Marc Andreessen wades into the UK's Online Safety Act furor Geek-turned-venture-capitalist Marc Andreessen has weighed in on the arguments surrounding the UK's Online Safety Act, accusing the UK government of leaking his input. Andreessen, notable for his part in authoring the Mosaic browser and as co-founder of once-dominant 1990s browser Netscape, reportedly complained to Downing …
This article isn’t reporting - it’s narrative management. It frames the Online Safety Act as a spat between a Silicon Valley billionaire and a noble UK government, carefully avoiding the substance: the Act is a surveillance and censorship scaffold dressed up as “protecting the children”.
The language is pure spin - citizens defending their rights are downgraded to “free speech activists”, as if liberty were a niche cause, while ministers smear opponents as “on the side of predators” (projection?)
It should have been obvious what was coming when we had incidents like this:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/king-charles-protests-arrest-signs-b2165602.html
“Officer came and asked for my details. He confirmed that if I wrote ‘Not My King’ on it, he would arrest me under the Public Order Act because someone might be offended.”
Ex-squeeze me? Baking powder? Someone *MIGHT* be offended? What if someone was offended by King Charlie?
And last week the met arrested something like 500 people for peaceful protest.
King Charlie's immunity doesn't protect him from criticism. I think we fought a war a while ago about this very topic.
The UK isn't Germany and we do not have a specific 'insult law'. And in reality a sign that says 'not my king' should not even be interpreted as an insult. It would also take some gymnastics to call it hate speech. From where that person was standing could Charlie even have seen the sign?
Unfortunately laws are being written based on the views of a tiny vocal minority, usually part of some NGO think tank who have convinced MPs that they really need to do this for 'the good of the people'.
Of course it isn't an insult. As I understood it, the police action claimed to be on the basis that the signs could provoke violence from people who disagreed. I would have thought that in that case the police should be providing protection to the sign-bearers and/or arresting anyone who looked like a violent skinhead who might have attacked them!
I wrote to Chris Philp (then policing minister, now shadow Home Secretary of all things!) suggesting that he instructs the police make a very visible public apology for the misuse of their powers, thus making up somewhat for the loss of public visibility and on-going debate which would have occurred if the signs had been seen on TV. I also suggested that the Prime Minister may like to make a humble suggestion to the King that he makes a personal statement that while he (obviously) has every confidence in the role he performs, he deeply recognises the right of others to disagree and regrets the heavy handed behaviour of his Police and so will permit the campaigners to post their Not My King sign outside the palace for a week (and maybe even privately sending them a small cash donation himself - I certainly sent them one).
I never got a reply - surprise, surprise.
Again it was the met (anyone seeing a pattern?) who warned someone of arrest for looking 'openly jewish'.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68856360
It was the anti-monarchists who were chucking eggs at King Charlie. Now that is deffo not on. But I really doubt anything would have happened to the person with a 'not my king' sign. We are, thankfully, not yet as mental and prone to kicking off as the left-pondians where people get physically attacked for holding signs.
The whole basis for English common law is to enable us to stand up to the (at the time) power of the crown.
We are, thankfully, not yet as mental and prone to kicking off as the left-pondians where people get physically attacked for holding signs.
Yeah, have a word with the Met about that one. They don't exactly have a shining track record. I mean, there's that whole thing with Jean-Charles de Menezes for one, and the heavy-handed approach to female protesters quite rightly protesting about misogyny within the Met, and the culture that allowed Wayne Couzens to operate pretty openly, right up to people being arrested en masse for protesting over the government branding a protest group as terrorists, just for throwing paint on some planes. I think they (and other forces) have got form.
I wasn't saying the King should be immune from criticism, but that he personally is immune from most criminal charges so when he starts waving a poster that says Blackcat has a tiny knob, you won't get much joy out of the courts.
I'm not really in favour of the monarchy, but I'm not against it and think things could be a lot worse, especially when I see the "not my king" saddos. What kind of ceremonial head of state do they think the electorate would vote for?
But the main point is the one you referred to: the police get to interpret themselves what counts as hate speech. Not in the traditional kind of friendly word Sir, stop saying that, you're only making matters worse but the arresting someone for looking at me in a funny way. In we want free speech, we have to learn to live a certain amount leeway, including insults. You clueless fucking redhead!
Retaining a monarchy as the (figurehead) head of state does not require us to retain all of the exemptions from law and taxation that they currently enjoy.
As you say, I have no confidence that a democratically elected alternative woiuld improve anything, but reform of the most egregiously unwarranted privilidge is very much overdue.
They already pay more in tax than they receive from the Civil List. I don't mind the Royal Family being made smaller – as has just happened in Denmark – and certainly some privileges could be withdrawn. But at the end of the day the ceremonial does make some demands, though I think the King probably now has less protection than that afforded to American president by the Supine Supreme Court.
"King Charlie's immunity doesn't protect him from criticism. I think we fought a war a while ago about this very topic."
English Civil Wars (there were 3) were fought over the power of Parliament v power of the King. Wasn't about his protection against criticism, it was because he wasn't calling Parliament because he knew what they were planning to do. End result was the first Civil war where King Charles (1st) escaped, to raise a new army to try again against Parliament, to be captured and beheaded, for his son to raise up a new army to try again in Civil War number three, (but not the Electric boogaloo).
Oh, the joys of those campfire talks with historians who were also into re-enactment...
Peaceful, schmeesful. An organisation has been banned and people were warned they would be arrested for declaring open support. If I marched up the equivalent of Oxford Street in the middle of Munich waving a swastika then I would expect to be arrested very quickly as it's a banned symbol and showing support is an offence.
OK let's play a game, "Yes officer I broke into my neighbour's house while they were away for the weekend because I looked through the window and saw they had left a mess and I can't abide it. So jimmied the backdoor, I tidied their coffee table, did the dishes and locked up when I left.". Should I still be arrested?
It was peaceful. However, the organisation is banned as members of the organisation have caused significant damage to this country's defensive capability (£7million in damages to aircraft, apparently. Plust other damages caused elsewhere).
Now, doesn't mean I agree the organisation should be banned - we can argue over if that was overreach or not, but at this moment, they are banned and the police have a duty to arrest people supporting that organisation.
Now, they don't get to decide if waving signs claiming to support the organisation is actually illegal: That's what now goes to the courts, They have to decide if those signs are actual support or if they're just protest and not what the ban referred to as support (that might refer to financial support, or support by participating in activism)
So we'll wait and see.
And gripe about the state of free speech in the UK...
This post has been deleted by its author
As far as I understand the situation Mr Helcat the group known as "Palastine Action" is dedicated to highlighting the situation in Gaza by direct physical action, but explicitly NOT atacks on people.
They got onto a military base and splashed paint on some aircraft, This is criminal damage, not terrorism. The real question here is how could a group of civilians with paint cans get on a "secure" military establishment.
The government after months if not years of ignoring the criminal activities of the IDF in Gaza decided to shut Palastine Action up by proscribing them. (The whataboutist will raise Hamas as an issue, however it is currently the IDS that are shooting civilians in food queues and comprrhensivly laying wast to the whole of the area causing widespread disease and starvation as a means of control).
This is simply unaceptable!
As Palastinian Action is proscribed it would be a criminal offence for me to support the group. Although I note that I do support the concept of my goverment taking action in Gaza and I support Palastinians in this regard.
It is ironic that many of the people arrested at the PA rallies have been pale skinned grannies and grandads who now find themselves described as terrorists.
What a terrible article.
It's disingenuous about what Andreessen actually did & said (his tweet is here https://x.com/pmarca/status/1953970057018818960) and it's also completely downplaying the widespread anger at the OSA.
It's the sort of biased reporting one expects of the MSM, not El Reg.
The fact is there are plenty of mechanisms out there to prevent kids seeing stuff online they are too young to fully understand. But those are reliant on the parents taking responsibility and it feels that more and more responsibility for raising kids has been passed onto the state and others rather than the parents.
I believe Germany has had such age verification requirements for 5 years. France, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Greece are in the planning phase.
France and Germany have very strict speech laws that have been used against internet platforms and we have the EU 'disinformation' rules that such platforms also have to follow.
So what happened in other European countries is that they rolled over and did nothing. And also worth noting that in most of these countries the police have access to water cannons and other crowd control measures that we in the UK would never accept.
"Or at your local newsagent's*. "
Do I bag a grocer's apostrophe ?
* I suppose "shop" or "store" is understood and freestanding groceries are rare nowadays; all gone to 7-Eleven heaven where the dubious mags and bootleg baccy are probably available from behind the counter along with the barber's "something for the weekend, sir." Arkwright would be turning in his grave.
I think he's with the grocers. I can't remember newsagents ever being written with an apostrophe as the context never suggested it would be appropriate: both singular and plural could refer to a specific shop or in general. Cf. "neighbours".
honestly, its gauling all these people who pick you up on every sleight mistake. They're seems to be no stopping them! ;-)
Do I bag a grocer's apostrophe ?
You need to wait until the 15th - International Apostrophe Day
I agree that Peter Kyle's comment was out of order and inappropriate, coming from an MP, let alone a Minister.
On the other hand, I would not fall for the narrative of the key players in the tech sphere of influence; they have their own motives. They may make comments that occasionally align with the public interest, but they are also quite happy to take government contracts in areas about which they would not wish to be so forthcoming.
... instead of letting things go too far so people who don't understand the Internet end up regulating the Internet.
Tech luminaries would have implemented a decent interoperable version of PICS instead of making encouraging noises but not implementing it (see p2). In an alternate universe:
- Browsers ubiquitously implemented PICS.
- OSes ubiquitously implemented discoverable on-device parental controls (see Windows up until 8, older MacOSes) to allow parents to choose the PICS settings for their child's profile.
- Websites implemented PICS and advertiser and regulator pressure was applied to the stragglers.
- That would have worked until the rise of smart phones and apps, but equivalent parental controls would have been developed given the precedence set by a successful PICS.
Sorry but that would never have been the world we live in:
Browsers would allow such functionality to be disabled, and if they didn't, then users would simply migrate to browsers that did, or to browsers that didn't include any censorship functionality
OSes - responsible companies already implement filtering of such material through corporate devices, home users would once again simply disable such functionality - kids often know more than their parents anyway.
The kind of websites we are talking about wouldn't implement any such controls - of course I can't say so myself but a friend tells me that the advertising on most porn sites is for other porn sites - so where is the "advertiser pressure" going to come from?
Parental controls - that's the root of the whole problem anyway - parents generally not caring what their kids are viewing, and treating smartphones, consoles and the internet as a babysitter
Browsers would allow such functionality to be disabled, and if they didn't, then users would simply migrate to browsers that did, or to browsers that didn't include any censorship functionality
Why are you calling it censorship if it's set by the parents? When they told you you couldn't watch something on the TV as it was 9 o'clock and time for bed, did you call it censorship?
OSes - responsible companies already implement filtering of such material through corporate devices, home users would once again simply disable such functionality - kids often know more than their parents anyway.
I don't know if you've tried them or not, but the last time I looked at MacOS' parental controls, there was a local proxy which all browsers run by that user had to use.
The kind of websites we are talking about wouldn't implement any such controls - of course I can't say so myself but a friend tells me that the advertising on most porn sites is for other porn sites - so where is the "advertiser pressure" going to come from?
Probably government pressure, notice how I listed more than one.
Parental controls - that's the root of the whole problem anyway - parents generally not caring what their kids are viewing, and treating smartphones, consoles and the internet as a babysitter
How about the ones that do care but don't have a way of seeing what their kids are viewing the moment they step outside?
Why am I calling it Censorship? - it's in the title of your own link: " PICS, Censorship, & Intellectual Freedom FAQ"
OSes - sure - how many parents can be bothered to set it up?
Websites - "Government Pressure" - that's what we are talking about here in the first place - works well doesn't it?
Parental Controls - Bark, Qustodio, Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link have all existed for ages - how many parents have even bothered trying to find out about them, let alone spend time setting up and configuring them
There's nothing inherently wrong with any ideology, but when an ideology meets the real world, the real world wins every time...
Why am I calling it Censorship? - it's in the title of your own link: " PICS, Censorship, & Intellectual Freedom FAQ"
And most of the discussion in that document argues that it isn't censorship.
OSes - sure - how many parents can be bothered to set it up?
Me.
Websites - "Government Pressure" - that's what we are talking about here in the first place - works well doesn't it?
If there was already a widely-adopted solution, regulators could just point to it and tell websites to get with the program.
Parental Controls - Bark, Qustodio, Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link have all existed for ages - how many parents have even bothered trying to find out about them, let alone spend time setting up and configuring them
Me. Qustodio is removable with adb. Google's parental controls require both parties to agree for them to continue once the child reaches 13 so they're pointless.
You are clearly the one-in-a-million parent who not only tries to do everything they can, but has the technical nous to back it up, and still feels frustrated by the world around you not behaving as you want and expect it to. But that's kinda my point - you can have all the standards in the world, and push everyone to try to use them - it makes no difference.
We all want to live in a world where all hardware and software is unhackable, where people aren't mean to each other, where all content posted anywhere on the net is perfectly categorised and there's no cybercrime. It's a lovely idea but it doesn't exist any more than the world where people don't fight wars and don't screw each other over just to climb another rung on the ladder.
You can't blame it all on tech entrepreneurs not doing their jobs properly, because they could spend infinite hours and dollars trying, and they still wouldn't succeed. In the meantime, someone else has done it quick and cheap and gone to market first.
In our world, people use VPNs to circumvent "Government Pressure" and even if the most stringent of standards was implemented by all the worlds biggest software (and hardware) firms, other tech solutions would still find a way around it. Even China and North Korea can't completely stop people getting access to "restricted" content - and I'm certainly glad I'm not (yet!) living under a regime like that.
As I said, ideology is fine, but the real world simply doesn't work that way...
"If there was already a widely-adopted solution, regulators could just point to it and tell websites to get with the program."
But they wouldn't. They wouldn't because any OS would come with a place somewhere where you disable your PICS settings. That thing would be locked behind the admin password. Some parent would make the point that their child could get that password somehow, just as you've just suggested your child will use ADB to disable your controls, which they probably won't, you could probably prevent, and is not the kind of problem you think it is, but that was your argument why another thing was needed. More importantly, that's still an opt in solution that needs a parent to think for a few seconds. The people who passed the OSA do not want that. They want a blanket solution which not only isn't opt in but doesn't have any other options. That's why they passed the law they did. We could have that, because it would be just another parental control mechanism like the many that aren't easily bypassed, and it would be as effective or ineffective as those have been.
"OSes - sure - how many parents can be bothered to set it up?"
It's pretty poor form that you keep excusing parents for not trying to even parent... The tools are literally there and the rest of us shouldn't have to suffer because lazy parents don't want to use them.
Rather than being concerned with imagined concerns, the real issue is the obstacles a member of the public must navigate to report criminal activity. The government is reporting that crime numbers are down, but they are only counting what the police now decide to pursue rather than the actual reported incidents.
I take it you read the article on the shop owner who was told to take down his 'offensive' sign?
According to the stories I've seen and read: He'd called the police multiple times due to shoplifting but the police couldn't be bothered to turn up or do anything, so he put up a sign advising actual customers that if they wanted access to the now locked cabinets, that they should ask him. The problem is he included the reason: Those 'scumbag shoplifters'.
Apparently (allegedly) a scumbag shoplifter was offended and complained, resulting in police rushing to his store to chastise him (as in they turned up faster than if he'd reported more shoplifting).
The UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), which recently came into force and is designed to prevent children from stumbling across unsavoury content on the internet.
Let's be realistic. They're not "stumbling" across it. They're actively trying to access it.
Which is really not very different to the way people of my generation (40-something) passed CD-R discs around in high school with such material. Or those before did with VHS / printed magazines.
It would have gone a lot better if the people who implement this crap reminded themselves of what they did... well themselves!
Other fond memories include using fake ID to get served in pubs at 16/17 back in the day. If you try and restrict everything people will just find a way around it. In this case a VPN is the answer and I dare say CD-R discs of yore will simply be replaced by equivalent flash drives or cloud storage locations.
You couldn't make this kind of shit up. Let's spend £££ on coming up with something that can be circumvented in 5 seconds and totally ignores the reality of why people are doing this in the first place (human nature).
Where I would draw the line is accessing extreme or illegal material. That's a whole different story and very much something that platforms can and should be obliged to deal with.
There should be only two standards involved: Is it a completely made up work of fiction? If it involves real people performing real acts, is what is being filmed legal to do? If either answer is yes, then the content should be allowed, no matter how much of an ick it is. Anything less and you’re inviting the devil to your doorstep.
A reminder of the slippery slope everyone kept claiming was a fallacy:
In 2009, the UK government decided that fictional depictions of sexual abuse in anime, cartoons and video games should be treated just like depictions of the real thing, despite the fact that it would criminalise existing well known and well respected works released (and stocked in libraries) around the time the law was introduced. Nobody stepped in to prevent our politicians from fundamentally altering peoples ability to express concepts through the medium of fiction because only Jimmy Savile would be against this, right? Well, it provided the government with the foundations necessary to take away anything they wanted.
5 years later, the UK government then banned the production of many other categories of pornography (intended for video on demand consumption) popularly searched for by British citizens, even things as simple as spanking and caning. Nobody stepped up then either. That same year, we saw people being locked up for possessing legitimate anime the government didn’t like. Worse, people who used encryption because they didn’t want the details of what they got off to being made public, would find themselves threatened with 2 years in prison if they didn’t let the police have unfettered access to their private data, even if what they possessed was completely legal. Again, nobody did anything about it. Two years later, the Online Safety Bill is drafted and again, nobody threatened to disown the people discussing the further erosion of our civil rights.
It’s been 15 years since this all began, and I still reckon there will be people out there who think banning fiction merely on the grounds that it gives some people the ick is acceptable. Had we nipped this political stupidity in the bud at the first instance, like the populations of many other countries did, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
... these days, when you wish a plague on both houses. The days when I had any lingering respect for Andreessen are long gone, as he seemingly wants to cultivate the vibe of a Bond villain with a liking for pies, and face fuzz, and Ayn Rand tech bro libertarianism (i.e. We can do what the fuck we want, you do what we tell you)
Meanwhile, HMG has decided to go all in on implementing bad legislation from a previous government with little clue about anything, especially towards its end. The first noises from Kyle and his department last year weren't entirely awful, but are starting to sound more and more deranged as the weeks go by.
In the meantime, as is normal, many users find workarounds for bad law, and bad regulation. And what's left is just a confusing mess because hardly anyone in a position of so-called authority seems to know what they're doing.
Plus ça change ...
I agree with Illuminatus' argument, the problem is not "porn" the problem is a subsect - "Violent/Degrading/Demeaning Porn". Just so we are clear here the law on porn has been broken when we use child images or images that depict rape, strangulation etc... see Serious Crime Act 2015. This is just the boot catching up with tech bro's who refused to engage and find a middle ground like a narcissist. You want to be angry blame big tech for not respecting our laws in the first place. Very few people have an issue with taken down or restriction of say "terrorist" or "radicalizing content", so what really is the difference here? Its not the content, its the delivery mechanism and putting proportional controls around that.
For those that use the newsagent argument - they were at the top shelf outside of my reach in my day, so there was an attempt to make it hard, and of course any publication showing a woman being choked while have a dick shoved up here would result in instant trip to the courts so problem solved - again a control at the delivery mechanism (publishers).
I have more sympathy for the government - but recognize the impracticality in enforcing the legislation, but again big tech's being failing that for 10 years already.
"I have more sympathy for the government"
Why? These arseholes haven't done anything to deserve any sympathy from anyone.
They'd get some sympathy if they repealed the OSA and replaced it with something that made parents properly supervise what their kids did on-line.
okay I'll bite, how does Facebook and everyone else enforce a law that says under 18's cannot see illegal content? What's the solution?
As for the parents and the Children - they did not create the content nor did they disseminate it, why am I going after parties that are not causing the harm ?
What's the solution?
First, define the problem. Nobody's done that.
why am I going after parties that are not causing the harm ?
Because you're unable to come up with a clear problem statement or effective, credible ways to deal with that problem.
It's simply impossible to police unacceptable content on the Internet or go after the producers of such content. So be realistic about what can be achieved and how it can be done.
Online age verification checks can't and won't stop under-18s from accessing porn. Or sending each other dick pics. Or gambling. Or buying alcohol or drugs. Or... That's yet another idiotic and impractical tech-based "solution" - one embraced by the hard of thinking - which can't possibly hope to fix a social issue. In this case, that issue is inadequate parental supervision. Which is supported by a society that's incapable of providing its young people with the skills and education to deal with the unacceptable content they'll inevitably find on the interwebs and elsewhere.
BTW, define "harm" in this context.
The result, however, looks to be overreach.
Now, I'm not on the platform so I can't confirm, but there's a report that TikTok now require age verification or they'll delete your account. Not to see 'adult' or 'harmful' content: Just to use TikTok.
I can guess as to why (but it would be a guess): They don't want to risk the fine and can't moderate posts to ensure that anything 'adult' or 'harmful' is correctly flagged and locked away under age verification.
So how long will it be before others do the same?
Hell, there's sites out there already blocking access based on geolocation: These sites simply state they stand against age verification as it's intrusive and also rather expensive to implement, but can't afford to risk the fines, so are blocking access until the UK comes to its senses (or you use a VPN). Found this out when trying to go to an anime site: Blocked. Yes, some pictures contain 'adult' content but they already have rules against 'extreme' content (anything more than casual nudity in a drawing). Most, however, don't.
And then you have the really big issue in all of this: How safe is your age verification data? How much is being tracked and logged and shared? That's very personal information (ID? Selfie? That's definitely personal data): What's the chance of that getting leaked. I mean... just as a certain Tea site about that...
Using a VPN for general connections (instead of bypassing geo restrictions) gives something of a false sense of security. If you connect to a remote site through "Fred's VPN service" you will have a secure connection between the client on your device, and the server hosting Fred's endpoint. From there the connection will be routed over the ordinary Internet to whatever bank/shop/mailserver you're using.
Just using a standard SSL connection, like HTTPS, gives you a secure connection from your device right through to the remote site you're accessing. A VPN adds little to that.
Obviously using a VPN like OpenVPN, Cisco AnyConnect, etc. for, say, remote work, where the VPN endpoint is on your employer's server and opens directly into their secure network is a different matter. There it is useful, because you have end-to-end security.
You won’t get proper end-to-end security from a confidentiality perspective either way, but a VPN can still help over direct HTTPS connections,
A VPN hides which websites you’re accessing from your ISP, which if you’re using a residential connection in the UK, performs intrusive Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) checks, harvesting hostnames from plaintext ClientHello packets. Ever since the implementation of the Investigatory Powers Act, ISPs have been required to maintain Internet Connection Records (ICRs) for all residential lines, which is still possible since HTTPS only guarantees to protect data, not metadata. These ICRs show a lot of what your devices get up to online, information which used to require warrants to log in the first place is now logged by default. There was a point where ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) looked like it would be widely adopted as a countermeasure to maintain our privacy, but then countries started threatening to block all requests utilising it (using DPI then dropping any connections to known ECH endpoints) so it never took off.
If you think all of the above is bad, you might want to use a VPN, and if you think such surveillance is also bad when private companies do it (not just the government) then you may wish to consider using that VPN to engage in some DRM-free BitTorrent downloads too, as pirates respect your privacy far more than commercial streaming services do.
So very few are disagreeing with the stated intent (preventing those below legal age from seeing inappropriate content)
Many people are complaining about how it has been implemented and its potential impact on freedom of expression and privacy.
If the implementation had been postponed until a secure and privacy-preserving proof of age system could be put in place, then the whole issue could have been avoided.
But as always, the government wants to be value signalling and doesn't actually care if it works or causes a massive-scale Ashley Madison-style data breach.
Unfortunately, the average teenage boy is infinitely more tech-literate than the average MP and will find a way around the controls, whereas the average grown-up, for who this content is created, will end up suffering as their private habits are exposed in the inevitable breach of the age verification service.
While technology catches up and puts in place the verification, it has made a considerable dent in the finances of the increasing number of "Content Creators," who rely on its consumption for their livelihood.
@Phil O'Sophical
Quote: "....Generating proof of age requires surrendering some privacy..."
While this may be true, it COMPLETELY fails to provide a GUARANTEE to a remote system that the user on the end point is actually the required age. Examples:
(1) Dad browses restricted content. Leaves end point open for kid!
(2) 18 year old hangs out with 14 year old buddy. 18 year old signs and turns end point over to buddy!
(3) Unknown user uses the driving licence of an MP for "age verification". (See https://use-their-id.com/)
As usual the uneducated in Westminster are using the usual three-step:
(4) We've passed a law......we are doing something!
(5) Unfortunately there's no budget for enforcement.....because we know the law is not enforceable!
(6) ....and anyway there will be another "crisis" along next week.....by then everyone will have forgotten about "online safety"!!!!!!
Any proof of ID requires surrendering some privacy. In many walks of life (e.g., getting bladdered in the pub, if you look under 25), ID is required. Yet here we are, the only country in the developed world without a national ID system. And what happens when such a system is proposed (or, God forbid, implemented)? Some prominent figure with a vested interest in you not being able to identify yourself correctly publicly loses their shit in the name of liberty. My main concern with the Online Safety Act is that it sidesteps the problem of a proper ID system by creating something worse.
What exactly do you mean by "national ID system"? Because you obviously have had a system to get a national ID because you were in the EU, and traveling within EU requires one (even if nobody asks to see it). Do you mean "required to have a national ID"? That would be incorrect too; citizens aren't *required* to carry a valid ID in e.g. Finland.
So we did have a national ID system, but at the time it wasn't mandatory and wasn't required to travel in the EU. Holders were not required to carry. The Conservative government ended it in 2010 because, in the UK, being able to identify yourself is seen by the right as illiberal. As for Europeans being required or not to carry, that is one of the standard lies rolled out by the right whenever the idea of an ID scheme is brought up.
Ultimately, it looks like Labour is going down the path of digital ID. I've never understood why a simple photo-page-only version of a passport wouldn't do.
As for Europeans being required or not to carry, that is one of the standard lies rolled out by the right whenever the idea of an ID scheme is brought up.
And all they needed to do is look at the Wikipedia page and sort by the Compulsory/Optional column...
I've never understood why a simple photo-page-only version of a passport wouldn't do.
Also known as the Irish Passport Card.
Apparently in the UK a physical card is politically impossible but the same thing in an app is fine. For small values of fine, because resident EU citizens can tell you how flaky the app is and how difficult it is to show real physical proof of residency to those who have to see it - bank, landlord, work, at the border...
The UK had ID cards between 1939 and 1952 and that short-lived experiment in the noughties.
Erm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_Cards_Act_2006
"In the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement that followed the 2010 general election, the new government announced that they planned to scrap the ID card scheme, including the National Identity Register (as well as the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint database), as part of their measures "to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.""
If the implementation had been postponed until a secure and privacy-preserving proof of age system could be put in place, then the whole issue could have been avoided.
The EU's version uses zero-knowledge proof. An age verification app will scan the user's ID, bank card, or passport using photo and/or NFC and upload it to the verification authority which for the user's ID card or passport will be the government that issued it. If the verification authority approves then the app will download 30 attestations which expire in three months.
When the user wants to verify their age they scan a QR code on the web page which will upload an attestation to the website or the app they're using on the phone will receive an attestation from the age verification app on the same phone.
In theory the website or the app won't be able to link an attestation to the user's ID and the verification authority won't know where the user used their attestations.
The website is ageverification.dev, it's open source.
Age verification is not the best way to prevent kids from seeing inappropriate content. The best solution would be filtering their internet connections. SIM cards for kids with parental controls already exist. Broadband should be filtered by default at the router, with a simple say of disabling it for selected devices - this sort of exists on some routers too (all that is missing is something like using different DNS for different devices).
The problem is that MPs lacked the tech savvy to see through the solution that was sold to them by people who will profit from selling age verification, or the additional tracking it enables.
... and probably he's hoping it will be soon legal again. Lots of money to be made! That's the only thing he cares about. He's no "freedom fighter" - the only "freedom" he likes he freedom to make money without rules, even if it means a toxic world.
according to the beeb, pr0n websites are reporting that traffic numbers are down in the weeks after the 'on-line safety' bill was made law, however VPN use is through the roof.
But what I'd like to see is the likes of wikipedia change their stance on the 'on-line safety' bill and geo-block all access attempts from the UK, and replace their usual start page with "Due to the nature of some of the information contained in wikipedia,and the cost of complying with the 'on-line safety' bill, we are blocking any attempt to access wikipedia from your country. have a nice day"
To be fair, The Wiki Foundation went to court over it - the judge said they couldn't be excluded automatically, but if OFCOM or the government end up branding the site 'Class 1' and it forces the Wikipedia to close off access, then the potential loss of access to a source of democratic importance could trigger further legal challenges that could end up forcing Ministers to take the act back to the drawing board.
The democracy in the UK is dead. The trouble isn't just the Online Safety Act but also the lack of discussion, criticism and outright resistance to the law by the public, institutions, businesses and voters.
This means the Brits aren't effectively using their voting rights to reprimand their government and legislative representatives in Parliament.
Using a VPN will enable users to view the content, but I'm not sure it releases the content providers from their obligations. That is, if a child accessed restricted content using a VPN then the content provider could still be fined.
The test would be whether the content provider has taken proportionate measures to restrict the access, and considering that it is possible to detect and restrict access to your content for users on a VPN, whether doing so would be considered proportionate. I imagine this would be tested in court.
I'm not offering an opinion on whether this would be good or bad, or the right or wrong thing to do, just making an observation.
Anyone noticed the acronym, science, innovation and technology as in Sit down and shut up. This tallys with the fact that they have ignored a petition with half a million signings.
I don't use a VPN to circumvent, I use a VPN because one of the first rules of Internet security is don't give out personal information to a stranger. Want a copy of my passport because I want to know how to sharpen a paper guillotine blade? Not happening.
I've seen 9 years olds circumvent controls with proxys, this is not the way.
