a kid. Its the cost of doing business. Having privacy MEANS that it is difficult to catch bad people. That is just the price. Just swallow it and li…

> "yea, screw those kids".

Well, at the very least, the American government is already aiming for that

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#499

Post by autoexec »

Larrikin wrote: post #433
yupyupyups wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>parents You do understand that there are creeps out there grooming children, right? Parents definitely do need to have oversight over their own kids. Children should absolutely not have privacy on the internet. The ID requirement is terrible, but saying that children need privacy to explore their sexuality on the internet is very problematic. If this is the position the UK government holds then that brings into ques…

Shutting down the conversation by saying parents should have the last say is how we got these ridiculous laws in the first place. What happens when someone wants to explore their sexuality by finding someone other than the pre-approved person from the parents? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Shafilea_Ahmed

I'm not sure how online privacy laws (or a lack of them) would spare a child who objected to marrying someone their parents wanted to force her to. Murdering your children is/was already illegal and the parents did that anyway. We can't worry about what the small number of psychopathic parents might do if kids don't have online privacy. We should instead try harder to make sure that kids are protected against their abusive parents regardless of the situation. There should have been places Shafilea could have gone to or reached out to for meaningful help and protection long before it got to the point of a murder.

That said, I personally think good parenting means giving children privacy, even online, and doing so increasingly at ages set according to the maturity/capability of the child. That's the sort of thing a parent is in a better position to assess than the government. I also think that this particular law is garbage. I just don't think "We must protect children from their parents by allowing them to access the internet in secret and anonymity" is a very compelling argument.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#500

Post by Ericson2314 »

OtherShrezzing wrote: post #345
bArray wrote: post #194

> The government told the BBC it welcomed the High Court's judgment, "which will help us continue our work implementing the Online Safety Act to create a safer online world for everyone". Demonstrably false. It creates a safer online world for some . > In particular the foundation is concerned the extra duties required - if Wikipedia was classed as Category 1 - would mean it would have to verify the identity of its c…

>2. The next government will take great delight in removing this law as an easy win. As a rule of thumb, governments don't take actions which reduce their power.

The types of quotes get bandied about all the time, but I don't think they are accurate.

Politicians don't want to reduce their power, but politicians != governments. Lots of scary stuff actually empowers the civil service more than it empowers politicians. The main way politicians loose power is also not by the nature of the job changing, but by loosing elections.

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