[HN Gopher] UK Parliament passes Online Safety Bill
___________________________________________________________________
UK Parliament passes Online Safety Bill
Author : phab
Score : 112 points
Date : 2023-09-19 16:19 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| cwales95 wrote:
| Now this is a headline I didn't want to see pass. I wonder if
| Apple will do what they said and pull iMessage and FaceTime. Same
| with Meta and WhatsApp.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Well that would be a nice side effect, yes. It would be great
| if a terrible law had such fine consequences.
| TetraBeef wrote:
| I think most of the companies saying they would pull out said
| they would because of the parts of the bill targeting end to
| end encryption.
|
| I thought they dropped that part of the bill, I may be mistaken
| though.
| Jigsy wrote:
| They said it wasn't currently feasible. Meaning they believe
| it will be (lol) years or decades down the line.
| cwales95 wrote:
| Pretty much. I'm not sure if it got included but if it was
| feasibly possible they absolutely would -- which is just as
| bad in my opinion. Lack of capability does not nullify
| intent.
| darreninthenet wrote:
| It was included, I think the wording was changed to
| include something like "when technically feasible" or
| similar
| toyg wrote:
| Nothing was changed. The government just trotted out a
| nobody to make a statement that basically said "we won't
| do it until we think it can be done"; the sensationalist
| media thought they had got their U-turn, ran a few
| headlines, and moved on.
|
| The bill just passed as it was.
|
| The British establishment is occasionally infuriating.
| jacooper wrote:
| That was 100% on purpose, they won't care and will force
| a backdoor anyway.
| [deleted]
| jacooper wrote:
| They didn't
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/today-uk-parliament-
| un...
| kulahan wrote:
| The bill makes sites prove they are committed to removing
| content:
|
| * promoting or facilitating suicide
|
| * promoting self-harm
|
| Serious question - how will this affect discussions around
| euthanasia? Can people just not discuss that online in the UK
| anymore?
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Yes but not in the way you think. You will be prohibited from
| opposing it. It will be "self-harm" to live and it isn't
| suicide when the government kills you to save the NHS money.
| zarzavat wrote:
| "self-harm" is a broad category as well. A lot of things that
| people do are harmful to the self in some way.
|
| For harm to others we have the bright(er) line of consent, but
| for harm to oneself, who is to say?
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I don't know why the UK bothers to make new laws. It has no hope
| of enforcing them. The Police are mired in scandal and cut to the
| bone. The courts system is taking apart, with criminal barristers
| forced to strike for pay, courts closed and massive backlogs in
| both the criminal and civil branches. Prisons are full, and
| taking apart. A terrorist on remand escaped last week.
|
| What are they possibly going to do with yet another law?
|
| Edit: spelling.I use a swipe keyboard on my phone due to
| arthritis, and weird misspellings are a side effect. Sorry to the
| pedant below who couldn't see past one typo well enough to
| address the point.
| cwales95 wrote:
| Can confirm as a UK citizen. Laws are seeminly never really
| enforced from what I've noticed.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Indeed, look at the navel gazing as they try and work out how
| to ban a dog breed that is a clear hybrid of a breed that is
| already banned.... and therefore is banned already!
| miohtama wrote:
| Spy their own citizens
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| The point isn't to enforce it, the judicial system has
| completely collapsed. The point is just to appeal to their
| voters who don't understand none of this can be enforced and
| when it doesn't happen (their own failures) they can claim the
| deep state and civil service are all to against them doing what
| people want.
| biscuitech wrote:
| I hate that you're right. It doesn't apply exclusively to the
| UK
| Exoristos wrote:
| They find the resources when it's time to go after their
| political enemies or make an example of a commoner. Or did you
| really believe this bill is meant to protect children?
| jimnotgym wrote:
| >Or did you really believe this bill is meant to protect
| children?
|
| I don't see how that is implied by my comment.
| basseed wrote:
| "scandal"
| atlantic wrote:
| The point of much recent legislation isn't enforcement on a
| large scale. It's to give the state the right to spy on and
| arrest anyone at all, since they criminalize ordinary
| behaviour. It creates an atmosphere of fear and conformity.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Why is the UK government in collapse? The same reasons as the
| US?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| different.
|
| The US government is designed to be inefficient and requires
| bipartisan agreement _or_ a majority in both chambers to do
| stuff.
|
| The UK government has significantly more executive powers,
| far more than the president, and normally has a majority to
| pass things that can't be done by the excutive.
|
| the problem is that brexit and bad party leaders has been
| exceedingly disruptive and killed both the conservative and
| labour party. This is because it ripped apart the coalitions
| inside both parties. Suddenly the us and them was not our
| party and thier party, but people within the same party.
|
| The competent have been driven out by the populists, and then
| they've burnt up and been replaced by the "tim, nice but
| dims". (populists were boris and corbyn)
|
| Until we actually "deal" with or defuse brexit, and actually
| begin to structurally reform large parts of the country
| (education, industrial relations, health and local government
| to name but a few) we are going to be stuck
| nicoburns wrote:
| One might argue that the electoral system (FPTP) is a
| common denominator in both cases. Under another system, new
| parties might arise to replace to stale ideas of the old
| (on both the left and the right). Under FPTP, that's almost
| impossible to achieve.
|
| It's a common refrain that people don't engage with
| politics because they feel disenfranchised. Which is
| perhaps unsurprising, because to a large extent they are!
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I think FPTP is a factor but not in the same way. The
| structure of the US system means that a president with a
| slim majority in one house can't do anything much. the UK
| has no such real problems.
|
| In the UK you only have to win the commons (lower house)
| to run a government. the US you need both and the
| president.
| gorwell wrote:
| Populism is a response to corrupt and incompetent
| establishments. There's nothing competent to drive out by
| the time populism rears its head. It was already long gone.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Populism is a response to corrupt and incompetent
| establishments
|
| populism is a response to discontent, nothing more,
| nothing less. Populists need an in. If the country thinks
| that the government is doing ok, or they are happy enough
| as they are, then populism can't spread. Populists need a
| cause and a scapegoat.
|
| boris was brexit. corbyn was "enough shitting on the poor
| and young"
| switch007 wrote:
| Our country is crumbling and people are starting to realise
| it's the Tory's fault. 13 years of Tory rule, cutting
| services to the bone and making themselves rich at our
| expense is seriously taking its toll. Councils are going
| bankrupt, schools are falling apart, public transport is in
| managed decline in a lot of areas, various sectors regularly
| going on strike, people can't afford their bills, mortgages
| sky-rocketed, inflation is high...so many things
|
| It's widely accepted that Labour are a government-in-waiting.
| jjgreen wrote:
| Labour has largely supported this -- one of the originators
| is Lorna Woods (University of Essex) who was an advisor to
| Blair.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I would say, generally, the people in power used to have a
| certain level of competence, even if they were despicable.
| They also had to act, outwardly at least, like they weren't
| deliberately shafting the common man.
|
| Brexit changed all that. All that mattered was whether you
| believed in One True Brexit. Lots of heretics were hounded
| out. Behaviour didn't matter. You could say terrible things,
| as long as you were a BeLeaver.
|
| Then Brexit was over. There was nothing left to believe in,
| but the cult were still in charge...
| LightBug1 wrote:
| 1000% correct ... I don't care if this non-substantive
| comment gets downvoted.
|
| The above is basically why the UK is currently swirling
| down the shitter ...
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Years of institutional decline and a political class that
| genuinely loathes the people it rules and anything good about
| the country they inhabit. You can put the date at 1997, 2010
| or perhaps earlier depending on your political leanings.
|
| Maybe those in power have always felt that way, but it
| certainly seems more pronounced in the post-9/11 surveillance
| and security state.
| gustavus wrote:
| You misunderstand. The NSA has collected massive amounts of
| data on everyone, they could easily solve many murders,
| burglaries and most other crimes. But they don't, in fact they
| don't event really stop terrorists.
|
| So why collect all this data? They do it so they have a massive
| backlog of information, so that when someone decides you need
| to be taken care of they no longer have to figure out something
| to pin on you, they don't have to navigate around that pesky
| 4th Amendment. The purpose is so that when they decide you need
| to be taken care of they can go through the backlog find
| whatever they want and then boom. You're done.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| > You misunderstand.
|
| Nice, start with an insult!
|
| > they don't have to navigate around that pesky 4th
| Amendment.
|
| They got around that in the UK already by not having a 4th
| Amendment...or indeed a written constitution.
|
| > They do it so they have a massive backlog of information,
|
| This implies a level of competence I do not recognise in the
| UK government.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| UK is all in on Dystopia.
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| I hope other countries don't copy the UK. With the Internet we
| have choice of jurisdiction and can happily avoid any
| cryptography projects operating out of the UK. I don't care if
| WhatsApp will become wiretapped in the UK. My beloved Matrix
| operates out of there, that's what concerns me.
|
| And I have to use WhatsApp because of its network effect (all my
| friends and family are on it). I have tried recruiting them on to
| Signal and Matrix, but the mental fatigue for them of doing that;
| means I have only have three friends on Signal, and _~100s_ stuck
| on shitty WhatsApp.
|
| Hopefully the more tech savvy friends of mine will ditch WhatsApp
| and choose Signal. And I'm not saying Signal doesn't have its
| issues (meatspace identity tied to your number etc) but it's far
| superior to WhatsApp which collects too much metadata like, it
| knows your contacts, when you talk to them, IP and other
| metadata.
|
| Does anyone else have this issue of recruiting friends and family
| onto more privacy-respecting messenger apps?
| barrysteve wrote:
| Half don't care about privacy.
|
| Branding a privacy app "as a privacy app" is a mistake. We need
| the next messenging app to be private by default AND better at
| making people popular and giving attention and securing
| relationships for the end user and all the rest of it..
|
| The people who care about privacy are "trying to get away" and
| going to "get off the map". In the eyes of some average joes.
|
| That's basically anti-marketing.
| jacooper wrote:
| At this point matrix will have to move out from the UK, along
| with Element too.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Yes ... because we've seen how well regulators have managed
| everything else in the UK ...
|
| Water? Energy? Everything else?
|
| Man, this is going to be fantastic ...
|
| The UK has an problem with regulation ... amongst everything else
| in this sh!thole.
| toyg wrote:
| That's because those regulations are written by people who
| despise regulations. They are meant to fail, so that eventually
| "the free market" (aka their rich friends) will get free reign,
| because "regulation clearly failed!".
| IYasha wrote:
| Welcome to the goolag, comrades. As sad as it sounds. This stuff
| is emerging in <s>WEF</s>different countries almost
| simultaneously. Do you see the pattern here? I do. Freakin prison
| under disguise of safety.
| pickleoctopus wrote:
| This is genuinely terrible for people living in the UK who care
| about their privacy and freedom on the internet.
|
| I do wonder whether this bill was caused by sincere
| misunderstanding of how tech works on the part of the legislators
| or, more cynically, a government agenda to crush privacy on the
| internet. Either way, the road to hell is paved with good
| intentions.
| hellojesus wrote:
| The legislators know exactly what they're doing. They had amble
| information from everyone not in government.
|
| They're banking on big tech accommodating them. Once they have
| all the data, they can sell it to the US gov, who then can
| target it's citizens by circumventing 4A.
| pickleoctopus25 wrote:
| This is genuinely terrible for people living in the UK who care
| about their privacy and freedom on the internet.
|
| I do wonder whether this bill was caused by sincere
| misunderstanding of how tech works on the part of the legislators
| or, more cynically, a government agenda to crush privacy on the
| internet. Either way, the road to hell is paved with good
| intentions.
| jacooper wrote:
| They didn't ban E2E, did they?
| jacooper wrote:
| Apparently they did, it was just talk, the law didn't actually
| change.
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/today-uk-parliament-un...
| dwroberts wrote:
| Does anyone have a link to the full text of the bill? The House
| of Lords site only seems to list the amendments without context.
|
| I'm interested to know if it passed with the (ridiculous)
| requirement of a third party age verification service
| crtasm wrote:
| I think it's the file dated 19 July 2023, plus the two
| amendment documents since then?
|
| https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3137/publications
| [deleted]
| skilled wrote:
| Relevant,
|
| _ORG warns of threat to privacy and free speech as Online Safety
| Bill is passed_ - https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-
| releases/org-warns-of-...
|
| > Open Rights Group has warned that Online Safety Bill, which has
| been passed in parliament, will make us less secure by
| threatening our privacy and undermining our freedom of
| expression. This includes damaging the privacy and security of
| children and young people the law is supposed to protect.
|
| Also other noteworthy discussions on HN,
|
| _Your compliance obligations under the UK's Online Safety Bill_
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32055756) (July 2022 | 462
| comments)
|
| _Signal says it 'll shut down in UK if Online Safety Bill
| approved_ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34936127)
| (February 2023 | 302 comments)
|
| _The Online Safety Bill: An attack on encryption_
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34727082) (February 2023 |
| 179 comments)
|
| _Ask HN: Online activities to be made impossible by the UK
| Online Safety Bill_
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36919175) (July 2023 | 105
| comments)
|
| _Google 's Statement on the UK Online Safety Bill [pdf]_
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37443634) (September 2023 |
| 47 comments)
|
| _UK pulls back from clash with Big Tech over private messaging_
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37408196) (September 2023 |
| 302 comments)
| Nasrudith wrote:
| It seems that a lot of people idiotically think that what is
| best for the children is for them to live in a dystopia.
| gorwell wrote:
| "For the children" is how they sell removal of freedoms and
| justification for putting the general population under
| surveillance. The managers know what's best for all of us!
| runeofdoom wrote:
| I expect that the overlap between "honestly care for
| childrens' quality of life" and "understands the ramifictions
| of this bill to any significant extent" is near zero. (Though
| there are doubtless many people who have inaccurately
| convinced themselves they are members of both classes.)
| throwaway4PP wrote:
| yes, but undoubtedly the UK's security services know that
| the best way to pass something unpopular is to recast it as
| helping
|
| children
|
| women
|
| the vulnerable
|
| much like the content of the 2010 CIA memo that wikileaks
| released[1] stating that the best way to increase public
| support for US military actions in Afghanistan is to
| emphasize the oppression of women
|
| [1]https://wikileaks.org/wiki/CIA_report_into_shoring_up_Af
| ghan...
| trackflak wrote:
| It's annoying being one of the seemingly few people who
| sees through these techniques. I seldom voice support for
| a position because it does 'one thing' and WE NEED TO DO
| THE ONE THING NOW!!! Instead, as best as I can, I try to
| see the net effect on everything this proposition
| touches.
|
| Even forget spending hours stewing over facts and data,
| there is just an instinct inside me that picks up that it
| is a ruse, a fallacy, a cynical ploy.
|
| While that sounds like tooting my own horn, and I admit
| I've been taken in by some tricks before, it just isn't
| easy to stand by and watch. And even if you argue and
| make the case for online freedom, someone else just needs
| to come along and go, 'AH!, but what about the children!'
| and the masses are swayed.
| mhandley wrote:
| If there is a plus side, I guess it will be that it will teach
| all our teenagers the importance of using a VPN.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I wonder if this sort of thing would lead to more people self-
| hosting again since it seems to be targeted at "big tech".
|
| So because Facebook, tiktok, YouTube et al start over-censoring,
| people just think fuck it and start hosting their own content
| again?
| Nickersf wrote:
| Doubtful. People either don't care or are too lazy to shift.
| Also, I think it's safe to assume ISP's are going to be wrapped
| in on this too.
| TeaDude wrote:
| Facebook, Twitter et al have entire office floors to deal with
| legal threats.
|
| The UK police love to go after "soft" targets and there's no-
| one softer than someone who's life can immediately be ruined by
| arresting them and thus getting them fired due to missing work.
|
| Edit: I now see you mean "host their own personal content" but
| the point still stands.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Can self hosting deliver content at the scale we're used to
| now?
| nine_k wrote:
| Yes, because most people have like 30 contacts in their IM
| roster. Your phone, your home router, maybe even your smart
| fridge would be able to tackle this scale.
|
| Something like Twitter cannot be as easily replicated, but
| it's never been about privacy ad encryption.
|
| Another thing that's hard to replicate is a global namespace.
| Federated namespaces (see email. mastodon. matrix) work
| acceptably well though.
| laluneodyssee wrote:
| For most, I dont think anything will change. Convenience is
| king.
| Affric wrote:
| It's interesting.
|
| This gigantic legislation is misconceived at the same time I
| think it's easy to see why it has been deemed electorally popular
| enough for the government to proceed with.
|
| Tech companies do not provide a carriage service. It's something
| more than that. The behaviours they permitted, and even
| encouraged, on their platforms have incurred large amounts of
| harm on individuals and society as a whole.
|
| There can be no compromise on the government with encryption but
| they are able to do this because online companies are yet to
| figure out how to best protect the vulnerable that use their
| services.
|
| With that said I think the existence of the unregulated internet
| was likely anomalous. If ever you wanted privacy, you always have
| had to ensure the only two beings with access to the information
| communicated were yourself and the intended recipient. Is it
| really possible for a society to permit the existence of any
| large organisation for private communication without
| eavesdropping?
| logicchains wrote:
| >With that said I think the existence of the unregulated
| internet was likely anomalous. If ever you wanted privacy, you
| always have had to ensure the only two beings with access to
| the information communicated were yourself and the intended
| recipient. Is it really possible for a society to permit the
| existence of any large organisation for private communication
| without eavesdropping
|
| Encrypted communication is always going to exist, even the
| Chinese government can't prevent two technically capable people
| (or people with technically capable friends) from communication
| securely, and it has the most powerful internet filtering
| system in existence. If you ban encryption, then only the
| criminals will have encryption, and that's much truer for
| encryption than guns because anyone with a bit of knowledge and
| a few kilobytes of source code can setup encrypted
| communication that's mathematically unbreakable.
| mattnewton wrote:
| > With that said I think the existence of the unregulated
| internet was likely anomalous. If ever you wanted privacy, you
| always have had to ensure the only two beings with access to
| the information communicated were yourself and the intended
| recipient. Is it really possible for a society to permit the
| existence of any large organisation for private communication
| without eavesdropping?
|
| It wasn't feasible to open up every letter and scan it before
| resealing it outside of prisons then or now, but it is for
| electronic communication, and it will be done in the name of
| safety. The same is true of monitoring every conversation you
| have with friends; impossible before outside prisons, easy now
| electronically. This is what is entirely anomalous.
| gustavus wrote:
| "Good evening, London.
|
| Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like
| many of you, appreciate the comforts of everyday routine, the
| security of the familiar, the tranquillity of repetition. I enjoy
| them as much as any bloke.
|
| But in the spirit of commemoration, whereby those important
| events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or
| the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice
| holiday, I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day
| that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of
| our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are, of
| course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now,
| orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will
| soon be on their way.
|
| Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of
| conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer
| the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the
| enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something
| terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and
| injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the
| freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now
| have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity
| and soliciting your submission.
|
| How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly, there are
| those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held
| accountable. But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the
| guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it.
| I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease.
| They were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your
| reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of
| you, and in your panic, you turned to the now high chancellor,
| Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and
| all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last
| night, I sought to end that silence.
|
| Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of
| what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great
| citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our
| memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice,
| and freedom are more than words; they are perspectives. So if
| you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain
| unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of
| November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel
| as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to
| stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of
| Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November
| that shall never, ever be forgot." - V
| itsnotabtmoney wrote:
| [flagged]
| b59831 wrote:
| [dead]
| concordDance wrote:
| The title of this post is broken. @dang?
| dang wrote:
| Fixed now.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Going to buy shares in VPN providers.
|
| Seriously though, this just feels like the walls closing in on
| the freedom we had online. There's no way these powers won't be
| extended into more surveillance and censorship generally, now
| that they're in the door. We all lose.
|
| And it won't make the lives better for miserable children whom
| this bill is supposed to help - if anything, by controlling
| online content more they have even fewer places to reach out and
| find help without 'somebody watching'.
|
| The children prone to "online harms" will just find another
| outlet, and the parents (probably responsible for their misery in
| the first place) will switch to blaming that and demanding
| legislation to control it. Rinse and repeat.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Just make sure you sell, before the same governments legislate
| back doors in those same vpns.
|
| Or, your OS.
| bazmattaz wrote:
| Absolutely. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the
| major VPN providers already has back doors for the NSA and
| GCHQ. Looking at you NordVPN
| netdoll wrote:
| I wonder if there will be any substantial increase in
| pedojacketing among cultural elites towards those they see as
| undesirables now that the bill is passed, or whether the second
| order effects of the bill will lead to a backlash against the
| existing proliferation of it from the young, globally connected,
| and tech savvy populations still remaining in Britain after the
| depredations of the last decade.
| clnq wrote:
| Can someone provide a summary of this bill as it passed?
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