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Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#51

Post by ekianjo »

ozlikethewizard wrote: post #40
miohtama wrote: post #33

In related news, the Labour party is already considering banning VPNs. We almost got like two days of Online Safety Act in effect. https://www.gbnews.com/politics/labour-ban-vpn-online-safety...

I hate the Online Safety Act as much as the next person, but: - Labour have made no plans to ban VPNs. - One MP wanted to add a clause for a government review into the impact of VPNs on the bill after 6 months, with no direction on what that would mean. - I have no idea if this clause actually got added, but it'd make sense. If you're going to introduce a stupid law you should at least plan to review if the stupid la…

> clause for a government review into the impact of VPNs on the bill after 6 months

thats government speak for deciding to do something about the VPN problem. because there is no way a commission will not find a good reason to ban VPNs when you reach that point, because you could argue they help avoid UK restrictions.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#53

Post by miohtama »

ekianjo wrote: post #50
graemep wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the focus being on porn behind age verification as the main effect, is that it ignores all the other effects. Closing community forums and wikis. Uncertainty about blog comments. It is actually (as noted in many previous discussion about the Online Safety Act) pushing people to using big tech platforms, because they can no longer afford the compliance cost and risk of running their own.

> pushing people to using big tech platforms so big tech platforms will cheerfully embrace it. as expected, major players love regulations.

GDPR killed small and medium online advertising businesses and handed everything to Google and Facebook.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#54

Post by fidotron »

Roark66 wrote: post #41

Somehow I have the deja-vu of when Theresa May (as a Home Secretary) tried to ban personal encryption altogether. Let me remind everyone this is in a country that already has a law that says you're legally required to give your encryption key to the police and if you do not, even if there is no other crime you can get 2 years in jail... This told me all I needed to know about her level of understanding of complex top…

I'm always reminded of this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7970731.stm

"The Home Secretary's husband has said sorry for embarrassing his wife after two adult films were viewed at their home, then claimed for on expenses."

The follow up article has some fun nuggets too http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8145935.stm

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#56

Post by pjc50 »

lysace wrote: post #49
Roark66 wrote: post #41

Somehow I have the deja-vu of when Theresa May (as a Home Secretary) tried to ban personal encryption altogether. Let me remind everyone this is in a country that already has a law that says you're legally required to give your encryption key to the police and if you do not, even if there is no other crime you can get 2 years in jail... This told me all I needed to know about her level of understanding of complex top…

Even low-grade encryption was actually forbidden in France for a while in the mid 90s. I remember snickering about the whole thing back then, in a much smaller but also quite similar forum. https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_... > Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month…

There was also in the 90s the weird period of export control of encryption software from the US, leading to the "this tshirt is a munition" shirts with the algorithm printed on them. And the (thankfully failed) "clipper chip" mandate.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#57

Post by bawolff »

mminer237 wrote: post #44
bawolff wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most Wikimedia users would consider it inapropriate to mix fundraising and public policy initiatives.

I believe public policy initiatives are already Wikimedia's second-biggest expenses, after salaries, so I don't see how that would be much more different than usual fundraising except for making it more transparent.

In 2023 (most recent year i could find a tax statement for) Wikimedia foundation had a budget of $178,588,294. They spent $92,616 of it on lobbying. That is 0.05% of their budget. So i think its pretty clear its not their second biggest expense.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/d9/Wikim...

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#58

Post by wizzwizz4 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #43
graemep wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most websites, for most people, are big tech. Big tech loves this regulation because imposing compliance costs reduces competition.

The problem is, that both pornhub and facebook also love underage (well, too young) users, because those users will stay there. Cutting off UK for a few weeks won't cause that much damage but might help them in the long run.

These laws don't cause any problems for PornHub or Facebook. People are moving from independent forums to Facebook.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#59

Post by gorgoiler »

noodlesUK wrote: post #25

I don't like the OSA and associated regulations as much as the next person -- I think we could have gotten a long way by saying you need to include a X-Age-Rating in http responses and calling it a day. The law itself is incoherently long and it's very difficult to know what duties you have. However, I don't see what the legal basis of Wikimedia's challenge is. The OSA is primary legislation, so can't be challenged e…

X-Age-Rating would only work if the server could be sure of the jurisdictions under which the recipient was bound.

To continue the thought experiment though: another implementation would be to list up to N tags that best describe the content being served. You could base these on various agreed tagging systems such as UN ISIC tagging (6010 Broadcasting Pop Music) or UDC, the successor to the Dewey Decimal System (657 Accountancy, 797 Water Sports etc.) The more popular sites could just grandfather in their own tag zoologies.

A cartoon song about wind surfing:

  X-Content-Tags: ISIC:6010 UDC:797 YouTube:KidsTV
It’s then up to the recipient’s device to warn them of incoming illegal-in-your-state content.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#60

Post by wizzwizz4 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #42
graemep wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

large companies love this law. By imposing costs and risk on self hosting, and reducing the number of supplies (because many small and medium companies and organisation will block the UK), it reduces competition.

The reality is the vast majority of users will just not submit their ID and the large companies will lose most of their UK traffic. There was a study by Amazon [1] that showed that every 100ms of extra load time of a page cost 1% of revenue. How much revenue do you think adding an ID verification that takes 10 minutes to complete cost??? You think PornHub loves this law??? [1] https://www.conductor.com/academy/page-s…

The grapevine says that independent sex workers are struggling as a result of the Online Safety Act. Unless the law has significantly reduced the tendency for UK people to engage with internet porn (which I doubt), then yes, PornHub is benefiting from this law.
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