Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 887 posts

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#751

Post by mathiaspoint »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #506
mathiaspoint wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right of course every state has a "constitution" but the contemporary connotation of the word means an enforceable law that meaningfully constrains the state's power.

In the UK that would probably be the Magna Carta [0] which is a written document that constrains the monarch's power, and the monarch was the state at that time (1215). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

That's my point though. The monarch has so little power now it's irrelevant and the democratic government is out of control.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#752

Post by zastai0day »

This regulatory challenge reveals how policy changes can create new cybersecurity , from identity verification risks to operational security gaps, underscoring the importance of holistic vulnerability management that addresses both technical and regulatory security risks.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#753

Post by captainbland »

drawfloat wrote: post #197
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…

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 think something like reversing it in one specific domain (e.g. softcore porn or static images). Then retooling it so it applies to e.g. people viewing info on immigration rights etc. is likely on the cards.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#754

Post by mathiaspoint »

gambiting wrote: post #709
qcnguy wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the best thing you can say about the EU membership is there were lots of exceptions, that is an argument for leaving, not staying. In reality the exceptions were mostly a work of fiction. For example, the UK was originally assured that the human rights principles they'd originally proposed as a vague set of aspirations would never be made into law, because they weren't suited to be law. Then the EU did that anyway…

>>If the best thing you can say about the EU membership is there were lots of exceptions, that is an argument for leaving, not staying. Having the best deal out of all members states in a union is a reason to leave that union? Are you even listening to what you say, or do you just say it so quickly it doesn't process? If you negotiate with your employer to have the best working conditions of everyone at your company,…

Yes if the best thing you can say about the deal is that you don't have to have much of it that's an argument for not doing the deal.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#755

Post by jedahan »

zastai0day wrote: post #752

This regulatory challenge reveals how policy changes can create new cybersecurity , from identity verification risks to operational security gaps, underscoring the importance of holistic vulnerability management that addresses both technical and regulatory security risks.

Not sure why, but this reads as an AI generated summary. Can someone confirm/explain? What does it mean to create new cybersecurity?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#756

Post by extraisland »

zimpenfish wrote: post #153
AlecSchueler wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikimedia should block UK access. That will get the attention of media and popularity contest politicians might change their mind. Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in? I'm quite critical of the implementation of this legislation but the idea of an American company throwing their weight around trying to influence policy decisions in the UK gives me the ick. Fair enough…

> Or they could respect the democratic decisions of the countries they do business in? Well, the OSA was put into law by the Tories in 2023. The democratic decision of the UK was that they resoundingly rejected what the Tories were doing in the landslide win for Labour in the 2024 GE. I'd quite like UKGOV to respect the democratic decisions of the country and if they won't, I'm quite happy for other people to push ba…

Your framing is misleading.

Most people weren't aware of the Online Safety Act. I would argue it wasn't even any of the policies.

The Tories were in power for 14 years previously. During that time we had 5 prime ministers all of which were seen as weak and ineffective. People were sick of the Conservative party. This includes some of their most ardent supporters.

People were sick of the Conservative party, this includes people that had previously voted for the Conservatives.

The election had low voter turn out. It wasn't that Labour won, it was more like the Conservatives lost and by default Labour took power because they were the only other choice.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#757

Post by gnfargbl »

galangalalgol wrote: post #718
gnfargbl wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a loss, but only really a technical loss. What happened is that Wikimedia have been told that they haven't been told that they are Category 1 at this point and, given that they've already made a submission to Ofcom which makes an argument that they aren't Category 1 [1], then they need to wait and see if Ofcom agrees. If Ofcom doesn't agree, then Wikimedia is invited to come back again, with a fairly strong h…

The problem is that a regulatory body is determining all this instead of the independent judiciary. Ofcom now has the power to granularly decide who gets categorized as what, and to what degree small organizations are given less stringent rules. They have the power to become a ministry of truth. That is hyperbole today, but only because they haven't been wielded by a suitably minded leader yet. If this seems paranoid…

> The problem is that a regulatory body is determining all this instead of the independent judiciary.

What we have is the regulatory body (which, as a non-ministerial government department is effectively part of the government) making the specific regulations, and the comparability of those regulations with other laws being determined by the independent judiciary.

That's exactly as it should be, no? I don't think I want judges creating laws or regulations. That's not their role in our democracy.

> [Ofcom has] the power to become a ministry of truth.

The judgment makes clear that any such attempt would be incompatible with the freedom of expression rights guaranteed to us by the ECHR. That's a good thing!

We don't need to panic about the OSA, as things stand. However, we should be very worried about the stated desire of Reform for the UK to join Russia in being outside the ECHR. In that scenario, the judiciary would have no power to prevent the scenario you're outlining and, exactly as it is in Russia, there's a good chance that the media would be captured by the government.

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#758

Post by storus »

867-5309 wrote: post #364
storus wrote: post #356

An honest question - which devices can be used for secure communication if phones get government-borked for "children/foreign interference" purposes?

an unborked phone

Give me one example of a government-borking-resistant phone?

Re: Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act

#760

Post by StopVibeCoding »

knorker wrote: post #86

What I hate most about this latest push is that people in their 30s are trying to convince us all that blocking children's access to porn and such is the issue. As if most people don't agree with that in the abstract. Not only people in their 30s, but it's who I see making a fuss about it. Presumably because they are now parents of children newly reaching this age. They are completely ignoring that they are entering…

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me." -1984
Post reply on HN