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Your compliance obligations under the UK’s Online Safety Bill

621 points by Arkanum 4y ago

almostnormal 4y ago
What happened with GDPR: Some small independent hobby bbs/forums got worried, closed down, and members moved their discussions to facebook.
joering2 4y ago
> If a British child could merely type your URL into a browser, the site is in scope. Seems incorrect, no? The visit is more important than just typing URL. Worst-case scenario I will check your IP and if its in UK/GB scope, you will see "Unable to browse this site due to your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy"
- ChrisKnott 4y ago
  The whole article is written like this - hyperbolically presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law. > [A pretty reasonable set of questions that companies must consider regarding how children might be harmed on their service] > "you’re probably curled up in a ball crying" No actually, I wasn't. Filtering out the breathless commentary, the actual proposals don't seem that bad...? Certainly no worse than GDPR obligations and nowhere near the kind of regulatory compliance industries like Manufacturing, Construction and Medicine have to meet. Admittedly I didn't make it to the end of the article because the tone was beginning to grate too much.
  - dogleash 4y ago
    > presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law It's fine if you don't like the flourishes in her writing, but this is the correct way to read proposed legislation. If the uncharitable reading describes the law enabling/preventing things in a way the authors don't intend, all they have to do is clarify the scope in the text of the bill. The light least favorable to the drafting party is needed now. In 5 years when there are legal cases over the bounds of the law, the courts will use the text of the law rather that call in the authors and politicians that voted for it and check what they intended for the law to mean. Or maybe they would, I don't know how British courts work.
  - Folcon 4y ago
    Tone aside, she does point out one clear way this bill does hurt tech compared to other industries. The cost of entry into this space is really low compared to most other industries. You can very cheaply provide a reasonably competitive product. One of the aspects of this bill that I do find worrying is that there are clear costs being added on that we're obligated to pay likely before we've validated the business works. I do feel a lot of side-projects that could have gone to become viable businesses will never be released with this bill in place. Who wants to expose themselves to costs to try out a fun idea? A lot of what she's arguing for could have been covered similarly to GDPR if there were carve outs for smaller entities, which would have been easy to mention, the absence of them lends weight to her assertion that the goal of this bill as it stands is to generally increase political control of the tech sphere. Even if that control only extends to and harms UK businesses...
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    Do you think prosecutors won't use the least generous reading of the law?
- hedora 4y ago
  Well, they'd have to press enter. Once that happened, it sounds like you'd have to run through certifications to make sure that the phrase "your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy" isn't potentially harmful to minors, and then also (at a minimum) put in business processes to make sure that the approved text didn't change. Then, moving forward, whenever you changed any (unrelated) business process, you'd need to re-up your business process certifications.
_dain_ 4y ago
What do each of the Tory leadership candidates think of this bill? I'll back anyone who'll scrap it.
- bencollier49 4y ago
  Kemi Badenoch seems to be anti.
lifeplusplus 4y ago
hmmm how many countries are there 180+? must be fun to be compliant to all of them. Either rules should apply to only within the country or be handled by international organization. About time we created lawmaking internet committee, there are many for technical standards already.
tasubotadas 4y ago
Good example of why you need to fight even for big tech rights.
- stevewatson301 4y ago
  The “reigning in big tech” thing that’s been going on for all this while is really a ruse to limit citizen freedom while coming up with laws that only big tech can comply to. I wish it was more widely recognized and understood by more folks.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
    >a ruse to limit citizen freedom while coming up with laws that only big tech can comply to. Which law in particular?
    - concordDance 4y ago
      Have you read TFA?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
groffee 4y ago
> Or it would have, if the nine MPs across three parties who were scheduled to attend actually showed up. Only one did. Everything else aside, if MPs don't show up for a scheduled meeting they should just be sacked. How many of us can just blow off meetings like that with no consequence?
- TillE 4y ago
  It just underlines what should be fairly obvious: that such official meetings are not how things are actually decided in representative democracies. I mean that's even more explicit in a parliamentary system, where members are nearly always expected to vote the party line or face consequences.
  - mellavora 4y ago
    > I mean that's even more explicit in a parliamentary system, where members are nearly always expected to vote the party line or face consequences. yes, that is a feature (not a bug) of a parliamentary system. A complementary feature is that parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution. So a party that wins 35% of the vote gets 35% of the seats. And those seats are expected to vote as a block unless there is an extreme question of conscience. You could contrast with for example the US system, where the original intent was that the senators/representatives would represent their state, not the party. Worked well for a while. Now, however, they also follow party line or face consequences. But there are realistically only two parties, and the the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties.
    - ranko 4y ago
      > a party that wins 35% of the vote gets 35% of the seats At the last general election to the UK parliament (2019), the Tories won 44% of the votes, and ended up with 56% of the seats - first past the post strikes again!
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      > parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution > the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties. What you say is true, but while we're discussing an article about the UK, it is worth stating, for the avoidance of doubt, that the UK also uses the First Past The Post electoral systems (for its national parliament) and therefore doesn't have a representational seat distribution. Indeed, that may be part of the reason that such an extreme policy from such an unpopular party is being put forward at all. (The current government won 43.6% of the vote at the last general election, with 67.3% turnout, meaning it had the support of 29.3% of the electorate, but won 56.2% of the seats).
dane-pgp 4y ago
> What I’ve come to realise since then is it’s not a joke. That’s the intention. Make it too prohibitive, risky, or impossible for public discourse to flow on smaller platforms and services; require the larger ones to become speech police and societal monitors This is, I believe, also the intention behind the calls to repeal Section 230. It takes politics back to the simpler age where there were just a few entities deciding what the public were talking about, and they could be reached with either a bribe or an arrest warrant. For a lot of politicians, who don't understand social media and mostly receive criticism on it, I can imagine them not caring if the costs of pre-screening all content ended up making social media accounts require annual payments. That would have the immediate effect of removing anonymity from users, and limiting online comments to people with disposable income (who could be profitably sued for insulting politicians).
- roody15 4y ago
  This is absolutely the intention. Western Governments are looking to control the discourse and are following the footsteps of China. Honestly sad to see the web move in this direction :/
- pydry 4y ago
  >That would have the immediate effect of removing anonymity from users, and limiting online comments to people with disposable income (who could be profitably sued for insulting politicians). This must be what they meant by "Singapore on Thames" coz it's certainly not about good economic policy or building enough social housing.
- llamataboot 4y ago
  I don't know about intentions, seems like the intention behind a ton of this stuff is to "protect the children", or "fix a problem" etc etc, but there just isn't enough awareness of possible side effects - not unique to tech legislation - just look at the policy ratchet of "you can always run by being tougher on crime, very hard to run on being not as tough" -- and arguably there is also some interaction with tech companies doing malicious compliance as well which generally means that the original intent of the legislation gets lost and user experience further degrades (cookie popups anyone?) -- I think it's too simplistic to make this a "politicians want to control the discourse" - there's always a bunch of tradeoffs in these things, and arguably the edge cases /are/ the base case (anyone that has done content moderation for a reasonably large community knows that it is very hard to make any sort of blanket rule, even if you have blanket rules)
Aeolun 4y ago
It seems to me that the solution to all the woes of this bill is to just not allow any content to be shared. That basically eliminates this being a problem for 95% of all companies.
- verytrivial 4y ago
  Content presumably includes prose.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    Yes? Aside from some explicit videos, explicit prose is probably the most dangerous.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Correct, taking down all of one's websites is the easiest way to comply with this bill.
  - hedora 4y ago
    That, and hiring a large number of lawyers, paying regulatory fees, etc.
- buro9 4y ago
  The bill covers this site... HN. And it covers Stack Overflow. And Mumsnet. And basically any site that takes user generated content of any kind.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Yep, this is the point. Prevent people being able to communicate except through a handful of controlled middle men who can spy on or block content the government dislikes. The end goal is complete control of the communication of its citizens.
buscoquadnary 4y ago
My belief is that the open internet began to pose a threat to those in power, they now seek to divide the internet back up along national boundaries via absurd regulations in order to for the traditional institutions to maintain their power. We are already seeing it with many sites being unwilling to deal with the compliance headache of GDPR and just blocking European users, plus it seems like half the internet is off limits to China because everyone blocks Chinese IP addresses because of their bad behavior. Ultimately the only people who benefit as the internet gets more and more locked down and more and more regulated is the people at the top who are able to reassert control of the information those unwashed masses receive.
- noduerme 4y ago
  - ok123456 4y ago
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      > passing legislation that people want that addresses their material concerns Is it though? The same problem that gave us the Capitol's storming also skews those people's concerns, so the legislation they'd demand would be anything but reasonable.
      - ok123456 4y ago
        The mid-west and south were on-board when democratic party still stood behind the New Deal and before NAFTA.
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      > a few confused people mill around the rotunda and take selfies. That's like calling 9/11 "a few planes being temporarily diverted from their flight paths". The facts[0] paint a different picture: "13 percent of those nearly 700 arrested as of early December are members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers or extremist groups like the Proud Boys." > could have been avoided by winning by clear and resounding margins If you don't care about the clear and resounding margin of the popular vote, or care about the voter suppression efforts in red states, or the fact that Biden won 74 more electoral votes than Trump, then I don't know what to tell you. > by having a track record of passing legislation that people want You're basically saying "Unless the winners pass exactly the legislation that the losers want, then the losers will resort to violence". You're advocating for terrorism. Anyway, you might be surprised to know that the Republicans had control of at least half of the legislature since 2015, so the 1/6 rioters really should have directed most of their anger towards the GOP. [0] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capitol-riot-arrests-research-profile.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capito...
dp-hackernews 4y ago
Surveillance and censorship by way of enforced regulation - Hello 1984!
hyperman1 4y ago
As someone from the EU, with no money or anuthing coming in from the UK, why would I even care about this? The GDPR has teeth only because the EU is big enough to make companies care. It is a watered down version from some privacy rights compared to the old laws in my country. But the old laws were ignorde by US tech because why wouldn't they. So as the UK left the EU, they are now a small country in the computer world. I'll ignore its laws just as I ignore Afghan laws requiring women to stay at home or whatever country's laws to forbif gays from existing.
- xdfgh1112 4y ago
  Yeah, this already happens to some extent with American and Asian sites blocking Europe and the UK because they don't want to deal with GPDR.
  - sterlind 4y ago
    If this UK bill passes, I'd simply return HTTP 451 with a note that although the UK is blocked from my site, VPNs are not.
    - kmeisthax 4y ago
      Promoting VPN usage could be construed by the UK courts as an attempt to commit subterfuge or dodge jurisdiction. They will not take kindly to this. You really want to make it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with Britain as long as they have crazy laws on the books. Related point: if you're intending to get out of GDPR, blocking the EU doesn't really help, because the law applies on the basis of citizenship, not territory. If an EU citizen accesses your website in America, that's still within GDPR scope. If you have EU business assets, ship things to the EU, or have any other ties to the EU, then they still have jurisdiction and you certainly still have to comply with GDPR.
      - kwhitefoot 4y ago
        > because the law applies on the basis of citizenship, No it doesn't. depends on location only. A US, or any other, citizen is protected by GDPR when they access the web from within the EU
mike_hearn 4y ago
With respect to the politicians not turning up, it's worth noting that at least some of the candidates for PM are against the Online Safety Bill and want to scrap it. So for them, campaigning to become the next leader may actually be a more useful way to spend time than hearing what they already know. It appears the OSB has become a victim of incoherent requirements specifications. It's grown enormously during its gestation period and is now trying to do way too much, including things that are self-contradictory. Some politicians recognize this, for example Kemi Badenoch: https://order-order.com/2022/07/11/watch-badenoch-slams-online-safety-bill-promises-to-champion-free-speech/ https://order-order.com/2022/07/11/watch-badenoch-slams-onli... but I recall others saying similar things. I just can't find the references right now.
- aembleton 4y ago
  Badenoch also has a degree in Computer Systems Engineering. She probably has a good understanding of the problems with this bill.
_fat_santa 4y ago
If this applies to every site that hosts user generated content then that's nuts. When the internet first started, part of the appeal is that you could just make stuff without people looking over your shoulder, asking for forms, etc. Seems that the internet we created today is technically the same as the one from before, but now with governments throwing up red tape at every corner. Makes me wonder what a site like HN would have to do in order to stay in compliance. While on the one hand HN could make the argument that the site is not geared towards children so this kind of stuff is not a concern, regulations will say: well TECHNICALLY a child could use HN, and TECHNICALLY a predator could message with them, and therefore there is TECHNICALLY a risk, so please pay up $20k/yr for compliance costs. I use HN as a stand in example for many many sites and services out there. IMO, I don't think it will be that enforceable. Sure the big tech companies will comply, anyone that runs a smaller service outside the UK will just tell the UK govt to kick rocks if they come knocking (what can they do besides blocking the site in the UK). If this bill gets passed were going to get the following: - Big tech company scandal over CSAM. - A heartbreaking story over some small time website owner facing prison time over non-compliance. - Opinion pieces from the tech community about how it's a terrible idea all around. - Puff pieces from non-tech outlets that praise the legislation without fully understanding the technical ramifications. - Flame war between techies and non-techies over competing puff pieces.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  right now or say 10 years ago til now, before the whole encrypted chats came into the picture, how many people have been convicted of CSAM in the UK, USA or somewhere else? is it in thousands? millions? if people were not getting convicted left and right before encryption, why is suddenly encryption the #1 enemy?
  - carom 4y ago
    In addition to this, if they actually cared about children they would up the penalties for crimes. In the US it is 4 years in prison. Let's make it 20 years per image. That is what Maxwell got for literally trafficking children. But hey, let's add some red tape to the internet, mind numbing.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? When government or industry makes it nearly impossible for consumer needs to be met we inevitably see a grey and black market spring up to meet those needs. My prediction is that if legislation like this becomes widespread we'll see a freely distributed application rise to prominence among a gaggle of others, it'll dominate the chat and social market until even grandma is using it and the establishment will have a right proper freak out as other social media giants implode and everyone is communicating anything they want with zero oversight from the government or industry. This is roughly how I remember the Napster affair going when DRM was pushed hard by the recording industry, it eventually collapsed but not before dealing a massive blow to the status quo and forcing a transition to streaming.
- mfincham 4y ago
  "We will just use technology to bypass this bad law" is a very convenient position for a technology-focused group to take. It feels weirdly privileged to just say "ah we will abdicate ourselves from the problem by using ever more complicated technology" rather than working to improve the legislation to benefit everyone.
  - maskil 4y ago
    Sometimes technology is the way out. Sometimes the only way to fix the system is to create an alternative that circumvents it. Tools matter.
  - sircastor 4y ago
    I don't think this sounds weirdly privileged at all. The trouble is people will solve problems typically through the path of least resistance. It's much easier to find legal loopholes than it is to try and comply. And contrary to the rhetoric, it's expensive and uncertain to simply buy law-making through lobbying. Consider how hard it is in the United States to lay new fiber (and this is an imperfect metaphor). The ideal solution would be to get legislative branches to solve the telcos oligopoly problem. That has not and is not working. So what's happening? Wireless internet over LTE, and 5G being deployed everywhere. Route around.
HeckFeck 4y ago
I dread to think what this will mean for the free and open Internet - the source of much mirth, yes, and much dread. But that's just a reflection of the human condition. It should be just left be. Another case of myopic, joyless stodges ruining what they don't understand. I've paid enough taxes to this worthless, bloated institution that claims to 'protect my liberties' - is it too late to get a refund? Don't they owe me something for clear breach of contract? The 'social contract' isn't what it was when I was born!
- cowtools 4y ago
  Brits don't have freedom of speech AFIK. it was never in their social contract.
  - Nasrudith 4y ago
    There is a noisy contingent extremely proud of that fact for some bizzare reason. I can only hope they are an extreme minority.
  - HeckFeck 4y ago
    We had it through negative liberty, opposed to positive liberty. The approach was that everything was permitted except that which is forbidden. So, instead of a 'right to' free speech, rather we _would_ have no laws restricting freedom of speech (libel and incitement excepted). This was the understanding that would've permeated Parliament, the courts, the palace, and the hearts and minds of everyone who understood it. More or less, until 1997.
    - nickmyersdt 4y ago
      What happened in 1997?
      - HeckFeck 4y ago
        The onset of Blairism, which accelerated all previous statist trends with a smiling face and suave media personality. So we ended up with the Communications Act (2003) and its dreadful Section 127. As well as admission to PRISM, and making ourselves one of the CCTV capitals of the world. And he's still taking aim at freedom from beyond the grave: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-tony-blair-think-free-speech-isn-t-for-everyone- https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-tony-blair-think-fr...
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
This woman is a great writer! This article doesn't really apply to anything I'm doing (at present), but I enjoyed the read.
flipbrad 4y ago
The worst thing is, with the EU DSA coming in, a lot of this is probably completely unnecessary. So it creates extra bureaucracy, and gives the UK establishment a new boot to place on the necks of those that carry others' speech (and also pose a threat to traditional media), for very limited gain.
- Folcon 4y ago
  What is the current direction of that looking like?
outside1234 4y ago
Just ignore it - if everyone ignores it it will be impossible to enforce.
pmontra 4y ago
> In addition to the risk assessments, you will have administrative compliance obligations to Ofcom as your content regulator. [long list follows] So everybody around the world could and should register with them and basically perform a DoS at that very first step of the process?
worldofmatthew 4y ago
When this bill passes, I am going to do everything to make my internet traffic hard to track. Mainly as a FU to this country.
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
The extra-territoriality part is interesting. It's still part of the post-Brexit hangover. GDPR got enforced globally because a) it covered 500 million rich europeans so you could not ignore that market b) it was the first and not insane. This is insane - and worse the UK is just, just small enough that you could if you wanted, turn off the service to those geo-IPs and carry on. I wonder. If any non-English speaking country tried it, it would almost be guaranteed
- notnotjake 4y ago
  What is the mechanism that allows it to apply extraterritorially? How can they make me comply?
  - bencollier49 4y ago
    Arrest you when you change planes at Heathrow. It's nuts; most of the Internet will be locked off from UK users.
causi 4y ago
who also has skin in the game about being on the receiving end of the most horrific online abuse Do people just not get educated in online literacy anymore? An adult getting abused online is like getting third degree burns because you laid your hand on a hot burner and refused to take it off. If people saying mean things to you is disturbing your groove so much you're calling it "abuse" maybe you should stop reading them. This is stuff from the first week of 1990s computer class in elementary school.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  While I don't disagree with you, it's important to remember that these companies spend billions of dollars to literally make their product addictive. In school we teach kids how to be responsible with alcohol and drugs. But some still become addicted. The same applies to social media. The difference is that instead of the pusher being some shady character at the back of the school bus, it's a massive company with marketing, public relations, and lobbying teams.
  - causi 4y ago
    Sure, and doomscrolling, misinformation, and the constant need for external validation are horrific problems. I don't think they're quite on the subject when we're talking about people's refusal to disengage with online hostility. It's like trying to make it illegal for people to flip you the bird in traffic. Is it a nice thing to do? Absolutely not, but letting it ruin your life is completely optional. The same thing applies to people on Facebook telling you to go fuck yourself.
- darkhorse222 4y ago
  You're talking like someone who doesn't live in a hyper-connected, hyper-online society. The same poor argument could made to verbal harassment. "Put in some headphones!"
  - causi 4y ago
    I would make that argument if I could push a button and make that person disappear from my sight and hearing. Ironically verbal harassment is much more protected. I'm free to get a group of people together and go chant "You're a cunt!" outside the Palace of Westminster.
TheMagicHorsey 4y ago
I like how the English write. Maybe it's because it was originally their language and so they teach it well in their schools. As an American, I rarely see young people able to write like this anymore. On the topic: are they trying to kill their startups? Because this is how you drive startups out of the UK.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
amoe_ 4y ago
The OSB has become a big bucket which UK politicians can point to and say "see, we're doing something". When faced with a question about the internet, the stock response of Tory MPs is to say "wait for the Online Safety Bill". In that way, it's quite similar to the situation before Brexit, where representatives would evade responsibility for policy by claiming that their hands were tied by Brussels.
bjt2n3904 4y ago
We're all sitting here shaking our heads wondering how we got here. The answer is we demanded it. Instead of parents taking responsibility for what their children see on their phone, we tried to push a parental responsibility into the service provider, that they're simply unable to logistically comply with. This is the end result of trying to solve a problem in meat space with legislation. Everyone that sat around going "Hurr hurr XKCD! Slippery slope! Seat belts and road safety!" are complicit.
vgel 4y ago
If I, a US citizen, started an online service that attracted Ofcom attention, what binds me to following UK regulations? The article mentions "extraterritorial enforcement", but what does that mean? Will the US extradite me to the UK if I don't put monitoring in place? Will I get arrested if I visit the UK? Will they try to sue me in US court? I mean realistically if it became a problem I'd just IP-block all of the UK because they're small, but I don't understand what the legal framework for "extraterritorial enforcement" even is.
- intunderflow 4y ago
  The Senior Managers Liability part means it's a criminal offence in the UK - so basically you could never visit the UK for fear of arrest.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  In theory yes, in practice the US basically never extradites people to the UK and if they tried you would probably have a good defence (against extradition) under various parts of the constitution.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    Weird how it only goes one way, isn't it?
    - Shuang1 4y ago
      It's not really weird. We have rights guaranteed to us in the United States that no other country has, so it makes sense we would not extradite.
      - rsstack 4y ago
        The US extradites people, including US citizens. That is required from the federal government by extradition treaties that are signed voluntarily by the US (in exchange for extradition _to_ the US). It is uncommon because they require escalations through the Department of State and not many crimes are serious enough to justify extradition.
toldyouso2022 4y ago
First they cane for my cookies and I said nothing because I just had to shill 30bucks...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
b3rv34v3ev4 4y ago
This is NOT regulation of big tech. This creates a barrier to entry that allows ONLY big tech access to the playing field. These types of barriers to entry already exist in other areas like the pharmaceutical business and finance. Now we're getting artificial barriers created in IT.
rlpb 4y ago
The article says: "Is it possible for your site, service, or app, which allows content to be shared and/or people to communicate with each other, to be accessed by any adult or any child within the UK? Then you’re in scope. NB “accessed” doesn’t necessarily mean that a user can set up an active account on your service. If a British adult can merely download your app on the app store, the app is in scope." However, the draft bill doesn't seem to say that. I found the draft here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safety-bill https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe... (and note that the article doesn't seem to link it, which seems odd). The bill says: "In this Act “user-to-user service” means an internet service by means of which content that is generated by a user of the service, or uploaded to or shared on the service by a user of the service, may be encountered by another user, or other users, of the service. That seems reasonable to me. There are more details, but as far as I can see, the ability to merely download an app does not put it in scope contrary to the claim in TFA. I now find myself doubting the the other claims made by this author.
- M2Ys4U 4y ago
  >However, the draft bill doesn't seem to say that. I found the draft here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe... (and note that the article doesn't seem to link it, which seems odd). You're linking to the draft bill. Burns has linked to the actual bill as amended in the Commons: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0121/220121.pdf https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0121... (it's linked under the heading of "How to read this post")
  - rlpb 4y ago
    Ah, thanks. Looks like there's not an actual bill yet, but there is a second draft bill. However, I looked at the definitions in there and they remain essentially the same. My concerns still stand.
    - M2Ys4U 4y ago
      > Ah, thanks. Looks like there's not an actual bill yet, but there is a second draft bill. No, there's definitely a bill. It's had its first and second readings and it's in committee stage in the Commons: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137
Havoc 4y ago
The whole thing is so completely and utterly braindead that it must surely be an attempt to shift the overton window & subsequently pass something slightly toned down.
s1k3s 4y ago
Does anyone have a tldr? Respectfully to the author, I don’t have the patience to read through this blog post full of metaphores and anecdotes. So what happened?
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  tldr: In the name of "protecting the children," the British government wants to create an ultra-efficient police state so they can instantly hoover up information about every British user of the Internet, on a scale that would make the Chinese government blush. Like the Chinese, they propose to put executives of ISPs and websites in jail if they fail to assist the government in the creation of this police state. Unlike the Chinese, part of the plan is to make a few companies [more] fabulously wealthy: Namely the biggest tech giants like Alphabet and Meta who can afford the enormous costs of compliance, as well as certain homegrown British companies who specialize in estimating a user's age by using AI to analyze the size of a user's head in a webcam image. Super-important points: 1. This is not about "adult content" websites. It covers just about any website that uses technology more advanced that static HTML files, regardless of content. 2. The provisions apply to any website worldwide that can be accessed in Britain. 3. The provisions make it effectively impossible to browse the Internet anonymously in Britain. The government also wants browser makers to make special British versions of browsers to assist them in deanonymizing users. 4. The cost of compliance for any small business will be so astronomical that GDPR compliance will seem trivial by comparison.
  - s1k3s 4y ago
    Thank you. This seems like an extension to the already existing TELECOM laws across EU, where the companies must provide customer information if requested by the gov. I think I recently saw something about "web hosting" companies in EU being forced to provide customer and user data on request as well - but this one didn't really make the news.
fleddr 4y ago
Whilst this draft bill is laughable and outrageous, isn't a similar concept in the making for the EU? One not emphasizing children but copyrights and such instead? Article 13, I think it's called. I consider them conceptually similar because in both cases it means that permission-less publishing will ultimately die. Right now the consensus is to allow publication, after which a reasonable effort is made to moderate, including the typical "report" function where you correct after publication. It looks like we're swinging in the direction where whatever you publish (by means of your users) makes you fully accountable hence the only way to dodge that legal liability is to pre-check instead of post-check. There's some hope in the sense that none of this can actually work nor is it enforceable. GDPR is a fine example of that. In my country, privacy authorities are a few hundred in staff only. When you report a violation to them, absolutely nothing will happen. They're 2 years behind and the cases they do handle almost never lead to any kind of verdict. No government is going to add thousands in staff just to regulate cookies, as surely they have better things to do with a budget. As such, the strategy seems to be to occasionally make an example out of a few by applying severe fines, just to scare everybody else and remind them that this legislation is a thing. Let's also not underestimate the ability for people to revolt. If memory serves me well, article 13 had a modification so that people can continue to meme, lol.
dan-robertson 4y ago
I found the comparisons to the EU privacy regulations a bit annoying. I think the article would be stronger without them. I think they give too rosy an impression of the EU regulations (which can also be bad or burdensome) and that makes me think the U.K. regulations are less bad (rather than that they are so bad they make the EU regulations look good, I suppose).
IshKebab 4y ago
> As with the previous post, this is tremendously long: 4100 words. There’s really no way to make it shorter. There definitely is.
codedokode 4y ago
If UK government really cared about children, and not about surveillance and censorship, they would solve the problem another way. The only way protect children online is to ban them from Internet. Children should not have access to normal laptops and smartphones, instead they should use "kid phones". Such phones would allow children to communicate only with people approved by parents or teachers and visit only approved sites. This way they will enjoy perfect safety which this Bill fails to provide. Every site which wants to become approved, must fulfill all the requirements from the Bill and indicate this with a HTTP header. Kid phones and laptops should allow only to visit such compliant sites. Kid-oriented phones and laptops must be visually distinctive: for example, have a shape of a cute animal. In this case teachers, parents or police will be able to instantly spot and confiscate illegal devices. This is a win-win plan: kids would be safe and adults would be safe from government overreach. Obviously no government will agree to such plan.
- worldofmatthew 4y ago
  The truth of cause, it is about control. The kids part is to allow for a moral panic that the government needs to "save the kids" from. It would be profitable if you could charge a monthly fee for a kids specific social network that parents had control over who the kids could chat to and what news they could read. The funny thing is that if I created a phone that had a kids mode lock-down (with kids friendly appstore, social media, browser and education content) with a monthly fee and no-ads. The government would scream that I was harming competition and locking people out by daring to charge for a product that would be expensive to operate.
  - SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
    “We must do something, for the children, even if it saves just one life” The great triple fallacy. Never wants you to stop for even a moment to think if doing something is a good idea if the some * we must do* is the wrong thing, if children be used for exploitation, and if not doing something could “save” more people long term than the feel good initial change”.
- doublerabbit 4y ago
Shuang1 4y ago
As an American who has no desire to visit the UK, is there any particular reason I need to care? The article says it would affect me but they don't have any jurisdiction over me.
dadjoker 4y ago
Orwell was prescient.
drumhead 4y ago
One of the candidates for the Tory party leadership has already spoken out against it. I get the impression its not that popular and might well be scrapped or dropped.
jrochkind1 4y ago
Do you think non-giant non-UK websites will be just ignoring this, even though theoretically if their website is accessible to those in the UK, the UK wants their compliance?
de6u99er 4y ago
The safest tbi g to do is cut off access from the UK to you web-site or -service.
rmbyrro 4y ago
British politicians envy the spying, I mean, access American politicians have on private stuff traveling in US big tech. They want their cut. At least about their own cattle, I mean, they surely see British people as.. people?
solatic 4y ago
Sadly, the only safe way for startups to ensure compliance will be to block IP blocks of any country they're not intentionally doing business in. You will start by intentionally doing business in your country of incorporation, contract out with a consultant to ensure that you are meeting your compliance requirements in your local jurisdiction, and only expand intentionally from there. Sure, users can use VPNs to bypass IP blocks, but at least then you have a defense that the user "traveled" to a jurisdiction where you do operate. Or - you take a leaf from the pirate's book and throw caution to the wind. Which will be pretty much the only way to get the growth that investors expect, even as investors will refuse to invest without at least the appearance of legal certainty of the first option.
MikePlacid 4y ago
> Online Safety Bill, plus amendments as was published on 28 June 2022. Unfortunately, it is only available in PDF (that link opens up the document, which is 230 pages). The total size of legislation should be constitutionally limited. So that if someone wants to add 230 pages of new legislation, he should point to other 230 pages of the older legislation that should be eliminated. So I think.
T3RMINATED 4y ago

621 points by Arkanum 4y ago

What happened with GDPR: Some small independent hobby bbs/forums got worried, closed down, and members moved their discussions to facebook.

joering2 4y ago

> If a British child could merely type your URL into a browser, the site is in scope. Seems incorrect, no? The visit is more important than just typing URL. Worst-case scenario I will check your IP and if its in UK/GB scope, you will see "Unable to browse this site due to your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy"

ChrisKnott 4y ago
The whole article is written like this - hyperbolically presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law. > [A pretty reasonable set of questions that companies must consider regarding how children might be harmed on their service] > "you’re probably curled up in a ball crying" No actually, I wasn't. Filtering out the breathless commentary, the actual proposals don't seem that bad...? Certainly no worse than GDPR obligations and nowhere near the kind of regulatory compliance industries like Manufacturing, Construction and Medicine have to meet. Admittedly I didn't make it to the end of the article because the tone was beginning to grate too much.
- dogleash 4y ago
  > presenting the least generous reading she possibly can of the proposed law It's fine if you don't like the flourishes in her writing, but this is the correct way to read proposed legislation. If the uncharitable reading describes the law enabling/preventing things in a way the authors don't intend, all they have to do is clarify the scope in the text of the bill. The light least favorable to the drafting party is needed now. In 5 years when there are legal cases over the bounds of the law, the courts will use the text of the law rather that call in the authors and politicians that voted for it and check what they intended for the law to mean. Or maybe they would, I don't know how British courts work.
- Folcon 4y ago
  Tone aside, she does point out one clear way this bill does hurt tech compared to other industries. The cost of entry into this space is really low compared to most other industries. You can very cheaply provide a reasonably competitive product. One of the aspects of this bill that I do find worrying is that there are clear costs being added on that we're obligated to pay likely before we've validated the business works. I do feel a lot of side-projects that could have gone to become viable businesses will never be released with this bill in place. Who wants to expose themselves to costs to try out a fun idea? A lot of what she's arguing for could have been covered similarly to GDPR if there were carve outs for smaller entities, which would have been easy to mention, the absence of them lends weight to her assertion that the goal of this bill as it stands is to generally increase political control of the tech sphere. Even if that control only extends to and harms UK businesses...
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Do you think prosecutors won't use the least generous reading of the law?
hedora 4y ago
Well, they'd have to press enter. Once that happened, it sounds like you'd have to run through certifications to make sure that the phrase "your-stupid-anti-blah-blah-UK-policy" isn't potentially harmful to minors, and then also (at a minimum) put in business processes to make sure that the approved text didn't change. Then, moving forward, whenever you changed any (unrelated) business process, you'd need to re-up your business process certifications.

_dain_ 4y ago

What do each of the Tory leadership candidates think of this bill? I'll back anyone who'll scrap it.

bencollier49 4y ago
Kemi Badenoch seems to be anti.

lifeplusplus 4y ago

hmmm how many countries are there 180+? must be fun to be compliant to all of them. Either rules should apply to only within the country or be handled by international organization. About time we created lawmaking internet committee, there are many for technical standards already.

tasubotadas 4y ago

Good example of why you need to fight even for big tech rights.

stevewatson301 4y ago
The “reigning in big tech” thing that’s been going on for all this while is really a ruse to limit citizen freedom while coming up with laws that only big tech can comply to. I wish it was more widely recognized and understood by more folks.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago
  >a ruse to limit citizen freedom while coming up with laws that only big tech can comply to. Which law in particular?
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Have you read TFA?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

groffee 4y ago

> Or it would have, if the nine MPs across three parties who were scheduled to attend actually showed up. Only one did. Everything else aside, if MPs don't show up for a scheduled meeting they should just be sacked. How many of us can just blow off meetings like that with no consequence?

TillE 4y ago
It just underlines what should be fairly obvious: that such official meetings are not how things are actually decided in representative democracies. I mean that's even more explicit in a parliamentary system, where members are nearly always expected to vote the party line or face consequences.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > I mean that's even more explicit in a parliamentary system, where members are nearly always expected to vote the party line or face consequences. yes, that is a feature (not a bug) of a parliamentary system. A complementary feature is that parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution. So a party that wins 35% of the vote gets 35% of the seats. And those seats are expected to vote as a block unless there is an extreme question of conscience. You could contrast with for example the US system, where the original intent was that the senators/representatives would represent their state, not the party. Worked well for a while. Now, however, they also follow party line or face consequences. But there are realistically only two parties, and the the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties.
  - ranko 4y ago
    > a party that wins 35% of the vote gets 35% of the seats At the last general election to the UK parliament (2019), the Tories won 44% of the votes, and ended up with 56% of the seats - first past the post strikes again!
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    > parliamentary systems tend to have representational seat distribution > the "first past the post" system locks us into 2 parties. What you say is true, but while we're discussing an article about the UK, it is worth stating, for the avoidance of doubt, that the UK also uses the First Past The Post electoral systems (for its national parliament) and therefore doesn't have a representational seat distribution. Indeed, that may be part of the reason that such an extreme policy from such an unpopular party is being put forward at all. (The current government won 43.6% of the vote at the last general election, with 67.3% turnout, meaning it had the support of 29.3% of the electorate, but won 56.2% of the seats).

dane-pgp 4y ago

> What I’ve come to realise since then is it’s not a joke. That’s the intention. Make it too prohibitive, risky, or impossible for public discourse to flow on smaller platforms and services; require the larger ones to become speech police and societal monitors This is, I believe, also the intention behind the calls to repeal Section 230. It takes politics back to the simpler age where there were just a few entities deciding what the public were talking about, and they could be reached with either a bribe or an arrest warrant. For a lot of politicians, who don't understand social media and mostly receive criticism on it, I can imagine them not caring if the costs of pre-screening all content ended up making social media accounts require annual payments. That would have the immediate effect of removing anonymity from users, and limiting online comments to people with disposable income (who could be profitably sued for insulting politicians).

roody15 4y ago
This is absolutely the intention. Western Governments are looking to control the discourse and are following the footsteps of China. Honestly sad to see the web move in this direction :/
pydry 4y ago
>That would have the immediate effect of removing anonymity from users, and limiting online comments to people with disposable income (who could be profitably sued for insulting politicians). This must be what they meant by "Singapore on Thames" coz it's certainly not about good economic policy or building enough social housing.
llamataboot 4y ago
I don't know about intentions, seems like the intention behind a ton of this stuff is to "protect the children", or "fix a problem" etc etc, but there just isn't enough awareness of possible side effects - not unique to tech legislation - just look at the policy ratchet of "you can always run by being tougher on crime, very hard to run on being not as tough" -- and arguably there is also some interaction with tech companies doing malicious compliance as well which generally means that the original intent of the legislation gets lost and user experience further degrades (cookie popups anyone?) -- I think it's too simplistic to make this a "politicians want to control the discourse" - there's always a bunch of tradeoffs in these things, and arguably the edge cases /are/ the base case (anyone that has done content moderation for a reasonably large community knows that it is very hard to make any sort of blanket rule, even if you have blanket rules)

Aeolun 4y ago

It seems to me that the solution to all the woes of this bill is to just not allow any content to be shared. That basically eliminates this being a problem for 95% of all companies.

verytrivial 4y ago
Content presumably includes prose.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Yes? Aside from some explicit videos, explicit prose is probably the most dangerous.
shadowgovt 4y ago
Correct, taking down all of one's websites is the easiest way to comply with this bill.
- hedora 4y ago
  That, and hiring a large number of lawyers, paying regulatory fees, etc.
buro9 4y ago
The bill covers this site... HN. And it covers Stack Overflow. And Mumsnet. And basically any site that takes user generated content of any kind.
concordDance 4y ago
Yep, this is the point. Prevent people being able to communicate except through a handful of controlled middle men who can spy on or block content the government dislikes. The end goal is complete control of the communication of its citizens.

buscoquadnary 4y ago

My belief is that the open internet began to pose a threat to those in power, they now seek to divide the internet back up along national boundaries via absurd regulations in order to for the traditional institutions to maintain their power. We are already seeing it with many sites being unwilling to deal with the compliance headache of GDPR and just blocking European users, plus it seems like half the internet is off limits to China because everyone blocks Chinese IP addresses because of their bad behavior. Ultimately the only people who benefit as the internet gets more and more locked down and more and more regulated is the people at the top who are able to reassert control of the information those unwashed masses receive.

noduerme 4y ago
- ok123456 4y ago
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    > passing legislation that people want that addresses their material concerns Is it though? The same problem that gave us the Capitol's storming also skews those people's concerns, so the legislation they'd demand would be anything but reasonable.
    - ok123456 4y ago
      The mid-west and south were on-board when democratic party still stood behind the New Deal and before NAFTA.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    > a few confused people mill around the rotunda and take selfies. That's like calling 9/11 "a few planes being temporarily diverted from their flight paths". The facts[0] paint a different picture: "13 percent of those nearly 700 arrested as of early December are members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers or extremist groups like the Proud Boys." > could have been avoided by winning by clear and resounding margins If you don't care about the clear and resounding margin of the popular vote, or care about the voter suppression efforts in red states, or the fact that Biden won 74 more electoral votes than Trump, then I don't know what to tell you. > by having a track record of passing legislation that people want You're basically saying "Unless the winners pass exactly the legislation that the losers want, then the losers will resort to violence". You're advocating for terrorism. Anyway, you might be surprised to know that the Republicans had control of at least half of the legislature since 2015, so the 1/6 rioters really should have directed most of their anger towards the GOP. [0] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capitol-riot-arrests-research-profile.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capito...

dp-hackernews 4y ago

Surveillance and censorship by way of enforced regulation - Hello 1984!

hyperman1 4y ago

As someone from the EU, with no money or anuthing coming in from the UK, why would I even care about this? The GDPR has teeth only because the EU is big enough to make companies care. It is a watered down version from some privacy rights compared to the old laws in my country. But the old laws were ignorde by US tech because why wouldn't they. So as the UK left the EU, they are now a small country in the computer world. I'll ignore its laws just as I ignore Afghan laws requiring women to stay at home or whatever country's laws to forbif gays from existing.

xdfgh1112 4y ago
Yeah, this already happens to some extent with American and Asian sites blocking Europe and the UK because they don't want to deal with GPDR.
- sterlind 4y ago
  If this UK bill passes, I'd simply return HTTP 451 with a note that although the UK is blocked from my site, VPNs are not.
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    Promoting VPN usage could be construed by the UK courts as an attempt to commit subterfuge or dodge jurisdiction. They will not take kindly to this. You really want to make it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with Britain as long as they have crazy laws on the books. Related point: if you're intending to get out of GDPR, blocking the EU doesn't really help, because the law applies on the basis of citizenship, not territory. If an EU citizen accesses your website in America, that's still within GDPR scope. If you have EU business assets, ship things to the EU, or have any other ties to the EU, then they still have jurisdiction and you certainly still have to comply with GDPR.
    - kwhitefoot 4y ago
      > because the law applies on the basis of citizenship, No it doesn't. depends on location only. A US, or any other, citizen is protected by GDPR when they access the web from within the EU

mike_hearn 4y ago

With respect to the politicians not turning up, it's worth noting that at least some of the candidates for PM are against the Online Safety Bill and want to scrap it. So for them, campaigning to become the next leader may actually be a more useful way to spend time than hearing what they already know. It appears the OSB has become a victim of incoherent requirements specifications. It's grown enormously during its gestation period and is now trying to do way too much, including things that are self-contradictory. Some politicians recognize this, for example Kemi Badenoch: https://order-order.com/2022/07/11/watch-badenoch-slams-online-safety-bill-promises-to-champion-free-speech/ https://order-order.com/2022/07/11/watch-badenoch-slams-onli... but I recall others saying similar things. I just can't find the references right now.

aembleton 4y ago
Badenoch also has a degree in Computer Systems Engineering. She probably has a good understanding of the problems with this bill.

_fat_santa 4y ago

If this applies to every site that hosts user generated content then that's nuts. When the internet first started, part of the appeal is that you could just make stuff without people looking over your shoulder, asking for forms, etc. Seems that the internet we created today is technically the same as the one from before, but now with governments throwing up red tape at every corner. Makes me wonder what a site like HN would have to do in order to stay in compliance. While on the one hand HN could make the argument that the site is not geared towards children so this kind of stuff is not a concern, regulations will say: well TECHNICALLY a child could use HN, and TECHNICALLY a predator could message with them, and therefore there is TECHNICALLY a risk, so please pay up $20k/yr for compliance costs. I use HN as a stand in example for many many sites and services out there. IMO, I don't think it will be that enforceable. Sure the big tech companies will comply, anyone that runs a smaller service outside the UK will just tell the UK govt to kick rocks if they come knocking (what can they do besides blocking the site in the UK). If this bill gets passed were going to get the following: - Big tech company scandal over CSAM. - A heartbreaking story over some small time website owner facing prison time over non-compliance. - Opinion pieces from the tech community about how it's a terrible idea all around. - Puff pieces from non-tech outlets that praise the legislation without fully understanding the technical ramifications. - Flame war between techies and non-techies over competing puff pieces.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
right now or say 10 years ago til now, before the whole encrypted chats came into the picture, how many people have been convicted of CSAM in the UK, USA or somewhere else? is it in thousands? millions? if people were not getting convicted left and right before encryption, why is suddenly encryption the #1 enemy?
- carom 4y ago
  In addition to this, if they actually cared about children they would up the penalties for crimes. In the US it is 4 years in prison. Let's make it 20 years per image. That is what Maxwell got for literally trafficking children. But hey, let's add some red tape to the internet, mind numbing.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

Can someone explain why this won't result in a renaissance for peer to peer and e2e encrypted chat/forums/social media etc.? When government or industry makes it nearly impossible for consumer needs to be met we inevitably see a grey and black market spring up to meet those needs. My prediction is that if legislation like this becomes widespread we'll see a freely distributed application rise to prominence among a gaggle of others, it'll dominate the chat and social market until even grandma is using it and the establishment will have a right proper freak out as other social media giants implode and everyone is communicating anything they want with zero oversight from the government or industry. This is roughly how I remember the Napster affair going when DRM was pushed hard by the recording industry, it eventually collapsed but not before dealing a massive blow to the status quo and forcing a transition to streaming.

mfincham 4y ago
"We will just use technology to bypass this bad law" is a very convenient position for a technology-focused group to take. It feels weirdly privileged to just say "ah we will abdicate ourselves from the problem by using ever more complicated technology" rather than working to improve the legislation to benefit everyone.
- maskil 4y ago
  Sometimes technology is the way out. Sometimes the only way to fix the system is to create an alternative that circumvents it. Tools matter.
- sircastor 4y ago
  I don't think this sounds weirdly privileged at all. The trouble is people will solve problems typically through the path of least resistance. It's much easier to find legal loopholes than it is to try and comply. And contrary to the rhetoric, it's expensive and uncertain to simply buy law-making through lobbying. Consider how hard it is in the United States to lay new fiber (and this is an imperfect metaphor). The ideal solution would be to get legislative branches to solve the telcos oligopoly problem. That has not and is not working. So what's happening? Wireless internet over LTE, and 5G being deployed everywhere. Route around.

HeckFeck 4y ago

I dread to think what this will mean for the free and open Internet - the source of much mirth, yes, and much dread. But that's just a reflection of the human condition. It should be just left be. Another case of myopic, joyless stodges ruining what they don't understand. I've paid enough taxes to this worthless, bloated institution that claims to 'protect my liberties' - is it too late to get a refund? Don't they owe me something for clear breach of contract? The 'social contract' isn't what it was when I was born!

cowtools 4y ago
Brits don't have freedom of speech AFIK. it was never in their social contract.
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  There is a noisy contingent extremely proud of that fact for some bizzare reason. I can only hope they are an extreme minority.
- HeckFeck 4y ago
  We had it through negative liberty, opposed to positive liberty. The approach was that everything was permitted except that which is forbidden. So, instead of a 'right to' free speech, rather we _would_ have no laws restricting freedom of speech (libel and incitement excepted). This was the understanding that would've permeated Parliament, the courts, the palace, and the hearts and minds of everyone who understood it. More or less, until 1997.
  - nickmyersdt 4y ago
    What happened in 1997?
    - HeckFeck 4y ago
      The onset of Blairism, which accelerated all previous statist trends with a smiling face and suave media personality. So we ended up with the Communications Act (2003) and its dreadful Section 127. As well as admission to PRISM, and making ourselves one of the CCTV capitals of the world. And he's still taking aim at freedom from beyond the grave: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-tony-blair-think-free-speech-isn-t-for-everyone- https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-tony-blair-think-fr...

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

This woman is a great writer! This article doesn't really apply to anything I'm doing (at present), but I enjoyed the read.

flipbrad 4y ago

The worst thing is, with the EU DSA coming in, a lot of this is probably completely unnecessary. So it creates extra bureaucracy, and gives the UK establishment a new boot to place on the necks of those that carry others' speech (and also pose a threat to traditional media), for very limited gain.

Folcon 4y ago
What is the current direction of that looking like?

outside1234 4y ago

Just ignore it - if everyone ignores it it will be impossible to enforce.

pmontra 4y ago

> In addition to the risk assessments, you will have administrative compliance obligations to Ofcom as your content regulator. [long list follows] So everybody around the world could and should register with them and basically perform a DoS at that very first step of the process?

worldofmatthew 4y ago

When this bill passes, I am going to do everything to make my internet traffic hard to track. Mainly as a FU to this country.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

The extra-territoriality part is interesting. It's still part of the post-Brexit hangover. GDPR got enforced globally because a) it covered 500 million rich europeans so you could not ignore that market b) it was the first and not insane. This is insane - and worse the UK is just, just small enough that you could if you wanted, turn off the service to those geo-IPs and carry on. I wonder. If any non-English speaking country tried it, it would almost be guaranteed

notnotjake 4y ago
What is the mechanism that allows it to apply extraterritorially? How can they make me comply?
- bencollier49 4y ago
  Arrest you when you change planes at Heathrow. It's nuts; most of the Internet will be locked off from UK users.

causi 4y ago

who also has skin in the game about being on the receiving end of the most horrific online abuse Do people just not get educated in online literacy anymore? An adult getting abused online is like getting third degree burns because you laid your hand on a hot burner and refused to take it off. If people saying mean things to you is disturbing your groove so much you're calling it "abuse" maybe you should stop reading them. This is stuff from the first week of 1990s computer class in elementary school.

reaperducer 4y ago
While I don't disagree with you, it's important to remember that these companies spend billions of dollars to literally make their product addictive. In school we teach kids how to be responsible with alcohol and drugs. But some still become addicted. The same applies to social media. The difference is that instead of the pusher being some shady character at the back of the school bus, it's a massive company with marketing, public relations, and lobbying teams.
- causi 4y ago
  Sure, and doomscrolling, misinformation, and the constant need for external validation are horrific problems. I don't think they're quite on the subject when we're talking about people's refusal to disengage with online hostility. It's like trying to make it illegal for people to flip you the bird in traffic. Is it a nice thing to do? Absolutely not, but letting it ruin your life is completely optional. The same thing applies to people on Facebook telling you to go fuck yourself.
darkhorse222 4y ago
You're talking like someone who doesn't live in a hyper-connected, hyper-online society. The same poor argument could made to verbal harassment. "Put in some headphones!"
- causi 4y ago
  I would make that argument if I could push a button and make that person disappear from my sight and hearing. Ironically verbal harassment is much more protected. I'm free to get a group of people together and go chant "You're a cunt!" outside the Palace of Westminster.

TheMagicHorsey 4y ago

I like how the English write. Maybe it's because it was originally their language and so they teach it well in their schools. As an American, I rarely see young people able to write like this anymore. On the topic: are they trying to kill their startups? Because this is how you drive startups out of the UK.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

amoe_ 4y ago

The OSB has become a big bucket which UK politicians can point to and say "see, we're doing something". When faced with a question about the internet, the stock response of Tory MPs is to say "wait for the Online Safety Bill". In that way, it's quite similar to the situation before Brexit, where representatives would evade responsibility for policy by claiming that their hands were tied by Brussels.

bjt2n3904 4y ago

We're all sitting here shaking our heads wondering how we got here. The answer is we demanded it. Instead of parents taking responsibility for what their children see on their phone, we tried to push a parental responsibility into the service provider, that they're simply unable to logistically comply with. This is the end result of trying to solve a problem in meat space with legislation. Everyone that sat around going "Hurr hurr XKCD! Slippery slope! Seat belts and road safety!" are complicit.

vgel 4y ago

If I, a US citizen, started an online service that attracted Ofcom attention, what binds me to following UK regulations? The article mentions "extraterritorial enforcement", but what does that mean? Will the US extradite me to the UK if I don't put monitoring in place? Will I get arrested if I visit the UK? Will they try to sue me in US court? I mean realistically if it became a problem I'd just IP-block all of the UK because they're small, but I don't understand what the legal framework for "extraterritorial enforcement" even is.

intunderflow 4y ago
The Senior Managers Liability part means it's a criminal offence in the UK - so basically you could never visit the UK for fear of arrest.
LatteLazy 4y ago
In theory yes, in practice the US basically never extradites people to the UK and if they tried you would probably have a good defence (against extradition) under various parts of the constitution.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Weird how it only goes one way, isn't it?
  - Shuang1 4y ago
    It's not really weird. We have rights guaranteed to us in the United States that no other country has, so it makes sense we would not extradite.
    - rsstack 4y ago
      The US extradites people, including US citizens. That is required from the federal government by extradition treaties that are signed voluntarily by the US (in exchange for extradition _to_ the US). It is uncommon because they require escalations through the Department of State and not many crimes are serious enough to justify extradition.

toldyouso2022 4y ago

First they cane for my cookies and I said nothing because I just had to shill 30bucks...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

b3rv34v3ev4 4y ago

This is NOT regulation of big tech. This creates a barrier to entry that allows ONLY big tech access to the playing field. These types of barriers to entry already exist in other areas like the pharmaceutical business and finance. Now we're getting artificial barriers created in IT.

rlpb 4y ago

The article says: "Is it possible for your site, service, or app, which allows content to be shared and/or people to communicate with each other, to be accessed by any adult or any child within the UK? Then you’re in scope. NB “accessed” doesn’t necessarily mean that a user can set up an active account on your service. If a British adult can merely download your app on the app store, the app is in scope." However, the draft bill doesn't seem to say that. I found the draft here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safety-bill https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe... (and note that the article doesn't seem to link it, which seems odd). The bill says: "In this Act “user-to-user service” means an internet service by means of which content that is generated by a user of the service, or uploaded to or shared on the service by a user of the service, may be encountered by another user, or other users, of the service. That seems reasonable to me. There are more details, but as far as I can see, the ability to merely download an app does not put it in scope contrary to the claim in TFA. I now find myself doubting the the other claims made by this author.

M2Ys4U 4y ago
>However, the draft bill doesn't seem to say that. I found the draft here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/draft-online-safe... (and note that the article doesn't seem to link it, which seems odd). You're linking to the draft bill. Burns has linked to the actual bill as amended in the Commons: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0121/220121.pdf https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0121... (it's linked under the heading of "How to read this post")
- rlpb 4y ago
  Ah, thanks. Looks like there's not an actual bill yet, but there is a second draft bill. However, I looked at the definitions in there and they remain essentially the same. My concerns still stand.
  - M2Ys4U 4y ago
    > Ah, thanks. Looks like there's not an actual bill yet, but there is a second draft bill. No, there's definitely a bill. It's had its first and second readings and it's in committee stage in the Commons: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137

Havoc 4y ago

The whole thing is so completely and utterly braindead that it must surely be an attempt to shift the overton window & subsequently pass something slightly toned down.

s1k3s 4y ago

Does anyone have a tldr? Respectfully to the author, I don’t have the patience to read through this blog post full of metaphores and anecdotes. So what happened?

dreamcompiler 4y ago
tldr: In the name of "protecting the children," the British government wants to create an ultra-efficient police state so they can instantly hoover up information about every British user of the Internet, on a scale that would make the Chinese government blush. Like the Chinese, they propose to put executives of ISPs and websites in jail if they fail to assist the government in the creation of this police state. Unlike the Chinese, part of the plan is to make a few companies [more] fabulously wealthy: Namely the biggest tech giants like Alphabet and Meta who can afford the enormous costs of compliance, as well as certain homegrown British companies who specialize in estimating a user's age by using AI to analyze the size of a user's head in a webcam image. Super-important points: 1. This is not about "adult content" websites. It covers just about any website that uses technology more advanced that static HTML files, regardless of content. 2. The provisions apply to any website worldwide that can be accessed in Britain. 3. The provisions make it effectively impossible to browse the Internet anonymously in Britain. The government also wants browser makers to make special British versions of browsers to assist them in deanonymizing users. 4. The cost of compliance for any small business will be so astronomical that GDPR compliance will seem trivial by comparison.
- s1k3s 4y ago
  Thank you. This seems like an extension to the already existing TELECOM laws across EU, where the companies must provide customer information if requested by the gov. I think I recently saw something about "web hosting" companies in EU being forced to provide customer and user data on request as well - but this one didn't really make the news.

fleddr 4y ago

Whilst this draft bill is laughable and outrageous, isn't a similar concept in the making for the EU? One not emphasizing children but copyrights and such instead? Article 13, I think it's called. I consider them conceptually similar because in both cases it means that permission-less publishing will ultimately die. Right now the consensus is to allow publication, after which a reasonable effort is made to moderate, including the typical "report" function where you correct after publication. It looks like we're swinging in the direction where whatever you publish (by means of your users) makes you fully accountable hence the only way to dodge that legal liability is to pre-check instead of post-check. There's some hope in the sense that none of this can actually work nor is it enforceable. GDPR is a fine example of that. In my country, privacy authorities are a few hundred in staff only. When you report a violation to them, absolutely nothing will happen. They're 2 years behind and the cases they do handle almost never lead to any kind of verdict. No government is going to add thousands in staff just to regulate cookies, as surely they have better things to do with a budget. As such, the strategy seems to be to occasionally make an example out of a few by applying severe fines, just to scare everybody else and remind them that this legislation is a thing. Let's also not underestimate the ability for people to revolt. If memory serves me well, article 13 had a modification so that people can continue to meme, lol.

dan-robertson 4y ago

I found the comparisons to the EU privacy regulations a bit annoying. I think the article would be stronger without them. I think they give too rosy an impression of the EU regulations (which can also be bad or burdensome) and that makes me think the U.K. regulations are less bad (rather than that they are so bad they make the EU regulations look good, I suppose).

IshKebab 4y ago

> As with the previous post, this is tremendously long: 4100 words. There’s really no way to make it shorter. There definitely is.

codedokode 4y ago

If UK government really cared about children, and not about surveillance and censorship, they would solve the problem another way. The only way protect children online is to ban them from Internet. Children should not have access to normal laptops and smartphones, instead they should use "kid phones". Such phones would allow children to communicate only with people approved by parents or teachers and visit only approved sites. This way they will enjoy perfect safety which this Bill fails to provide. Every site which wants to become approved, must fulfill all the requirements from the Bill and indicate this with a HTTP header. Kid phones and laptops should allow only to visit such compliant sites. Kid-oriented phones and laptops must be visually distinctive: for example, have a shape of a cute animal. In this case teachers, parents or police will be able to instantly spot and confiscate illegal devices. This is a win-win plan: kids would be safe and adults would be safe from government overreach. Obviously no government will agree to such plan.

worldofmatthew 4y ago
The truth of cause, it is about control. The kids part is to allow for a moral panic that the government needs to "save the kids" from. It would be profitable if you could charge a monthly fee for a kids specific social network that parents had control over who the kids could chat to and what news they could read. The funny thing is that if I created a phone that had a kids mode lock-down (with kids friendly appstore, social media, browser and education content) with a monthly fee and no-ads. The government would scream that I was harming competition and locking people out by daring to charge for a product that would be expensive to operate.
- SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
  “We must do something, for the children, even if it saves just one life” The great triple fallacy. Never wants you to stop for even a moment to think if doing something is a good idea if the some * we must do* is the wrong thing, if children be used for exploitation, and if not doing something could “save” more people long term than the feel good initial change”.
doublerabbit 4y ago

Shuang1 4y ago

As an American who has no desire to visit the UK, is there any particular reason I need to care? The article says it would affect me but they don't have any jurisdiction over me.

dadjoker 4y ago

Orwell was prescient.

drumhead 4y ago

One of the candidates for the Tory party leadership has already spoken out against it. I get the impression its not that popular and might well be scrapped or dropped.

jrochkind1 4y ago

Do you think non-giant non-UK websites will be just ignoring this, even though theoretically if their website is accessible to those in the UK, the UK wants their compliance?

de6u99er 4y ago

The safest tbi g to do is cut off access from the UK to you web-site or -service.

rmbyrro 4y ago

British politicians envy the spying, I mean, access American politicians have on private stuff traveling in US big tech. They want their cut. At least about their own cattle, I mean, they surely see British people as.. people?

solatic 4y ago

Sadly, the only safe way for startups to ensure compliance will be to block IP blocks of any country they're not intentionally doing business in. You will start by intentionally doing business in your country of incorporation, contract out with a consultant to ensure that you are meeting your compliance requirements in your local jurisdiction, and only expand intentionally from there. Sure, users can use VPNs to bypass IP blocks, but at least then you have a defense that the user "traveled" to a jurisdiction where you do operate. Or - you take a leaf from the pirate's book and throw caution to the wind. Which will be pretty much the only way to get the growth that investors expect, even as investors will refuse to invest without at least the appearance of legal certainty of the first option.

MikePlacid 4y ago

> Online Safety Bill, plus amendments as was published on 28 June 2022. Unfortunately, it is only available in PDF (that link opens up the document, which is 230 pages). The total size of legislation should be constitutionally limited. So that if someone wants to add 230 pages of new legislation, he should point to other 230 pages of the older legislation that should be eliminated. So I think.

T3RMINATED 4y ago