[HN Gopher] UK lawmakers vote to jail tech execs who fail to pro...
___________________________________________________________________
UK lawmakers vote to jail tech execs who fail to protect kids
online
Author : AlexandrB
Score : 131 points
Date : 2023-01-17 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| I'm too excited about GDPR to pay any attention.
| passwordoops wrote:
| I'm all for jailing execs who break the law (e.g, HSBC's entire
| C-suite and board should have probably been in cuffs after the
| bank was caught laundering money _again_ for terrorists, drug
| /human traffickers, and general human rights abusers AFTER paying
| a substantial fine for laundering money on behalf of terrorists,
| drug/human traffickers, and general human rights abusers [0]).
|
| But the "protect the children" angle is a steep, nebulous,
| subjective and very slippery slope that will likely target small
| fry who are not really harming anyone... Unlike the execs running
| HSBC who enabled money laundering for terrorists, drug/human
| traffickers, and general human rights abusers.
|
| [0] https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-
| moved-...
| from wrote:
| The ICIJ investigation showed that HSBC reported on a bunch of
| suspected criminals and it turns out some of them were in fact
| criminals. There is no law that requires closing accounts after
| a suspicious activity report, some banks do so after multiple
| of them but it is not a requirement at all. Generally companies
| are not penalized for what they report on.
|
| And like what is this?
|
| > The records show HSBC worked with a bank in Tiraspol, within
| Moldova's breakaway territory of Transnistria, for four years
| after the U.S. Treasury Department issued a 2011 advisory
| warning of the risks of doing business with the Tiraspol bank.
|
| An advisory warning is not binding, is not an act of Congress,
| does not show up in the Federal Register, and just generally
| means the bank should monitor customers specified in the notice
| more, not that they should deny service entirely. These
| articles never say it directly but they are basically arguing
| for "derisking" which in practice means excluding large numbers
| of customers based solely on nationality.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| Why not just make a license to get on the "information super
| highway"?
|
| Obviously this excludes IOT devices but for smart phone,
| desktop/laptop, tablets, etc maybe a card reader should be
| installed. The backfacing camera can use facial recognition tech
| to intermittently check if the correct user is on. Licenses can
| be renewed every year until 18 years of age.
|
| If needed, licenses can be extended to adults to keep track of
| certain undesirable behaviors and to maybe even reward prosocial
| behavior.
|
| Disclosure: I'm not a UK citizen, I would vehemently oppose these
| ideas if they were ever proposed in the US.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| As the bulk of such services are based in other countries I
| imagine that the most obvious result would be that the executives
| of the companies concerned would simply never visit the UK for
| fear of arrest and nothing else would change. Would other
| countries, such as China or the US, extradite their own citizens
| to face prosecution for this?
| Havoc wrote:
| UK loves invoking children whenever some shady oppressive online
| stuff needs passing.
| kodah wrote:
| Now if only we could jail lawmakers that crash the economy with
| their stupid ideas. /s
|
| This seems brainless. Companies do need more accountability, but
| starting with a "for the children" issue is pretty bad sampling.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I disagree. Social media has amplified all of the worst aspects
| of being a kid and they've done so either on purpose or through
| gross negligence.
| twblalock wrote:
| This law wouldn't solve any of the problems caused by social
| media. Maybe it _aims_ to, but it wouldn 't.
| stu432 wrote:
| So add those sites to the standard blocklists most ISPs
| already put in place for new customers and let parents decide
| if they want to remove them, just as they have to for porn
| and gambling. This is just a gimme for the security services
| under the "think of the kids" mantra.
| Guthur wrote:
| This makes more sense when you realise we are all to be treated
| like children.
|
| And more crudely, we're to be kept in the dark and fed shit.
| [deleted]
| coldcode wrote:
| Nothing like vague laws referencing Simpson memes, instead of
| actually solving real problems.
| vezycash wrote:
| > fail to protect kids online
|
| Actually means, refusing to provide backdoors, provide user data;
| or the crime of supporting a different candidate. My personal
| favorite, collateral damage, no crime committed, arrest as a
| favor to a competitor.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Will the UK lawmakers also jail the UK lawmakers and those who
| implement policy for failing to protect kids?
|
| I remember a story about Birmingham...
| pjc50 wrote:
| The Birmingham "Trojan Horse" story was entirely made up.
|
| Real child protection is often difficult to discuss, because
| it's necessarily anonymous, and we tend to find out what's
| happened only very late. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806
| adolph wrote:
| Context
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring
| zarzavat wrote:
| I hope this causes websites to start blocking UK users. That
| would cause VPNs to become more common, undermining the
| government's enforced logging of internet use.
| rainforest wrote:
| IIRC some of the Snowden leaks alleged that (at least at the
| time) domestic traffic couldn't be surveilled (but this was
| solved by mutual assistance across the Atlantic - the British
| would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1]).
|
| VPNs seem useful to guarantee that your traffic is designated
| as foreign, so this might be a net gain for the intelligence
| services rather than a loss - the mandatory collection of ICRs
| only relates to IP addresses and time of access.
|
| [1]:https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/edward-snowden-leaks-
| uk-o...
| bbarnett wrote:
| _the British would spy on US citizens and vice versa[1])._
|
| Five eyes has been a known thing, to everyone I knew
| (friends, parents, teachers, everywone) even in the 80s. This
| is not much of a revelation.
|
| (Back then, it was phone calls, letters, and even foreign
| friendly spies operating domestically etc)
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| What you're describing as "known" was not known. If you
| remember, the ACLU attempted to take the government to
| court over the Presidential Surveillance Program several
| years before the Snowden Revalations. They lost because
| they didn't have evidence.
|
| The government had classified evidence of their crimes
| making possessing evidence of them breaking the law
| illegal. SCOTUS ruled that they couldn't charge the
| government of a crime without possessing that evidence.
|
| Snowden gave us that evidence allowing citizens to, once
| again, bring charges against the government in 2013 and
| winning the case in 2017.
|
| Some rumors are true. Some rumors are false. Rumors do not
| a court case make. The Snowden Revalations do.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I had thought this was about the NSA spying on US
| citizens, not about five eyes' actions, which is still
| ongoing I thought.
|
| Note: re rumours, there are rumours, and then there are
| facts widely known.
|
| No one I knew had even a shred of doubt re:five eyes, it
| was not "tinfoil hat" stuff, merely "this is how this
| works".
|
| Even now, I do not see how five eyes is even remotely
| illegal.
| [deleted]
| mcv wrote:
| Can they perhaps start by jailing execs for crimes that their
| companies are actively committing? That rarely gets them more
| than a slap on the wrist, but now failing to do something poorly
| defined is going to land them in jail?
| computronus wrote:
| It's interesting to think about "jailing" an entire company for
| its crimes. After all, in some legal (US) ways, a corporation
| is considered a person. If a company is found guilty of
| committing some crime, penalize it in an analogous way to a
| human. For example, if a person guilty of X ends up in jail for
| 30 days, a company guilty of X ends up ... here I'm not sure.
| Barred from doing business at all for 30 days? Forbidden from
| communicating with its customers? Cut off from, say, paying its
| employees? All things an imprisoned human would be unable to do
| themselves.
|
| I can't tell if the idea makes much sense, but there's a
| symmetry there, specifically around the personhood of
| corporations.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Businesses have been run from the confines of prisons, so I
| think the analog is all of the employees at the corporation
| must live and work from jail for the next 30 days.
| jgeada wrote:
| Might be easier to just jail the employees with real
| decision making authority. Most companies I know that is a
| very small subset, most everyone else is just supposed to
| do what they're told.
| twblalock wrote:
| Think about who actually suffers if you punish a company in
| this way: the customers, and the employees, most of whom did
| nothing wrong. That is not justice.
|
| Punishing people for something they did not do is wrong,
| period. And collective punishment is widely regarded as a
| violation of basic human rights -- it's even banned by the
| Geneva conventions!
|
| Furthermore, the possibility of such a punishment would have
| a chilling effect on business to an extent that would
| seriously damage the economy.
|
| For all these reasons, no responsible government would
| enforce that kind of punishment on a company, and even if
| they tried, it would be struck down in court.
|
| Punishments for a lot of corporate rule breaking are viewed
| as a "slap on the wrist" because sometimes the rules that
| were broken just aren't that important. Similarly, we don't
| usually put people in prison for speeding.
| trasz3 wrote:
| [dead]
| computronus wrote:
| Sticking with the analogy, there are still others who
| suffer while one person is punished with jail time or
| otherwise. If the single earner in a household is locked
| up, their family suffers in many ways. If they happen to
| run a business, their business and employees suffer too.
| And none of them did anything wrong.
|
| The problem is with the scale of punishing an _entire_
| company, though. There 's a lot of fallout from that, it's
| true. So the punishment would need to be fair, limiting the
| offending entity as a whole without unduly harming innocent
| employees. This could be where the analogy breaks down
| (which argues towards how unfair the personhood of
| corporations is, if there's no good recourse for
| wrongdoing).
|
| As for a chilling effect ... yeah, that's the idea.
| Employees in a company would be very much more interested
| in staying on the right side of the law because of the
| heightened risk to, well, everybody.
|
| I'm reminded of businesses that need to stay accredited, or
| licensed, or otherwise in legal compliance with something
| in order to function at all. If one errs enough
| (criminally, say), it loses that blessing, and could end up
| folding, and all the innocent employees are out of a job.
| luckylion wrote:
| Hey, if you want to go after that company dumping sewage into
| the river, just have a child visit their website and get a
| tracking cookie and send in the cops to get them to stop
| stalking minors.
| thinking4real wrote:
| Lol that would happen if they were actually concerned with
| exec/elite behavior.
|
| This is not about protecting children. This is about clamping
| down on civilian rights to control the internet and indeed,
| civilian ability to communicate freely.
|
| If children are being harmed (and they are, more than we'd like
| to imagine), the answer is simple: shut down social media.
|
| Seriously. Yes we'd lose time wasting places like this. Yes we
| wouldn't be as tuned into media ongoings. I'm sure many here
| will chime in to say how HN or similar has saved their life.
|
| Don't care, social media isn't more important than the health
| of our children. And these companies have shown they don't care
| and that profit is more important.
|
| Thus, they needn't exist.
|
| But that won't ever even be on the table. Because they don't
| give a flying fuck about children. They want profits and
| control.
| valdiorn wrote:
| > This is about clamping down on civilian rights to control
| the internet and indeed, civilian ability to communicate
| freely.
|
| You're giving them way too much credit. MPs are not evil
| geniuses, they're highly motivated self absorbed politicians
| with no understanding of the internet, but the one thing they
| understand is that "protect the children" and "blame internet
| for bad stuff" is great for their career and ballot count.
| Trying to oppose this will get you a soundbite on the evening
| news with the headline "Tory MP defends online suicide porn".
| Good luck bouncing back from that.
| substation13 wrote:
| Indeed. This is coming from the same people who dragged their
| feet on expanding free school meals until it become
| politically untenable.
| [deleted]
| croes wrote:
| Are these the same lawmakers that allowed this?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/metropolitan...
|
| Which exec will be jailed?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| "The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children
| to grow up online". Or they could actually arrest the people
| responsible for child rape and prostitution. UK Police ignored
| the rape of 1400+ kids because they didn't want to be accused of
| racism. UK criminal justice system and laws are a circus.
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/rogerscrut...
| squarefoot wrote:
| An always relevant cartoon in serious need of adaptation to other
| countries beside the US.
|
| https://teddit.net/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/how_w...
| Throwawayjan wrote:
| I am schocked to learn about the grooming gangs. How could a
| civilized socity allows such a horrific crime against innocents
| for a votes or political seats.
|
| Its disguasting. Hope all involved in the crimes would pay a
| price.
|
| Official victims were in thousands (who trusts what gov says
| anymore) and unofficial number is tens of thousands over
| decades.. disgusting..
| ChewFarceSkunk wrote:
| Yet another nail in the Internet's coffin. It's more telescreen
| now than in 1984.
| Beaver117 wrote:
| Unpopular but I think kids should not be allowed on the public
| internet at all. Let alone porn or social media, only certain
| apps like youtube kids or similar with extremely filtered content
| should be allowed if at all. The danger/addiction is too high and
| the benefit is really low.
|
| On the other hand I became quite a good programmer since I
| started tinkering at age 10. But today is a different era than
| when I was growing up.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| While I don't agree with your reasoning, I do agree with your
| approach. All of these laws require restricting/removing
| content or invasive identity verification, in order to
| "protect" a tiny fraction of internet users. Preventing those
| people from accessing the internet would be cheaper, more
| effective, and less problematic for the rest of the population.
|
| The problem is that we're assuming laws like the Online Safety
| Bill are about protecting children, which they aren't.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| And ideas like this will be the reason why we won't have good
| programmers for the next generation. Or worse, a more ignorant
| population.
| tasubotadas wrote:
| How about we jail MPs and police when they fail to protect
| citizens?
| alar44 wrote:
| Maybe they should jail the parents instead? Your kids, your
| responsibility.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| That may be a bit harsh but is not far from what I have been
| suggesting [1][2] The liability for protecting kids must be on
| the parents and there are simple technical ways to solve this.
| In my opinion laws should just require websites to add RTA
| headers and the most popular ways small children access content
| must be required to once again read these headers and integrate
| with parental controls. I say once again because some browsers
| used to implement this ages ago. If browser devs are opposed to
| this then it could be done by writing an add-on.
|
| [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260167#34262400
|
| [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34352923
| edgyquant wrote:
| If one or two children are effected it's the parents fault,
| when all children are statistically impacted in a negative
| way it's systemic and is the fault of organization.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| This may be the case but I would rather not spend tax money
| playing whack-a-mole with businesses thus artificially
| creating new revenue models for lawyers. I would rather
| just put a technical solution in place that empowers good
| parents to have some control over their own devices and let
| them decide when their small children are somewhat
| psychologically armed to handle the internet. RTA headers
| do not require integration with any third party sites and
| does not add tracking or additional identification.
|
| Sunak and others have been pushing for rules that would
| require sites to use third party identification sites. This
| is a non-starter for me personally. It is very obvious to
| me someones pockets are getting lined by people interested
| in adding more tracking to the internet. I see this as the
| UK trying to extend its CCTV system to the rest of the
| world but perhaps I am a bit skeptical after watching the
| behavior of governments for many decades. It is also a bit
| curious that US politicians have also been pushing for this
| at the same time. These recent events really smell like a
| startup trying to get funded by multiple governments.
| Investors love government contracts because they are
| usually multi-year and get written into policy.
|
| In terms of disciplining parents that neglect their
| children there is already a system in place for this. The
| first time should be an infraction that requires the parent
| to do an online training course. Perhaps under extreme
| circumstances a misdemeanor and at some point social
| services step in just like in any other repeat neglect
| case. In reality this should not affect most parents. There
| should not be any jail involved unless the parents are
| intentionally putting the children in harms way such as
| encouraging the kids to pose nude for strangers and
| inviting said strangers over.
| maxk42 wrote:
| Or it's a societal problem. Don't discount the ability of
| society at large to make dumb mistakes. Is it really Coca
| Cola's fault your kids are fat?
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _Is it really Coca Cola 's fault your kids are fat?_"
|
| Yes. https://twitter.com/calleymeans/status/1609929026889
| 711617
|
| " _Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure
| sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp
| funding. I say Coke 's policies are evil because I saw
| inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying
| the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents
| racist[...]The conversations inside these rooms was
| depressingly transactional: "We (Coke) will give you
| money. You need to paint opponents of us as racist."_"
|
| " _watched as the FDA funneled money to professors at
| leading universities - as well as think tanks on the left
| and right - to create studies showing soda taxes hurt the
| poor. They also paid for studies that say drinking soda
| DIDN 'T cause obesity._"
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Coca Cola's corporate propaganda is ubiquitous. They
| certainly are not innocent.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The companies build services designed to addict children and
| make bullying ten times easier. Fuck your politics, this is
| evil shit and these companies need held accountable. We don't
| allow kids to purchase alcohol and blame the parents when they
| get alcohol poisoning. We make sure companies don't target
| alcohol at kids.
| hospadar wrote:
| Maybe let's not jail anyone?
|
| Putting kid's parents in jail is a surefire way to make sure
| that kids life becomes a stressful, scary, unsupported
| nightmare. Parents who let their kids use social media (i.e.
| almost every parent whose family has access to technology) are
| a lot better than no parents at all.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| This is a shitty bill. But the chance of it becoming law is very
| low. Various leaders from this party have been (very half
| heartedly) trying to pass it for a decade. If passed it would
| fail (in dozens of ways). And the problem is more useful to scare
| voters and whip votes than solving it would get them actual
| benefits.
|
| This is just the bill going from one committee to another (with
| some extreme additional parts the other committee will take out,
| likely leading to deadlock)
| rwmj wrote:
| Unfortunately I think this time it'll pass (not least because
| of the exact failure you mention - they are desperate to pass
| something and it's got cross-party support apart from a few
| symbolic edge cases). Whether or not it will be fully enacted
| and then enforced is questionable.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The fact labour will support it (the even crazier version) is
| why the government will not bring it to a vote. It will die
| in committee like the last 17 drafts. It's already been sent
| to the Lords committee with Rishi saying it will be a "long
| hard journey" (or words to that effect). Given the terrible
| polls you'd have to be pretty suicidal to risk bringing down
| your own government and forcing an election. Not to say there
| are not plenty of crazy tories, just that they're usually
| more self-interested than that...
| golemiprague wrote:
| [dead]
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Why do kids need special protections online? How about we jail
| parents who don't teach their kids how to behave online?
|
| Imagine way-too-young kids printing out their bathing suit
| pictures and sellotaping them to a tree with their phone number
| written underneath... is the city (or whoever is responsible for
| the trees there) guilty if some pedophille calls the number and
| does something bad? Or have the parents failed in educating the
| kid on what is good and bad, right and wrong? Replace the tree
| with instagram (or whatever), and you're there.
|
| The kids will just change their birth date everywhere to
| something 18+, and online services will ban everyone below. The
| next step is mandatory government ID for registering to any
| service online... and everyone laughing at Sunak asking a
| homeless man if he's "working in business" will get police on
| their doors.
| kderbyma wrote:
| .....stopped reading after your first sentence. A simple second
| would bring many reasons
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| But why the rest of society has to pay because some parents
| couldn't do what should be their responsibilites?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Maybe they'd be better off punishing parents who allow kids
| unfiltered and unsupervised Internet access at far too young an
| age.
| frogpelt wrote:
| What about their parents??
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| "The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for children
| to grow up online" is the first line of this article. Not
| presented as a quote, or a claim made by a source in the article.
| Just a fact.
|
| From that point it just gets worse. There's basically no
| description of what terms like "protecting kids online" actually
| means.
|
| The actual description of the law is extremely vague and doesn't
| answer basic questions about how the law would work. Would it
| only involve social media (published) content, or would it cover
| private text messages as well? Can providers simply ban children
| from using their platform, or will the law hold them accountable
| even for unauthorized users?
|
| These are the details one might expect answers to in a reasonable
| article, but I'm not sure if this is a journalistic exercise or
| some sort of PR puff piece.
| dogleash wrote:
| I thought Ars was better that that. Srug, oh well, time to
| write them off too.
| mancerayder wrote:
| A consequence of not having a Bill of Rights with a First
| Amendment, something routinely mocked on the one side of the
| Atlantic. The point is that intentionally overbroad
| restrictions on speech or content are a lot more difficult in
| the US.
| cm2187 wrote:
| In fact I am not aware of any restriction on what the house
| of commons can vote with a simple majority. On one hand it's
| the longuest continuously functioning democracy, so it
| deserves some credit. On the other hand it's a terribly
| dangerous system.
| pksebben wrote:
| I feel like we suffer from intentionally overbroad
| protections in this vein. Corporations being people and what
| not.
| joenot443 wrote:
| This is true. We're frequently reminded growing up in Canada
| that despite what we'd gather from the tv/film we consume, we
| don't have the same freedom of speech laws that our friends
| in the south do. People are sent to jail for hate speech in
| Canada, both online and in-person, something I'm not aware of
| happening in the states.
|
| Our Charter provides us with a "freedom of expression" for
| which the government is allowed "reasonable" grounds for
| censorship and speech restriction. For better or worse, there
| are many, many websites hosted in the US which would never
| fly in Canada.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Our Charter provides us with ..."
|
| Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides us nothing as
| at any point federal or provincial government can say fuck
| you and we will do as we please using that infamous
| notwithstanding clause. Examples of this already exist.
| Look at Ford or Legault for example. I think this
| notwithstanding clause is our disgrace and makes a mockery
| of our rights.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides us nothing
| as at any point federal or provincial government can say
| fuck you and we will do as we please using that infamous
| notwithstanding clause.
|
| Honestly the same paradigm exists in the US. As long as
| one branch of federal government can get another to agree
| to a Constitution-violating law or policy, the
| protections in the Constitution carry as much weight as a
| travel brochure. Similar shenanigans apply with regard to
| state and federal law conflicts. For example, for better
| or for worse, state level legalization of cannabis flies
| in the face of the Supremacy Clause, but that gets
| overlooked because the laws are something the federal
| government tacitly approves of (but can't get its act
| together to give formal blessing).
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Honestly the same paradigm exists in the US"
|
| I am in Canada. The fact that it screwed up in the US
| does not make me feel any better. For what it worth I
| still think that basic freedoms protections are still
| better in the US.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > We're frequently reminded growing up in Canada that
| despite what we'd gather from the tv/film we consume, we
| don't have the same freedom of speech laws that our friends
| in the south do.
|
| Why not simply get those rights? Looking at the brain flow
| to and from the US, there are a lot of Canadians voting
| with their feet...
|
| Americans did about 250 years ago.
|
| To me, the Canadian political system has always been a
| source of amazement and quite an enigma. The constitution
| of that country simply wasn't signed by a third of the
| population, and this is considered normal over there. Could
| anyone here in America imagine that?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| The U.S. Constitution was signed by 0% of living
| Americans, and only a few dozen people that were alive
| when it was signed. It only came into effect when
| ratified by 3/4 of states. What 1/3rd are you talking
| about?
| joenot443 wrote:
| > Why not simply get those rights?
|
| I'm actually living in NYC on a TN visa at the moment, so
| in a way, I've begun the voting process. If everything
| goes as planned, I hope to spend the next few decades
| with ample time in both countries, like my folks do.
|
| I've come to realize there's a lot I love and appreciate
| about either, despite their flaws. We here in North
| America are very, very lucky.
| 10000truths wrote:
| No need to imagine. The slaves and indigenous people in
| America had no vote or representation in the drafting of
| the Constitution or bill of rights, either. The southern
| states chose to wage war rather than address the
| hypocrisy of owning slaves in a "free country".
| peanuty1 wrote:
| > Why not simply get those rights?
|
| Governments rarely relinquish power.
| astrange wrote:
| Sometimes you'll see British news discuss "constitutional"
| issues in politics. Since they don't have a written
| constitution, this is clearly cope, like when they pretend
| the food comes in colors other than brown.
|
| Although some of it is written down; specifically it's
| written in an anonymous letter to the Times.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| This looks like an excuse to be able to beat into submission
| foreign "evil" tech companies thanks to an intentionally vague
| and arbitrary law.
|
| Every time I read something about the UK these days it feels
| like I need to fact check it because it always sounds like
| something conspiracy theorists here in America would say. And
| it's almost always real.
|
| I'm still surprised how almost 250 years of separate history
| shaped radically different nations. And I'm not sure which one
| is best; but maybe the huge number of Britons here in America
| should be an indicator of that.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Every time I read something about the UK these days it
| feels like I need to fact check it because it always sounds
| like something conspiracy theorists here in America would say
|
| Quite a lot of it is indeed directly imported from conspiracy
| theorists in America. Via the rightwing "media" pipeline
| straight to government.
| [deleted]
| ljm wrote:
| The UK as a whole leans fairly authoritarian and has had
| successive paternalistic governments for probably as long as
| anyone alive can remember (some people will call this the
| 'nanny state'). These fanciful proposals are created and
| supported by both Conservative (right, centre right) and Labour
| (left, centre left) parties alike.
|
| As cynical as it sounds, this kind of legislation is rolled out
| practically every year and you could probably set your watch by
| it. Sometimes the law is implemented, quite often it's put on
| the backburner and resurrected the next year when there needs
| to be a distraction from something else.
|
| You can ask, "how will this work in practice?" and few people
| will be able to claim they've actually thought as far as that.
| bsder wrote:
| > You can ask, "how will this work in practice?" and few
| people will be able to claim they've actually thought as far
| as that.
|
| This seemed to be the central problem of Brexit as well ...
| nimbius wrote:
| you could make the argument that late-stage capitalism and
| the emergence of neufeudalism has reduced the state from an
| arbiter and partner in creating a thriving and successful
| society for its people, to a paul blart mall cop. well
| thought legislature is the purvey of the private sector, as
| is trade law and most of the sovereignty of the internet.
|
| but realistically Boris Johnson himself was notorious for
| using dead-cat legislature to draw attention away from
| serious problems in his own government and serious issues the
| nation faces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy
|
| chances are great we're seeing this bit of legislation to
| help people lose focus on the slow-rolling dumpster fire of
| brexit.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| And government machinery is decrepit. Governments of
| yesterday had the brains to plan and implement major
| projects - interstate highway system, moon landings, etc.
|
| todays governments can't find their way out of a paper bag.
|
| Their only capability is to hand out money to a neofeudal
| lord and hope for results.
| astrange wrote:
| > you could make the argument that late-stage capitalism
| and the emergence of neufeudalism
|
| Just because someone made up some words doesn't mean you
| have to use them. There's nothing late about the capitalism
| (it's not going anywhere) nor neo about the feudalism (the
| UK's terrible land use policies are AFAIK all historical).
|
| Although the opposition have now just announced they're
| going to make everyone poorer, which would be a weird
| policy and I suppose anti-capitalist, except it's already
| been happening since 2005-ish.
|
| https://twitter.com/josiahmortimer/status/16153647631978373
| 1...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > someone made up some words
|
| neufeudalism is just a natural evolution of
| neoliberalism.
|
| It's where your become a modern equivalent of medieval
| serf, your bionic eyes become obsolete and unsupported
| [1], all contracts between you and corporations are
| extremely one-sided, you own no property and no land.
|
| You may think you own your TV and your car. But fixing
| 'your' car without paying the Lord is a crime - because
| of IP law and DMCA.
|
| Actually someone at Samsung wakes up one day and decides
| that your TV, car, or front door should stop working
| today. Your have no right and no recourse. Or you have
| theoretical rights that can only enforced with a 10-year
| long court battle costing millions of dollars. However
| any offense against the lord, er, I mean, corporation, is
| prosecuted by the king, I mean state, for free.
|
| The lord to collects the 30% Apple tax. The Lord himself
| does not pay any tax. The lord pledges loyalty to the
| king, and provides the king with access to it's territory
| and resources - the king may access information held by
| any serf on OneDrive, ICloud, Buttcloud, etc. the Kings
| must compete with one another to woo the Lord to their.
| The Kings of China and US constantly battle for
| territorial access to different lords.
|
| Recently some plebs petitioned Lord Elon to remove filthy
| Russian peasants from his kingdom by disabling all Teslas
| in Russia. [3]
|
| 1 - https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete
|
| 2 - https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/samsung-can-
| remotely-bri...
|
| 3 - https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-
| users-requ...
| cycomanic wrote:
| ?? What about not using GDP as a primary indicator of
| economic/social health is making everyone poorer. GDP as
| a measure was invented as a wartime metric, at the time
| it made sense. However later even it's "inventor" Kuznets
| warned about it's use as primary metric. Let's not even
| get into the complexity of calculating it (the UN
| instructions come to >700 pages).
| astrange wrote:
| GDP already isn't used as the only indicator of economic
| health (don't know about "primary"). But some British
| people invented a philosophy called degrowth as a way of
| explaining how their country's falling real incomes are
| good actually, and calling for it to be the official
| policy is pretty worrying.
|
| This is different from America, where people briefly got
| into degrowth after reading The Population Bomb, but
| mostly got it out of their system after noticing none of
| it actually came true.
|
| (Economic growth does not actually use more resources
| like the idea implies. That's not efficient since you
| have to pay for the resources. It uses the same ones more
| productively.)
| n4r9 wrote:
| This comment prompted me to actually look up "late stage
| capitalism".
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism
|
| > In modern usage, late capitalism often refers to a new
| mix of high-tech advances, the concentration of
| (speculative) financial capital, post-Fordism, and a
| growing income inequality.
|
| I think that definition is at least meaningful, and seems
| to align with how I've heard people use the phrase.
| astrange wrote:
| The term was invented in 1902 and "late-stage" is meant
| to imply it's going to die of old age very soon. I'm sure
| it will, any day now.
|
| Also, income inequality is not growing. Instead real
| income is falling for everyone, which is worse!
| ninjanomnom wrote:
| Late stage to me indicates that some sort of optimal
| state has been reached, not that the thing will be gone
| soon. Late stage construction is a nearly complete
| building for instance. Late stage capitalism is certainly
| used in this manner as it's meant to refer to the end
| result of poor incentives being applied over a long
| period of time.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > just announced they're going to make everyone poorer
|
| As opposed to Liz Truss who did it without an
| announcemnt?
| astrange wrote:
| She had time to do something?
| alphanullmeric wrote:
| Government regulations are capitalism and other funny
| stories you can tell yourself
| gsatic wrote:
| In Techno feudalism govt doesnt exist. Its just the
| techlord buffoon class and the serfs (ie people enslaved by
| their phones). The govt will keep giving Mario Savio
| speeches and they will end up just like Mario.
| jonatron wrote:
| https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137 Reading through 260
| pages of legislation is tl;dr for journalists.
| pjc50 wrote:
| "Under a further change to the bill, video footage that shows
| people crossing the Channel in small boats in a "positive
| light" will be added to a list of illegal content that all tech
| platforms must proactively prevent from reaching users."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/17/donelan-c...
|
| It's state censorship for anything the government finds
| uncomfortable.
| supriyo-biswas wrote:
| I suspect the original article is about UK's "Online Safety
| Bill" which was discussed at length on HN[1] with some very
| good discussion about why it's a bad idea. (Which is something
| a few commenters on this thread are failing to grasp.)
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32055756
| timthorn wrote:
| The politician responsible for this bill was replaced since
| that discussion, and the content of the bill has been changed
| significantly - some of the discussion of 6 months ago is
| still valid, but you can't rely on what was said then to form
| your opinion of the bill as is going through Parliament.
|
| The original minister has not held back in her criticism of
| the changes.
| https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/nadine-dorries-
| mic...
| oxfordmale wrote:
| I can guarantee no tech exec will ever end up in prison under
| this law. At most, they will get a fine and happily file this
| under operational costs.
|
| Very few MPs seem to understand how the internet works, and
| there is virtually no opposition against some of this madness.
| There are only demands to make it even stricter to "protect the
| kiddies". Most of these "kiddies" know how to use a VPN or are
| at least smart enough to borrow their father's phone to watch
| juicy content.
| gadders wrote:
| Who gives a fuck about juicy content? It's about saving
| lives: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/01/
| molly-...
|
| Being responsible for a system that feeds anyone (let alone a
| child) who looks at images of self harm or suicide more of
| the same deserves to be in jail.
| nisegami wrote:
| >Being responsible for a system that feeds anyone (let
| alone a child) who looks at images of self harm or suicide
| more of the same deserves to be in jail.
|
| But that's what I want? I'm looking at it in the first
| place for a reason.
| goatlover wrote:
| Maybe the UK can erect a great firewall to protect its
| citizens from the various harms of the internet. I'm sure
| China can offer some assistance.
| whythre wrote:
| So if I write a nasty note on a paper Airplane and throw it
| at you, might the manufacturer of the paper and pen get in
| trouble? 'No, that's absurd.' Fine, what about an
| unpleasant email? Should an email provider auto screen
| potentially harmful messages?
|
| None of this seems very logically consistent and just seems
| to stem from a desire to fix a problem (people being nasty
| to each other) in the most heavy handed and legally clumsy
| way imaginable.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Amazingly, the above story happened in the UK, the UK's
| health system is failing totally, the NHS has under-
| invested in mental health services on a massive scale for
| decades (for example, all the gambling addiction clinics
| in the UK were funded by gambling companies until 2020),
| and this happens and people immediately round
| on...Twitter?
|
| It is genuinely very confusing that a mental health
| problem has turned into tech regulation. Particularly
| when mental health treatment is so obviously lacking (and
| part of the reason why no-one asks the question about the
| NHS is due to lobbying, the NHS has the most powerful
| lobbying group in British politics).
|
| Btw, just anecdotally, the people pushing for this are
| (imo) the worst people in British politics. Bill Cash,
| all the Brexit hardliners (who, btw, were regarded as too
| incompetent and mad by the people who can the Vote Leave
| campaign). These people sit in safe seats, there is no
| risk from deselection, and they just sit there and come
| up mad ideas year after year (the person above who points
| out that British politicians tend towards
| authoritarianism are correct...this is being led by the
| furthest right portion of the Tories).
| pydry wrote:
| >It is genuinely very confusing that a mental health
| problem has turned into tech regulation.
|
| They never cared about mental health, only the ability to
| put controls on what we see and hear.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| I don't think it is about that because these controls
| don't apply to non-children. But I think we are certainly
| heading in this direction.
|
| One major thing in the UK is that politicians complain
| often about people criticising them on Twitter. They read
| out the hateful tweets they receive with ill-disguised
| glee, and suggest direct moderation (already happening to
| a certain extent, in line with EU regs). Celebrities also
| push this line heavily, milking social media for
| advertising cash and complaining that their critics
| should be removed from the platform.
|
| ...I just don't get it. If you are interested in
| parallels, there is an interesting parallel with the
| introduction of the printing press to England. This
| spurred massive growth in political pamphlets which
| offered all kinds of fictitious nonsense about prominent
| people. Attempts at censorship failed, and that industry
| grow into news. We have been here before, we lucked out
| last time, we may not be able to do so again (censorship
| in China certainly indicates that govts have the
| resources to censor more effectively than ever before).
| kneebonian wrote:
| "Give me a child until he is 4 and I will have him for
| the rest of his life." - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
|
| EDIT:
|
| "I am the walrus" - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
| shortcake27 wrote:
| > I don't think it is about that because these controls
| don't apply to non-children.
|
| But they do. In order to "comply" with these types of
| regulation, legal content is either put behind identity
| verification (which is both expensive and invasive), or
| is just removed completely. This absolutely affects non-
| children.
| ectopod wrote:
| Yes. The identity verification seems like the point of
| this nonsense.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _very few MPs seem to understand how the internet works_
|
| Perhaps, or then again maybe there are very few technologists
| that understand how politics works (in reality, not as a
| beautiful ideal where everyone is honest and dedicated to the
| public good).
| oxfordmale wrote:
| The UK is particularly bad at this. All recent PMs have
| studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the
| University of Oxford. At least Germany had a chancellor who
| studies physics (Angela Merkel).
| neilv wrote:
| The bias starts before the first sentence, with the headline.
|
| I'd like to think any journalism student in their first week
| would know not to do this. And one with some awareness of tech
| would know that general-purpose surveillance and censorship are
| ongoing battles, and at least acknowledge that angle.
|
| This looks like a press release.
|
| Maybe Ars Technica should stick to product advertorials, and we
| on HN should find real reporting around which to consider
| important societal issues.
| sobkas wrote:
| > "The United Kingdom wants to become the safest place for
| children to grow up online" is the first line of this article.
| Not presented as a quote, or a claim made by a source in the
| article. Just a fact.
|
| > From that point it just gets worse. There's basically no
| description of what terms like "protecting kids online"
| actually means.
|
| Based on what I seen in British media, it's keeping children
| from talking to or knowing that trans people exist. Otherwise
| children might learn that trans people are humans to or even
| catch(they are for reals) transness...
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| No one should grow up online. There is no "safe" way to "grow
| up" online.
| danuker wrote:
| I saw all kinds of crazy stuff on the early web as a teen. I
| grew [up?] both tolerant and thick-skinned.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| This isn't about content! There is a real world, and a
| virtual one. The virtual one is a mere imitation of the
| real one. We weren't born to live inside a machine.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Even if you are right it's survivor bias, but to the parent
| commenters point being raised on the internet is sad
| because of the lost opportunity.
| goatlover wrote:
| The internet has replaced growing up on tv, rock and roll and
| video games. Before then, the wrong books.
| kypro wrote:
| I always find it interesting when the UK government tries to
| claim they care about child safety. For about two decades tens of
| thousands of British children have been systematically groomed,
| drugged and raped here in the UK. Obviously during this time
| families tried did attempt to make their politicians aware of
| this but we they generally told they were racists and in some
| cases that their kids wanted to be raped. One of the saddest
| memories I have is me being an ignorant dickhead and accusing
| some guy in the EDL of being a racist because that what I read
| online. The guy basically broke down crying saying he failed his
| daughter twice, once when she was raped, and the second time when
| he tried to raise aware and just got label an intolerant racist.
| And this attitude isn't uncommon. My girlfriend who was groomed
| as a child never openly speaks about when happened to her either
| because you just get called a racist.
|
| Anyway, I guess this isn't entirely relevant to the subject
| matter here. Point is if the UK government cared about kids one
| would assume they'd be more focused on trying to stop them being
| stabbed and raped than stopping them watching PornHub when their
| parents are out.
| xkbarkar wrote:
| Not sure I follow here. Seems weirdly arbitrary to accuse
| somone of being racist when they speak up about abuse that they
| suffered.
| VLM wrote:
| The right people were doing the raping, which explains the
| entire situation.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| You know why.
| golemotron wrote:
| I'm curious about how extraterritoriality plays with this. Are
| there any UK-based online platforms or do are they obliging
| themselves to pursue Zuckerberg, Elon, and whomever runs Reddit?
| csense wrote:
| RIP UK tech industry
| everyone wrote:
| But think of the children!!
| edgyquant wrote:
| If having to protect children and consider their outcomes (like
| basically every other industry has to) kills big tech then good
| riddance.
| [deleted]
| donmcronald wrote:
| > It now appears that tech company executives found to be
| "deliberately" exposing children to harmful content could
| soon risk steep fines and jail time of up to two years.
|
| The subjective definitions of "deliberately" and "harmful"
| are what makes it problematic.
|
| Also, harmful to what or who? Is the Wikipedia article on the
| theory of evolution harmful? Probably not. Is it harmful to
| some people's religious beliefs? Probably.
| danjac wrote:
| The only industry the UK government cares about is providing
| real estate and money-laundering services to Russian oligarchs
| and Middle Eastern despots.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| As a parent, I can tell you how the current laws work in
| practice. When you admit you are younger than 18, average website
| will, with significant probability, lock your account immediately
| with no way to correct the situation and no way to setup new
| account with the same email address. After this happens a few
| times, you learn to dutifully tell all websites that you are 18.
|
| I fear the mandatory age checking tech/laws. Being a kid is
| becoming increasingly illegal.
|
| How about equal access laws for children before passing any new
| laws that encourage websites to block all children?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| When you make an account on a site, isn't that considered
| entering into a contract? I didn't know minors were allowed to
| enter contracts- or the contracts aren't enforceable.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think the obvious solution to this is to require websites
| _not_ ask the visitors age or name. Like, that stuff is private
| info, and they don 't need it to provide whatever service
| they're providing.
| guy98238710 wrote:
| It is however nice to warn younger kids that something scary
| is ahead. Images of violence can be traumatizing. Attracting
| adult attention to suspected bullying is also nice.
| cm2187 wrote:
| What's the percentage of those websites hosted in the UK?
| You aren't achieving anything with those laws. You should
| rather focus on content filtering on the device.
| gergov wrote:
| or if you're going to ask them their age just display age
| appropriate content. Automatic categorizing of even user
| generated stuff should be a pretty much solved problem by now
| zdragnar wrote:
| What is "age appropriate" changes by the year, and is not
| universally agreed upon by everyone. I'm not sure that is a
| problem that will ever actually be solved.
|
| As for categorizing content in general, I think it's pretty
| safe to look at Facebook and Twitter for examples of
| content moderation failing in spectacular ways, just as it
| is by all of the horror stories of Google accounts being
| automatically locked for utterly unclear reasons because
| some automated system picked up some cue and erroneously
| banned the account.
| ajot wrote:
| I'm not sure if automatic categorization is solved by now.
| Look at how many not suitable for kids stuff show up on
| Youtube Kids.
|
| Maybe some other platform does this right, but I'm skeptic.
| I've watched some TikTok with my niece and some things were
| way over her age.
|
| Maybe I'm getting old, but at least on TV there was a
| timeslot marked as suitable for all audiences, enforced by
| some agency in each country.
| donmcronald wrote:
| Yeah. Kids only put in their real age once. After they get
| burned they know they have to say they're over 12 or 18 or
| whatever the site is asking about for a threshold.
|
| Worse than that, the proof of identity is making it impossible
| to use the safest option - anonymity. If a kid gets bullied or
| harassed or targeted by bad actors they can't simply delete
| their account and create a new one. These laws force them to
| have one or two super high value (to them) accounts that are
| difficult to abandon.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I was always ~1 middle mouse spin years old on any age gates.
|
| For the anonymity problem there's nothing really requiring
| that accounts are 1-1 permanently linked with their
| identities much less publicly linked to them. Just that
| they're validated as being >=XX years old right?
| danuker wrote:
| All I see is $GOVERNMENT wants tyrannical surveillance due to
| $EXCUSE.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-17 23:02 UTC)