4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence • Hacker News Board

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#71

Post by phba » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:19 AM UTC

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #50

epanchin wrote: post #11

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

The cookie popups is such a painful representation of Europe tech in general. Like you can configure your browser to do whatever you want with cookies - blocking them all, blocking only third party ones, etc. - there is no need for government regulation here. But the legislators are completely tech illiterate and even the general public supports more interference and regulation.

The legislation simply says if you collect more data about your users than necessary, you must inform them and they must consent. This has nothing to do with cookies or any other tech.

The question a user should ask is why is this website collecting my data. Marketing and adtech companies are trying to shift this question to why is the EU making websites worse.

> there is no need for government regulation here

You don't need to care about this if you respect users' privacy in the same way you don't need to care about waste water regulation when you don't pump waste into rivers.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#72

Post by mnmalst » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:29 AM UTC

MaKey wrote: post #42

epanchin wrote: post #11

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

> Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are. Technical cookies don't require any consent so every time you see a cookie banner the website owner wants to gather more data about you than necessary. Furthermore, these rules don't require cookie banners, it's what the industry has chosen as the way to get consent to track their…

Or the website owner doesn't want to take the risk and ads a banner even if the site strictly doesn't need one.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#73

Post by vkazanov » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:36 AM UTC

mkesper wrote: post #38

Woodi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some peoples are funny :) And there are parents ;) Kids go to school, have lessons, right ? And few minutes breaks between lessons ? How that parents want to censorship what kids talk about ? Not to mention phones use. And why exactly ? Thing is as it always is: parents make fundamens in culture/world view eg via their views and religion they subscribe. And then society and reality takes over. What society you have ?

Adults grooming children in chats is absolutely a thing, this is completely different from talking any way they feel like to their peers face to face.

Grooming is exactly what scared the shit out of me in my kid's Discord. Teenagers promoting sex to children. Well these idiots at least have a hormonal excuse. But adults hanging out online with children and teenagers...

I don't remember this in my late 90s LAN chats.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#74

Post by jfim » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:44 AM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #40

epanchin wrote: post #11

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

Having done several rounds with parental control, I'd say -- nfw. We were worried more about timesink than anything else, but over a long period of time, it mainly boils down to knowing your kids, trusting them, with checkups. The tech is just not there to actually control what happens on a device. White listing worked for a while (months) when they were young, but it was super-high touch and stuff just broke all the…

It's totally doable to block YouTube with pihole, and also to make it blocked only on certain devices.

You can create groups and assign devices to them, and assign the block rules only to certain groups.

The only annoyance with this is that it blocks logging into Google since they redirect to YouTube to set a login cookie as part of the Google login process. If you're already logged into Google though, everything works as normal, and you can always disable pihole for five minutes if for some reason you got logged out and need to log back in.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#75

Post by aveao » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:48 AM UTC

mnmalst wrote: post #72

MaKey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are. Technical cookies don't require any consent so every time you see a cookie banner the website owner wants to gather more data about you than necessary. Furthermore, these rules don't require cookie banners, it's what the industry has chosen as the way to get consent to track their…

Or the website owner doesn't want to take the risk and ads a banner even if the site strictly doesn't need one.

that seems like an issue with the website owner to me

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#76

Post by snthd » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 10:53 AM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #40

epanchin wrote: post #11

Is there a solution where we can compel parental control to be enabled by default on kids phones? That would seem to be least intrusive option. Using the internet in the UK/EU is such a horrible experience, every cookie pop-up is a reminder how badly thought out these rules are.

Having done several rounds with parental control, I'd say -- nfw. We were worried more about timesink than anything else, but over a long period of time, it mainly boils down to knowing your kids, trusting them, with checkups. The tech is just not there to actually control what happens on a device. White listing worked for a while (months) when they were young, but it was super-high touch and stuff just broke all the…

Maybe they're called parental controls because they control the parents (by limiting and bundling choices).

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#77

Post by jojobas » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:05 AM UTC

LordN00b wrote: post #61

tasuki wrote: post #35

> The Act explicitly grants Ofcom the legal authority to regulate online safety for individuals in the United Kingdom, and this expressly includes conducting investigations into, and imposing penalties for, non-compliance by providers of online services with their duties under the Act. […] The Act expressly anticipates that it will have extra-territorial effect I don't see anything wrong here: Sure, Ofcom can have th…

There is plenty of precedence for this, and I am about to fudge a bunch of details. The basic point is that the United Kingdom can make any law it sees fit to any place or person. Even though it may only exercise punitive issues once they arrival inside the physical jurisdiction. So the example I was taught, the UK can pass a law banning smoking in Paris, but may not arrest/fine until such criminal trespassers get of…

This case is more like UK bans selling cigarettes and tries going after a Parisian tobacconist.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#78

Post by oytis » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:14 AM UTC

cdfsdsadsa wrote: post #6

ridruejo wrote: post #2

This is a really well-written article. The whole thing is so absurd and this makes it so clear.

FWIW I agree with the intent of the Act, and am generally in favour of a sovereign firewall. Edit: In a nutshell - almost every other transfer of goods and services across national borders is subject to quality standards. Why do we give a pass to a system that allows deep, individualised access to people's personal lives and mental processes?

I'd argue transfer of services is not really an issue. People buying services from a foreign entity is a pretty fringe case, and most legitimate businesses will try to establish a local presence for that anyway.

Sovereign firewalls are mostly used by countries that have them for censorship and surveillance, and I think letting governments use a pretext of digital services being able to avoid tolls and taxes to establish such a powerful tool would be a huge mistake.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#79

Post by beardyw » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:14 AM UTC

jojobas wrote: post #77

LordN00b wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is plenty of precedence for this, and I am about to fudge a bunch of details. The basic point is that the United Kingdom can make any law it sees fit to any place or person. Even though it may only exercise punitive issues once they arrival inside the physical jurisdiction. So the example I was taught, the UK can pass a law banning smoking in Paris, but may not arrest/fine until such criminal trespassers get of…

This case is more like UK bans selling cigarettes and tries going after a Parisian tobacconist.

Yes if the Parisian tabaconist sells in the UK. What happens in France is a French concern.

Re: 4Chan Lawyer publishes Ofcom correspondence

#80

Post by oytis » Fri, Oct 17, 2025, 11:21 AM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #47

cdfsdsadsa wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I agree with the intent of the Act, and am generally in favour of a sovereign firewall. Edit: In a nutshell - almost every other transfer of goods and services across national borders is subject to quality standards. Why do we give a pass to a system that allows deep, individualised access to people's personal lives and mental processes?

Right now you're downvoted for expressing an opinion that I believe deserves a deeper discussion. I don't want the government to decide which thoughts I can access and which ones I can't, but I also understand that allowing a foreign power (let's say Russia, although "the US" works just as fine) to freely run undercover propaganda and/or destabilization campaigns without any recourse doesn't look good either. And whi…

What about domestic entities running undercover propaganda campaigns - as we have seen e.g. with Cambridge Analytica? Should we maybe focus on the more fundamental problem of our democracies being vulnerable to propaganda campaigns rather than making sure that only "good" and "sovereign" propaganda campaigns are allowed?