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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

#91

Post by wahnfrieden »

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…

Why do you think it's an issue or understanding or intelligence? It's a matter of power and control. Protesting the intelligence of these leaders won't result in any structural change.

If anything, greater intelligence would only accelerate the damage and persuasiveness behind its public consent.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#92

Post by gosub100 »

pjc50 wrote: post #56
lysace wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if the primary purpose of the law was to have a catch-all charge to file against people who stole military equipment? Of course there are charges like espionage and theft, but it seems like it could be a tactic to be able to levy "exporting an encryption device" charges in addition to everything else.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#93

Post by exasperaited »

master-lincoln wrote: post #61
exasperaited wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think you both have a point. Why not block foreign access to your internet service if the laws of that foreign country are nothing you want to be concerned with? It might be a bit disruptive in the beginning, but in the long run I think we all benefit from that. It increases the chance of politicians to realize their over-boarding decisions by having public pressure from previous users of those services and it incr…

The point I am making is that everyone in the USA is somehow absolutely certain that Britain is a hell-hole of authoritarianism because of this law, and yet 25 US states have enacted laws which are in some cases basically lunatic porn censorship (whereas our OSA is not) and HN just ignores it because the Brits, eh?

The fabric of the USA is being ripped apart by a kleptocratic authoritarian fascist-at-least-wannabe government that makes the most extreme country in the EU (Hungary) look exactly like a trial run, and you guys are worried about the Brits implementing a relatively measured law that affects fewer people than all those US porn laws combined.

HN's weird little "no politics" bubble encourages you all to think that it is outrageous that US companies should be held accountable to the laws of the countries in which you trade [0], while your president is, for example, imposing actually illegal tariffs on Brazil, abusing a power you won't take away from him, because they insist on prosecuting Bolsonaro under their own laws for something he did within their country.

Yes: we made a law you don't like. It's a stupid law. It's still a fairly measured, stupid law compared to the ones your states are passing and your own supreme court thinks are A-OK, or the silly one in France, or whatever.

Collectively you should maybe stop fretting about the UK while your country is reverting to quasi-monarchy.

[0] and yes, you are trading here if you serve porn to UK customers. This is the same standard as the US Supreme Court-approved Texas anti-porn law applies.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#94

Post by Spivak »

the_other wrote: post #64
miohtama wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Frankly, that's their fault for pursuing individually targeted advertising. The sad thing isn't that some small shitty businesses lost out, it's that some large shitty businesses didn't.

And since individually targeted ads perform better and are less expensive it pushes everyone to big US tech platforms.

This isn't small advertisers' faults, the law signed their death warrant. They made local grocery stores more expensive and worse quality but kept Walmart around untouched. No one could predict what would happen.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#95

Post by pjc50 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #86
freeone3000 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Strong moderation” and “manual checks” and pro-active age verification are exactly the burdens that would prevent someone from running a small community forum.

You do not need age verification in the vast majority of cases. Moderation is part and parcel of running forums and all platforms and software provide tools for this, it's nothing new. If someone is not prepared to read submissions or to react quickly when one is flagged then perhaps running a forum is too much of a commitment for them but I would not blame the law. In fact I believe that forum operators in the UK al…

Right, so 24 hour coverage is already too expensive for most forums and your position is that small forums should not exist.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#96

Post by captainbland »

xnorswap wrote: post #78
IlikeKitties wrote: post #2

All this is of course bullshit. The only response that would have a chance of succeeding would have been if most websites collectively just blocked everyone from the UK. Imagine if 60-70% of the internet just stopped working for UK People. The law would be toppled tomorrow. Every Company that implemented any compliance is a traitor to the free internet and should be treated as such.

This law could be brought down overnight by Meta if they introduced age-control for WhatsApp and suddenly people couldn't message their own children. But of course Meta carved out their own exception in the law, so this law benefits Meta at the cost of alternatives.

I think that's kind of the joke as well, because WhatsApp (being totally unmoderated and opaque) is probably the exact place you'd want to enact age controls, especially in groups.

It's like the government thought long and hard about how to make the restrictions the most inconvenient and with the largest number of gaps in the approach.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#97

Post by pjc50 »

gosub100 wrote: post #92
pjc50 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if the primary purpose of the law was to have a catch-all charge to file against people who stole military equipment? Of course there are charges like espionage and theft, but it seems like it could be a tactic to be able to levy "exporting an encryption device" charges in addition to everything else.

It was a legacy from the era of the enigma machine, where encryption required a dedicated cipher device, rather than something you could do in pure code.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#98

Post by mytailorisrich »

pjc50 wrote: post #95
mytailorisrich wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need age verification in the vast majority of cases. Moderation is part and parcel of running forums and all platforms and software provide tools for this, it's nothing new. If someone is not prepared to read submissions or to react quickly when one is flagged then perhaps running a forum is too much of a commitment for them but I would not blame the law. In fact I believe that forum operators in the UK al…

Right, so 24 hour coverage is already too expensive for most forums and your position is that small forums should not exist.

Small forums should and can exist. They are not required to have 24 hour coverage.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#99

Post by supermatt »

Why can't these measures be handled via parental control?

Children are using mobiles and tablets almost exclusively, both major providers of which supply tools for parental administration.

Content filtering is already facilitated by existing parental control. Mobile browsers could be made to issue a header if the user is under a certain age. Mobile apps could have access to a flag.

Parents should be responsible for parenting their child - not big tech. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?

Re: Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations

#100

Post by nsksl »

supermatt wrote: post #99

Why can't these measures be handled via parental control? Children are using mobiles and tablets almost exclusively, both major providers of which supply tools for parental administration. Content filtering is already facilitated by existing parental control. Mobile browsers could be made to issue a header if the user is under a certain age. Mobile apps could have access to a flag. Parents should be responsible for p…

That's how it should work but you will find that a majority of parents cba rearing their children so they want the state to do it for them. And this extends to so many things in life that the authoritarian grip is only going to get tighter with time.
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