[HN Gopher] Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act...
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Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations
Author : Nurw
Score : 346 points
Date : 2025-07-29 10:12 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wikimediafoundation.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (wikimediafoundation.org)
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| All this is of course bullshit. The only response that would have
| a chance of succeeding would have been if most websites
| collectively just blocked everyone from the UK. Imagine if 60-70%
| of the internet just stopped working for UK People. The law would
| be toppled tomorrow.
|
| Every Company that implemented any compliance is a traitor to the
| free internet and should be treated as such.
| lukan wrote:
| "Every Company that implemented any compliance is a traitor to
| the free internet and should be treated as such."
|
| What would be the punishment for that?
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| > What would be the punishment for that?
|
| On a legal level? None. On a personal level? Don't give them
| money or your business. Avoid them completely or ensure you
| use ad blockers on their sites and throw away accounts if
| necessary. Do not contribute to their content.
|
| In short: you take whatever they give you, and you give
| nothing in return.
| blitzar wrote:
| Vote with your feet.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_voting
| Swinx43 wrote:
| I live in the UK. Please for the love of all that is sweet and
| holy DO THIS! The only way our politicians will learn is if the
| public outcry is so fierce it makes them fear for their jobs.
|
| A UK internet blockade might just get this going.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| The issue here is that the internet is dominated by large
| companies that have a huge incentive to use this as a way to
| ensure regulatory capture of the free internet.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm not following the logic, how would this work?
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Take Reddit as an example: Reddit became big after Digg
| fucked up their mainpage and has replaced most hobby
| forums and discussions on the internet. A competitor to
| it would have to implement a lot of compliance stuff like
| age verification and that would be very expensive, making
| it harder for a competitor to be bootstrapped. That's why
| Reddit has an incentive to support such regulation, even
| if it costs them a lot. Once implemented, competition
| becomes harder and harder.
| drcongo wrote:
| Aaah, got you, thanks. I'd incorrectly assumed "this" in
| your original post meant Wikimedia's challenge, rather
| than the OSA itself.
| VikingMiner wrote:
| The large tech companies benefited immensely from
| relative few regulations in the 2000-2010s. Once they are
| established, they are happy to comply with regulations
| which will make it more difficult for competitor to even
| exist since complying with regulations is often
| prohibitively expensive for new player.
|
| It is known colloquially as "Pulling up the ladder behind
| you".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_alright,_Jack
| blitzar wrote:
| The UK is the perfect target - globally relevant enough to make
| the news, small enough that its a financial rounding error.
| Take action, carry through with the threat and if your product
| actually matters - attitudes can change globally.
|
| While the law would not be toppled tomorrow, the companies of
| the internet need to stop being so desperate for small scraps
| of money and eyeballs.
|
| The internet might be free if companies instead of trying to
| skirt laws and regulations just operated where they are
| welcome. Good for the internet but bad for the VCs so it wont
| happen.
| graemep wrote:
| Most websites, for most people, are big tech. Big tech loves
| this regulation because imposing compliance costs reduces
| competition.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| The problem is, that both pornhub and facebook also love
| underage (well, too young) users, because those users will
| stay there.
|
| Cutting off UK for a few weeks won't cause that much damage
| but might help them in the long run.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| These laws don't cause _any_ problems for PornHub or
| Facebook. People are moving from independent forums _to_
| Facebook.
| xnorswap wrote:
| This law could be brought down overnight by Meta if they
| introduced age-control for WhatsApp and suddenly people
| couldn't message their own children.
|
| But of course Meta carved out their own exception in the law,
| so this law benefits Meta at the cost of alternatives.
| captainbland wrote:
| I think that's kind of the joke as well, because WhatsApp
| (being totally unmoderated and opaque) is probably the exact
| place you'd want to enact age controls, especially in groups.
|
| It's like the government thought long and hard about how to
| make the restrictions the most inconvenient and with the
| largest number of gaps in the approach.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Every Company that implemented any compliance is a traitor to
| the free internet and should be treated as such.
|
| Companies can be fined PS18 million pounds or 10% of revenue,
| whichever is greater. If you feel like being the first test
| case, be my guest.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| All companies could easily just block UK Users instead.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| They could. But it is the world's 6th largest economy.
| jonathantf2 wrote:
| I'm surprised they haven't deployed a big banner a la Jimmy Wales
| begging for donations to UK users re this law yet
| bawolff wrote:
| I think most Wikimedia users would consider it inapropriate to
| mix fundraising and public policy initiatives.
| weberer wrote:
| They previously did a 24 hour blackout to protest SOPA.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA.
| ..
| bawolff wrote:
| Literally more then a decade ago. Also they didn't mix it
| together with fundraiser.
| weberer wrote:
| Nobody suggested mixing it with a fundraiser. Just that
| the protest should use the same annoying banner elements
| that the fundraisers do.
| bawolff wrote:
| Sorry, you're right, i misread the original post i was
| responding to.
| mminer237 wrote:
| I believe public policy initiatives are already Wikimedia's
| second-biggest expenses, after salaries, so I don't see how
| that would be much more different than usual fundraising
| except for making it more transparent.
| bawolff wrote:
| In 2023 (most recent year i could find a tax statement for)
| Wikimedia foundation had a budget of $178,588,294. They
| spent $92,616 of it on lobbying. That is 0.05% of their
| budget. So i think its pretty clear its not their second
| biggest expense.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/d9/Wiki
| m...
| chippiewill wrote:
| I'm skeptical this goes anywhere legally speaking.
|
| The categorisation regulations are a statutory instrument rather
| than primary legislation, so they _are_ open to judicial review.
| But the Wikimedia foundation haven't presented an argument as to
| why the regulations are unlawful, just an argument for why they
| disagree with them.
|
| It should be noted that even if they succeed (which seems a long
| shot), this wouldn't affect the main thrust of the Online Safety
| Act which _is_ primary legislation and includes the bit making
| the rounds about adult content being locked behind age
| verification.
| ZiiS wrote:
| I can't see any language in the statutory instrument suggesting
| anyone had any intention of applying it to Wikimedia? The most
| likely outcome is the court will reassure them of that. This
| might help other people running similar websites by citing the
| case rather than having to pay for all the experts but isn't
| going to magically stop it applying to Meta as intended.
| lysace wrote:
| Wikimedia hosts what UK puritans consider pornographic
| content.
|
| A lot of it. Often in high quality and with a permissible
| license.
|
| I would link to relevant meta pages but I want to be able
| travel through LHR.
| miohtama wrote:
| A kid can go to Wikipedia and read
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex
| Symbiote wrote:
| They can also go to the library and read the
| encyclopedia.
| mrweasel wrote:
| To be fair, Wikimedia/Wikipedia also hosts a full copy of
| "Debbie Does Dallas" does to a fluke of copyright. See:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Does_Dallas
| lysace wrote:
| I don't think we disagree.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Musea of fine arts also host what puritans could consider
| 'pornographic content'. I believe 'Birth of Venus' is the
| standard go-to example.
| karel-3d wrote:
| It's in the Medium article.
|
| Scroll to "Who falls under Category 1"
|
| https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/wikipedias-nonprofit-
| hos...
| pjc50 wrote:
| More detail: https://medium.com/wikimedia-policy/wikipedias-
| nonprofit-hos...
|
| It seems to be a fairly standard judicial review: if OFCOM(?)
| class them as "category 1", they are under a very serious
| burden, so they want the categorization decision reviewed in
| court.
| karel-3d wrote:
| I think it will be very hard to write a definition that
| excludes wikipedia and includes (and I am quoting the
| article) "many of the services UK society is actually
| concerned about, like misogynistic hate websites".
|
| Very interested how this goes.
| graemep wrote:
| The problem with the focus being on porn behind age
| verification as the main effect, is that it ignores all the
| other effects. Closing community forums and wikis. Uncertainty
| about blog comments.
|
| It is actually (as noted in many previous discussion about the
| Online Safety Act) pushing people to using big tech platforms,
| because they can no longer afford the compliance cost and risk
| of running their own.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| If you have examples of this happening, please add them to
| the ORG list: https://www.blocked.org.uk/osa-blocks
| bogdan wrote:
| Ironically this is blocked at my workplace.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I clicked on loads of those and only a minority of them are
| actually blocked for me. E.g. it lists lobste.rs as
| "Shutting down due to OSA" but it clearly isn't.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > pushing people to using big tech platforms
|
| so big tech platforms will cheerfully embrace it. as
| expected, major players love regulations.
| miohtama wrote:
| GDPR killed small and medium online advertising businesses
| and handed everything to Google and Facebook.
| the_other wrote:
| Frankly, that's their fault for pursuing individually
| targeted advertising. The sad thing isn't that some small
| shitty businesses lost out, it's that some large shitty
| businesses didn't.
| Spivak wrote:
| And since individually targeted ads perform better and
| are less expensive it pushes everyone to big US tech
| platforms.
|
| This isn't small advertisers' faults, the law signed
| their death warrant. They made local grocery stores more
| expensive and worse quality but kept Walmart around
| untouched. No one could predict what would happen.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| It's a shame it wasn't able to get them all.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| I agree, an adtech monopoly is surely much better for
| society
| AngryData wrote:
| I think they were saying that all advertising is crap and
| likely 99% of it shouldn't exist.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I am very skeptical that the Online Safety Act forces
| community forums and wikis to close. By and large the Act
| forces forums to have strong moderation and perhaps manual
| checks before publishing files and pictures uploaded by
| users, and that's about it.
|
| Likewise, I suspect that most geoblocks are out of misplaced
| fear not actual analysis.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| "Strong moderation" and "manual checks" and pro-active age
| verification are exactly the burdens that would prevent
| someone from running a small community forum.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You do not need age verification in the vast majority of
| cases.
|
| Moderation is part and parcel of running forums and all
| platforms and software provide tools for this, it's
| nothing new. If someone is not prepared to read
| submissions or to react quickly when one is flagged then
| perhaps running a forum is too much of a commitment for
| them but I would not blame the law.
|
| In fact I believe that forum operators in the UK already
| got in legal trouble in the past, long before the Online
| Safety Act, because they ignored flagging reports.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Right, so 24 hour coverage is already too expensive for
| most forums and your position is that small forums should
| not exist.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Small forums should and can exist. They are not required
| to have 24 hour coverage.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You said above "If someone is not prepared to read
| submissions or to react quickly when one is flagged".
|
| Does the Act specify "quickly"? Does several hours count
| as "quickly"?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Reacting quickly means what's proportionate and
| reasonable. This is quite standard wording for a law.
|
| The Act (section 10 about illegal content) says that "
| _In determining what is proportionate for the purposes of
| this section, the following factors, in particular, are
| relevant--
|
| (a) all the findings of the most recent illegal content
| risk assessment
|
| (b) the size and capacity of the provider of a service._"
|
| "24 hour coverage" is the maximum that can be achieved so
| it's not going to be proportionate in many, if not most,
| cases. People have to ask themselves if it is
| proportionate for a one-man gardening forum to react
| within 5 minutes at 3am, and the answer is not going to
| be "yes".
|
| Obviously you can also automatically hide a flagged
| submission until it is reviewed or have keywords-based
| checks, etc. I believe these are a common functionalities
| and they will likely develop more (and yes, a consequence
| might be to push more people towards big platforms).
|
| People need to have a calm analysis, not hysteria or
| politically-induced obtuseness whatever one might think
| of this Act. If they are a small and not in the UK they
| can probably completely ignore in any case.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Not the OP but I don't recall the actual law saying 24/7
| moderation was required.
|
| Given the UK already has a "watershed" time where
| terrestrial TV can broadcast mature content between set
| hours (from 9pm), I cannot see why the same expectation
| shouldn't exist that moderation isn't happening outside
| of reasonable hours.
|
| Typically with laws in the UK (and EU too) is to use more
| generalised language to allow the law a little more
| flexibility to apply correctly for more nuanced
| circumstances. Such as what is practical for a small
| forum to achieve when its specialty isn't anything to do
| with adult content.
|
| You'll definitely find examples where such laws are
| abused from time to time. But they're uncommon enough
| that they make national news and create an uproar. Thus
| the case goes nowhere due to the political embarrassment
| that department draws to itself.
|
| Though to be clear, I'm not defending this particular
| law. It's stupid and shouldn't exist.
| ijk wrote:
| It _has_ caused many community forums to close, past tense.
|
| Many cited the uncertainty about what is actually required,
| the potential high cost of compliance, the danger of
| failing to correctly follow the rules they're not certain
| about, and the lack of governmental clarity as significant
| aspects of their decision to close.
|
| The fear may be misplaced, but the UK government has failed
| to convince people of that.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| It was misplaced but the UK government has a long history
| of incompetence when it comes to legislation regarding
| the use of technology. So I cannot blame people being
| erring on the side of caution.
|
| I mean, it's not like this particular piece of
| legislation isn't stupid to begin with. So I cannot blame
| people for assuming the worst.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Those sort of sites already had better moderation than big
| tech because they'd have their own smaller team of volunteer
| moderators.
|
| I suspect any smaller site that claims the Online Safety Act
| was a reason they closed, needed to close due to other
| complications. For example an art site that features
| occasional (or more) artistic nudes. Stuff that normal people
| wouldn't consider mature content but the site maintainers
| wouldn't want to take the risk on.
|
| Either way, whether I'm right or wrong here, I still think
| the Online Safety Act is grotesque piece of legislation.
| graemep wrote:
| I think the impact is a lot worse than that. There are
| still compliance costs especially for volunteer run sites.
| Ofcom says these are negligible, because they its unlikely
| to be more than "a few thousand pounds". Then there are the
| risks if something goes wrong if you have not incorporated.
|
| HN has already has discussed things like the cycling forum
| that hit down. lobste.rs considered blocking UK IPs. I was
| considering setting up a forum to replace/complement FB
| groups I help admin (home education related). This is
| enough to put me off as I do not want the hassle and risk
| of dealing with it.
|
| I think what you are missing is that this does not just
| cover things like porn videos and photos. That is what has
| been emphasised by the media, but it covers a lot of
| harmful content:
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/62
|
| It took a fair amount of legal analysis to establish blog
| comments are OK (and its not clear whether off topic ones
| are). Links to that and other things here: https://www.ther
| egister.com/2025/02/06/uk_online_safety_act_...
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Some good points. And I do agree with your general
| opinion of this law. Albeit not all of specific points
| you've made:
|
| > I think the impact is a lot worse than that. There are
| still compliance costs especially for volunteer run
| sites. Ofcom says these are negligible, because they its
| unlikely to be more than "a few thousand pounds". Then
| there are the risks if something goes wrong if you have
| not incorporated.
|
| What are these "compliance costs"? There's no forms that
| need to be completed. Sites don't have to register
| themselves. For smaller sites, the cost is just what I
| described: the time and effort of volunteer moderators
| who already moderate the site. If they're already
| removing adult content, then there's no extra work for
| them.
|
| > HN has already has discussed things like the cycling
| forum that hit down. lobste.rs considered blocking UK
| IPs. I was considering setting up a forum to
| replace/complement FB groups I help admin (home education
| related). This is enough to put me off as I do not want
| the hassle and risk of dealing with it.
|
| None of this proves your point though. It just proves
| that some sites are worried about _potential_ overreach.
| It 's an understandable concern but it a different
| problem to the one the GP was describing in that it
| doesn't actually make it any harder for smaller forums in
| any tangible way. Unless you called "spooked" a tangible
| cost (I do not).
|
| > I think what you are missing is that this does not just
| cover things like porn videos and photos.
|
| I didn't miss that. But you're right to raise that
| nonetheless.
|
| There's definitely a grey area that is going to concern a
| lot of people but no site is going to be punished for
| mild, or occasional "breaches". What the government are
| trying to police is the stuff that's clearly
| inappropriate for under-18s. The UK (and EU in general)
| tends to pass laws that can be a little vague in
| definition and trust the police and courts to uphold "the
| spirit of the law". A little like how US laws can be
| defined by past cases and their judgments. This ambiguity
| will scare American sites because it's not how American
| law works. But the UK system does _generally_ work well.
| We do have instances where such laws are abused but
| they're infrequent enough to make national news and
| subsequently get dropped because of the embarrassment it
| brings to their department.
|
| That all said, I'm really not trying to defend this
| particular law. The Online Safety Act is definitely a
| _bad_ law and I don't personally know of anyone in the UK
| (outside of politicians) who actually agrees with it.
| andybak wrote:
| > There's no forms that need to be completed.
|
| One of us has completely misunderstood the legislation.
|
| By my reading - there's a ton of red tape and paperwork.
| Heck, there's a ton of work even getting to the point of
| understanding what work you need to do. And dismissing
| the fear of life-changing financial liability as "being
| spooked" is not helpful.
|
| I've got a open-source 3D sharing site almost ready to
| launch and I'm considering geo-blocking the UK. And I
| live in the UK.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > By my reading - there's a ton of red tape and
| paperwork.
|
| It might help if you referenced the section what defines
| those requirements.
|
| I don't recall seeing anything that required such red
| tape unless there was special circumstances after the
| fact (for example, reporting child porn that was uploaded
| to your site, or responding to a police or court order).
|
| But these kinds of rules exist for freedom of information
| et al too.
|
| Maybe I've missed something though?
|
| > Heck, there's a ton of work even getting to the point
| of understanding what work you need to do.
|
| That is a fair point.
|
| Unfortunately it's also not novel to this legislation.
| Running any site that allows for public contributions
| opens one's self to lots of different laws from lots of
| different countries. For some counties in the EU, Nazi
| content is illegal. Different countries have different
| rules around copyright. Then there's laws around data
| protection, consent, and so on and so forth.
|
| This law certainly doesn't make things any easier but
| there has been a requirement to understand this stuff for
| decades already. So it's a bit of a stretch to say this
| one new law suddenly makes a burden to run a site
| insurmountable.
|
| However I do agree with your more general point that it's
| getting very hard to navigate all of these local laws at
| scale.
|
| > And dismissing the fear of life-changing financial
| liability as "being spooked" is not helpful.
|
| It's an unfounded fear though, so my language is fair.
| You'd use the same language about any other unfounded
| fear.
|
| This is the crux of the point. People are scared, and I
| get why. But it's completely unfounded. If people still
| want to discriminate against UK IPs then that's their
| choice as they have to weigh up the risks as they
| perceive them. But it doesn't mean it's any likelier to
| happen than, for example, being in a plane crash (to cite
| another fear people overcome daily).
|
| ------
|
| That all said, maybe everyone blocking UK IPs could be a
| good thing. If everyone shows they don't consider it safe
| to operate in the UK then our government might consider
| revoking this stupid law.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Compliance costs are a couple of hours at most to do and
| record the assessments then the effort and discipline to
| moderate and react quickly to reports. That's it.
|
| A lot of misplaced fear and over-reactions. For instance,
| lobste.rs could basically safely ignore the whole thing
| being a small, low risk forum based in the US.
|
| > _It took a fair amount of legal analysis to establish
| blog comments are OK (and its not clear whether off topic
| ones are)_
|
| It looks like it only took someone to actually read the
| Online Safety Act, as Ofcom's reply kindly points to the
| section that quite explicitly answers the question.
|
| I don't think that the Online Safety Act is a good
| development but many of the reactions are over the top or
| FUD, frankly...
| Quarrel wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're basing that on?
|
| Have the court filings become available?
|
| Of course, the random PR in the OP isn't going to go through
| their barrister's arguments.
|
| While I agree that the main thrust of the legislation won't be
| affected either way, the regulatory framework _really_ matters
| for this sort of thing.
|
| Plus, win or lose, this will shine a light on some the
| stupidity of the legislation. Lots of random Wikipedia articles
| would offend the puritans.
| mbonnet wrote:
| It won't go anywhere because in British jurisprudence,
| Parliament is supreme.
| cubefox wrote:
| The headline seems a little misleading. From the article:
|
| > The Wikimedia Foundation shares the UK government's commitment
| to promoting online environments where everyone can safely
| participate. The organization is not bringing a general challenge
| to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1
| duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on
| the new Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1
| duties (the OSA's most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| Is Wikipedia actually Category 1?
|
| Seems to require an algorithmic feed to be Category 1 -
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348267174
| codedokode wrote:
| How is "algorithmic feed" related to safety? Or is it, along
| with seemingly arbitrary numbers like 7 or 34 millions, a way
| to target a specific platform for those who are afraid to
| spell the name explicitly?
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| One of the main motivations for this law was pro-suicide
| and pro-anorexia content being pushed to teenage girls. In
| particular Molly Russell's death received a lot of press
| coverage and public outrage at tech companies. The
| coroner's report basically said Instagram killed her.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Molly_Russell
|
| Of course if you get your news from HN then the motivation
| is actually something to do with limiting discussion of
| immigration or being dystopian just because.
|
| But yes, if they could just name Instagram and TikTok they
| probably would.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Is search results 'an algorithmic feed'.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| The phrase they actually use is "content recommender
| system". The definition is in the link; you could maybe see
| some search features falling into it but I don't see how
| Wikipedia as it exists now is Category 1.
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| Their homepage certainly is.
| ChrisKnott wrote:
| The homepage is manually edited isn't it?
| aaronmdjones wrote:
| There have been no edits for the last 6 days; then 18
| days prior to that. I don't think so.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| You're correct that the wikicode on the main page only
| gets touched rarely. It is mostly transcluding templates,
| which _do_ get altered more regularly!
| perihelions wrote:
| This is full of contradictions and both-sides-of-the-mouth
| speech. You can't coherently argue for an "open internet" "for
| everyone", and simultaneously plead _exceptionalism_ for your own
| website, due its special virtues[0]. An "open internet" for
| websites with sterling reputations is a closed internet. It's an
| internet where censorship segregates the desirable from
| undesirable; where websites must plead their case to the state,
| "please let me exist, for this reason: ..." That's not what
| "open" means!
|
| And moreover: WF's special pleading is[1], paraphrased, "because
| we already strongly moderate in exactly the ways this government
| wants, so there's no need to regulate *us* in particular". That's
| capitulation; or, they were never really adverse in the first
| place.
|
| Wikimedia's counsel is of course pleading Wikimedia's own
| interests[2]. Their interests are not the same as the public's
| interest. Don't confuse ourselves: if you are not a
| centimillionaire entity with sacks full of lawyers, you are not
| Wikimedia Foundation's peer group.
|
| [0] ( _" It's the only top-ten website operated by a non-profit
| and one of the highest-quality datasets used in training Large
| Language Models (LLMs)"_--to the extent anyone parses that as
| virtuous)
|
| [1] ( _" These volunteers set and enforce policies to ensure that
| information on the platform is fact-based, neutral, and
| attributed to reliable sources."_)
|
| [2] ( _" The organization is not bringing a general challenge to
| the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties
| themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new
| Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1 duties
| (the OSA's most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia."_)
| Towaway69 wrote:
| This is a fine sentiment, could you also please provide an
| alternative approach?
|
| The law has passed, Wikipedia has to enforce that law but don't
| wish to because of privacy concerns.
|
| What should Wikimedia now do? Give up? Ignore the laws of the
| UK? Shutdown in the UK? What exactly are the options for
| wikimedia?
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" This is a fine sentiment, could you also please provide
| an alternative approach?"_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3477966 ( _" Wikipedia
| blackout page (wikipedia.org)"_ (2012))
|
| Wikimedia weren't always a giant ambulating pile of cash;
| they used to be activists. Long ago.
| internetter wrote:
| > Wikimedia weren't always a giant ambulating pile of cash;
| they used to be activists. Long ago.
|
| Your point is moot because this wasn't a WMF initiative, it
| was an enwiki community initiative which WMF agreed to
| accommodate.
|
| The history is detailed... on Wikipedia... https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Protests_against_SOPA_and_PIPA...
| jojobas wrote:
| Laws get challenged and overturned all the time. I doubt it
| will happen this time, can't have wrongthink.
| raincole wrote:
| Warn the UK users during the grace period as best as they
| can.
|
| And after the grace period... yeah, I think blocking UK IPs
| is the "correct" thing to do. If the government doesn't make
| them an exception than they'll have to do that, correct or
| not, anyway.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| I think the people of the UK have little or nothing to do
| with this.
|
| UK is a representative democracy meaning that voters get a
| voice every X years to vote for a representative that they
| _assume_ will act in their favour and on their behalf.
|
| What this representative does in their time in power is
| very much left to the representative and not the voters.
|
| On the other hand, if this were to be a direct democracy
| then the voters would have been asked before this law was
| voted on. For example, a referendum might well have been
| held.
|
| Perhaps a more nuanced approach would be to block all IPs
| of government organisations - difficult but far more
| approriate.
| bboygravity wrote:
| Shut down in the UK seems like a reasonable approach.
|
| If UK wants to be more like China: let them.
| exe34 wrote:
| > Shutdown in the UK?
|
| That might actually be one of the few things that would help.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > Shutdown in the UK?
|
| Yes. This is what every single large company which is subject
| to this distopian law should do. They should do everything
| they can to block any traffic from the UK, until the law is
| repelled.
| graemep wrote:
| large companies love this law.
|
| By imposing costs and risk on self hosting, and reducing
| the number of supplies (because many small and medium
| companies and organisation will block the UK), it reduces
| competition.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| The reality is the vast majority of users will just not
| submit their ID and the large companies will lose most of
| their UK traffic.
|
| There was a study by Amazon [1] that showed that every
| 100ms of extra load time of a page cost 1% of revenue.
| How much revenue do you think adding an ID verification
| that takes 10 minutes to complete cost???
|
| You think PornHub loves this law???
|
| [1] https://www.conductor.com/academy/page-speed-
| resources/faq/a...
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The grapevine says that independent sex workers are
| struggling as a result of the Online Safety Act. Unless
| the law has significantly reduced the tendency for UK
| people to engage with internet porn (which I doubt), then
| yes, PornHub is benefiting from this law.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Independent sex workers upload their content on websites
| that are affected by the OSA, like PornHub and OnlyFans,
| this is why they are struggling.
|
| A lot of PornHub's content comes from independants, not
| big studios.
| graemep wrote:
| Very possibly. It will be an excuse to gather more user
| data. Will the lost users be the valuable ones for their
| business model? Also, once people have registered with a
| site, it imposes a switching cost, so it does favour
| incumbents over new entrants.
|
| There must be smaller sites in the same business that
| will block UK users rather than comply.
|
| So, they very likely do.
|
| What is more important is that the tech giants, and
| social media in particular does love this law. As I
| pointed out in another comment, and has been reported
| many times on HN before, they have already gained users
| as people switch from independent forums to social media,
| and in the future it will keep competition out.
| 1dom wrote:
| One of the complaints against OSA is how easy it's proven to
| circumvent, evidenced by the massive increase in VPN usage.
|
| So it would be interesting to understand if shutting down in
| the UK would have an impact, now we all had to learn how to
| circumvent georestrictions this past week.
| ZiiS wrote:
| They can build a solid legal case on their exceptionalism _and_
| hope the court uses it as an opportunity to more widely protect
| the open Internet. The fact that the letter of the law means
| you can't have an open Internet isn't their fault.
| Havoc wrote:
| They should just block all UK gov IPs in protest
| kypro wrote:
| As a Brit, ultimately I think this is the only thing that's
| going to get through to the government and public.
| sealeck wrote:
| It may well come to that (and the fact that Wikipedia ends up
| being banned in the UK will potentially bring people to their
| senses).
| exasperaited wrote:
| Should we in the UK, or other countries, block all US
| government IPs in protest? All federal agencies?
|
| https://avpassociation.com/4271-2/
|
| The USA has _twenty-fucking-five different laws_ we might be
| bound by, and AFAIK the silliest one (Texas) has been upheld by
| the USSC.
|
| Look I get it, Hacker News has a no-politics-unless-it's-the-
| EU-or-UK rule and HNers generally seem to hate Brits.
|
| But I think what we're witnessing here is little more than
| performative self-soothing. The entire foundations of US
| freedom are being ripped apart in an incredibly short time so
| hey, let's snark at the perfidious Brits.
| master-lincoln wrote:
| I think you both have a point. Why not block foreign access
| to your internet service if the laws of that foreign country
| are nothing you want to be concerned with?
|
| It might be a bit disruptive in the beginning, but in the
| long run I think we all benefit from that. It increases the
| chance of politicians to realize their over-boarding
| decisions by having public pressure from previous users of
| those services and it increases the likelihood of local
| competitors of those services opening.
| exasperaited wrote:
| The point I am making is that everyone in the USA is
| somehow absolutely certain that Britain is a hell-hole of
| authoritarianism because of this law, and yet 25 US states
| have enacted laws which are in some cases basically lunatic
| porn censorship (whereas our OSA is not) and HN just
| ignores it because the Brits, eh?
|
| The fabric of the USA is being ripped apart by a
| kleptocratic authoritarian fascist-at-least-wannabe
| government that makes the most extreme country in the EU
| (Hungary) look exactly like a trial run, and you guys are
| worried about the Brits implementing a relatively measured
| law that affects fewer people than all those US porn laws
| combined.
|
| HN's weird little "no politics" bubble encourages you all
| to think that it is outrageous that US companies should be
| held accountable to the laws of the countries in which you
| trade [0], while your president is, for example, imposing
| actually illegal tariffs on Brazil, abusing a power you
| won't take away from him, because they insist on
| prosecuting Bolsonaro under their own laws for something he
| did within their country.
|
| Yes: we made a law you don't like. It's a stupid law. It's
| still a fairly measured, stupid law compared to the ones
| your states are passing and your own supreme court thinks
| are A-OK, or the silly one in France, or whatever.
|
| Collectively you should maybe stop fretting about the UK
| while your country is reverting to quasi-monarchy.
|
| [0] and yes, you are trading here if you serve porn to UK
| customers. This is the same standard as the US Supreme
| Court-approved Texas anti-porn law applies.
| pkilgore wrote:
| Weird, here I am being completely consistent that both
| sets of laws are completely fucked and both countries are
| hell holes of authoritarianism.
|
| I'll fret about both, thank you very much.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| When all you have is a whataboutism, everything looks
| like a nail?
| exasperaited wrote:
| It's not whataboutism. It's exasperated
| cleanupyourownbackyardism.
|
| That HN collapses into hysteria over the slightest thing
| happening on the other side of the Atlantic while
| studiously avoiding any discussion of homegrown political
| insanity is basically laughable. You know nothing about
| us; as always we are essentially forced to know all about
| you in detail so we can fend it all off.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Yeah, you should probably try to do something about the
| rising fascist tendencies in the US? Why wouldn't you?
|
| Rolling over for it isn't going to do the EU or other allies
| any favors. The administration won't reward loyalty with good
| deals or whatever
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I don't like the OSA and associated regulations as much as the
| next person -- I think we could have gotten a long way by saying
| you need to include a X-Age-Rating in http responses and calling
| it a day. The law itself is incoherently long and it's very
| difficult to know what duties you have.
|
| However, I don't see what the legal basis of Wikimedia's
| challenge is. The OSA is primary legislation, so can't be
| challenged except under the HRA, which I don't really see
| working. The regulations are secondary regulation and are more
| open to challenge, but it's not clear what the basis of the
| challenge is. Are they saying the regulations are outside the
| scope of the statutory authority (doubtful)? You can't really
| challenge law or regulation in the UK on the basis of "I don't
| like it".
| gorgoiler wrote:
| _X-Age-Rating_ would only work if the server could be sure of
| the jurisdictions under which the recipient was bound.
|
| To continue the thought experiment though: another
| implementation would be to list up to N tags that best describe
| the content being served. You could base these on various
| agreed tagging systems such as UN ISIC tagging ( _6010
| Broadcasting Pop Music_ ) or UDC, the successor to the Dewey
| Decimal System ( _657 Accountancy_ , _797 Water Sports_ etc.)
| The more popular sites could just grandfather in their own tag
| zoologies.
|
| A cartoon song about wind surfing: X-Content-
| Tags: ISIC:6010 UDC:797 YouTube:KidsTV
|
| It's then up to the recipient's device to warn them of incoming
| illegal-in-your-state content.
| rwmj wrote:
| There actually was a proposal/standard for this back in the
| day: https://www.w3.org/PICS/
| pjc50 wrote:
| The twitter API used to have a "illegal in France or Germany"
| field, which was used for known Nazi content.
| IshKebab wrote:
| > X-Age-Rating would only work if the server could be sure of
| the jurisdictions under which the recipient was bound.
|
| That's no different to the current legislation.
| braiamp wrote:
| > The Wikimedia Foundation shares the UK government's commitment
| to promoting online environments where everyone can safely
| participate. The organization is not bringing a general challenge
| to the OSA as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1
| duties themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on
| the new Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1
| duties (the OSA's most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia.
|
| Guys, this right here is Wikipedia standing. It is that under the
| current law, Wikipedia would fall under cat 1 rules, even if by
| the law own admission it should not.
| miohtama wrote:
| In related news, the Labour party is already considering banning
| VPNs. We almost got like two days of Online Safety Act in effect.
|
| https://www.gbnews.com/politics/labour-ban-vpn-online-safety...
| ozlikethewizard wrote:
| I hate the Online Safety Act as much as the next person, but:
|
| - Labour have made no plans to ban VPNs.
|
| - One MP wanted to add a clause for a government review into
| the impact of VPNs on the bill after 6 months, with no
| direction on what that would mean.
|
| - I have no idea if this clause actually got added, but it'd
| make sense. If you're going to introduce a stupid law you
| should at least plan to review if the stupid law is having any
| impact.
|
| - GB news is bottom of the barrel propaganda.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > clause for a government review into the impact of VPNs on
| the bill after 6 months
|
| thats government speak for deciding to do something about the
| VPN problem. because there is no way a commission will not
| find a good reason to ban VPNs when you reach that point,
| because you could argue they help avoid UK restrictions.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That's paranoia speak. You can express that anxiety without
| falsely stating it as fact.
| tomck wrote:
| You're repeating propaganda from a far right newspaper
| headline, written misleadingly to make it sound like labour
| have said something recently about VPNs (they haven't)
| Fredkin wrote:
| I don't care where the headline is from. Other places have
| the same suspicion. There clearly is _some_ concern in Labour
| that VPNs could be used to bypass the OSA and it doesn't take
| much imagination to see where this is going.
|
| 'Kyle told The Telegraph last week in a warning: "If
| platforms or sites signpost towards workarounds like VPNs,
| then that itself is a crime and will be tackled by these
| codes."'
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vpns/what-does-the-
| labou... :
|
| "In 2022 when the Online Safety Act was being debated in
| Parliament, Labour explicitly brought up the subject of VPNs
| with MP Sarah Champion worried that children could use VPNs
| to access harmful content and bypass the measures of the
| Safety Act. "
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vpns-
| online-s...
|
| Sure. Nothing was said directly right now, but to just take
| Labour's word for it that they won't go further with these
| restrictions is really naive.
| 7952 wrote:
| I think that article references a discussion from 2022 rather
| than something new as the headline implies.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| GB News is about as reliable as Fox News. I suggest you get
| your news somewhere else.
| Roark66 wrote:
| Somehow I have the deja-vu of when Theresa May (as a Home
| Secretary) tried to ban personal encryption altogether. Let me
| remind everyone this is in a country that already has a law that
| says you're legally required to give your encryption key to the
| police and if you do not, even if there is no other crime you can
| get 2 years in jail...
|
| This told me all I needed to know about her level of
| understanding of complex topics. It only went downhill from
| there.
| lysace wrote:
| Even low-grade encryption was actually forbidden in France for
| a while in the mid 90s. I remember snickering about the whole
| thing back then, in a much smaller but also quite similar
| forum.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_...
|
| > Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to
| first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to
| F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month jail term. Right
| now, apart from a handful of exemptions, any unauthorised use
| of encryption software is illegal.
|
| These two former empires seem/seemed to have an over-inflated
| sense of importance and ability to control the world.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There was also in the 90s the weird period of export control
| of encryption software from the US, leading to the "this
| tshirt is a munition" shirts with the algorithm printed on
| them. And the (thankfully failed) "clipper chip" mandate.
| dcow wrote:
| Those controls all still exist. You just get a pass if
| you're using "standard crypto". Or if your implementation
| is open source.
| Quarrel wrote:
| Export controls still exist, but we're at least a far cry
| from the days of "This version of Mozilla is illegal to
| download if you are outside the USA. Please don't do it."
|
| (and before that PGP!)
| hungmung wrote:
| There are no real laws or court rulings protecting
| crypto, the Department of Commerce simply changed their
| rules to allow it, and I have no doubt they could easily
| change them back if the mood struck them.
|
| Zimmerman had a novel defense (selling PGP source code as
| a book, which should be protected by 1A), but it was
| never actually tested in court.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I wonder if the primary purpose of the law was to have a
| catch-all charge to file against people who stole military
| equipment? Of course there are charges like espionage and
| theft, but it seems like it could be a tactic to be able to
| levy "exporting an encryption device" charges in addition
| to everything else.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It was a legacy from the era of the enigma machine, where
| encryption required a dedicated cipher device, rather
| than something you could do in pure code.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Apple made an advertisement about the PowerMac G4 as a
| "supercomputer" because of onerous export controls related to
| encryption way back. It's more cheeky, I think, than serious.
| But then again, I haven't looked into it beyond just
| remembering that it happened.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoxvLq0dFvw
| GeekyBear wrote:
| When you go back a few decades, "supercomputer" level
| performance doesn't seem all that impressive now.
|
| A Raspberry Pi outperforms a Cray-1 supercomputer, for
| instance.
| lysace wrote:
| The French encryption ban was a moronic aberration that
| just lasted a few years. Hopefully just like this UK
| regulation.
|
| It wasn't relevant to any Apple ads.
| fidotron wrote:
| I'm always reminded of this
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7970731.stm
|
| "The Home Secretary's husband has said sorry for embarrassing
| his wife after two adult films were viewed at their home, then
| claimed for on expenses."
|
| The follow up article has some fun nuggets too
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8145935.stm
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Why do you think it's an issue or understanding or
| intelligence? It's a matter of power and control. Protesting
| the intelligence of these leaders won't result in any
| structural change.
|
| If anything, greater intelligence would only accelerate the
| damage and persuasiveness behind its public consent.
| cft wrote:
| "The organization is not bringing a general challenge to the OSA
| as a whole, nor to the existence of the Category 1 duties
| themselves. Rather, the legal challenge focuses solely on the new
| Categorisation Regulations that risk imposing Category 1 duties
| (the OSA's most stringent obligations) on Wikipedia."
|
| I find this a very unprincipled stance.
| crtasm wrote:
| So the hearing was on 22+23rd, is there a writeup of how it went
| and when we might hear the outcome?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yep case was heard last week but no decision returned yet:
|
| https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/uk/online-safety...
| cormorant wrote:
| Can anyone explain how Wikipedia supposedly is in Category 1? [1]
|
| And if it marginally is, how come they cannot just turn off their
| "content recommender system"? Perhaps an example is the auto-
| generated "Related articles" that appear in the footer on mobile
| only?
|
| [1]
| https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/226/regulation/3/ma...
| ipnon wrote:
| Perhaps they genuinely believe the mission of collecting all
| the world's knowledge is more important than complying with the
| draconian moral panic of a likely short lived government in an
| increasingly irrelevant former great power.
| cormorant wrote:
| Are you saying an algorithmic content recommendation system
| is an important part of "collecting all the world's
| knowledge"?
| kemayo wrote:
| The definition is:
|
| > In paragraph (1), a "content recommender system" means a
| system, used by the provider of a regulated user-to-user
| service in respect of the user-to-user part of that service,
| that uses algorithms which by means of machine learning or
| other techniques determines, or otherwise affects, the way in
| which regulated user-generated content of a user, whether alone
| or with other content, may be encountered by other users of the
| service.
|
| Speculating wildly, I think a bunch of the moderation /
| patroller tools might count. They help to find revisions
| ("user-generated content") that need further review from other
| editors ("other users").
|
| There's not _much_ machine learning happening
| (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ORES), but "other techniques"
| seems like it'd cover basically-anything up to and including
| "here's the list of revisions that have violated user-provided
| rules recently"
| (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter).
|
| (Disclaimer: I work for the WMF. I know literally nothing about
| this court case or how this law applies.)
| supermatt wrote:
| Why can't these measures be handled via parental control?
|
| Children are using mobiles and tablets almost exclusively, both
| major providers of which supply tools for parental
| administration.
|
| Content filtering is already facilitated by existing parental
| control. Mobile browsers could be made to issue a header if the
| user is under a certain age. Mobile apps could have access to a
| flag.
|
| Parents should be responsible for parenting their child - not big
| tech. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
| nsksl wrote:
| That's how it should work but you will find that a majority of
| parents cba rearing their children so they want the state to do
| it for them. And this extends to so many things in life that
| the authoritarian grip is only going to get tighter with time.
| supermatt wrote:
| > parents cba rearing their children
|
| And THAT is the problem that they should be tackling.
| s_dev wrote:
| Ironically any attempt to control this is deemed
| 'authoritarian' as well.
| nsksl wrote:
| Not necessarily. If they want to have uneducated children,
| let them.
| AngryData wrote:
| That is a terrible attitude about education. You are
| essentially condemning those kids and future generations
| to a shittier society and shittier lives.
| nsksl wrote:
| Maybe so, but it's better than the alternatives.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| This is a problem that could be solved with socially funded
| child care, at least in part. But that's not gonna happen.
| (Posting from USA; I don't know how this may or may not
| apply in the UK.)
|
| Either way, if parents had more time to raise their
| children rather than slave away at jobs to stay above
| water, I have to think there'd be some improvement in child
| development.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Note: the following is not arguing in favor of the UK policy,
| but is a general observation.
|
| I seriously doubt that the majority of parents want the state
| to raise their children for them.
|
| By arguing about irresponsible or lazy parents you are
| latching on to the first, most convenient thing that seems to
| make sense to you. But I think that is a mistake because not
| only does it perpetuate some kind of distorted sense of
| reality where parents don't care about their children and
| want to hand off all responsibility for them, but it
| distracts you from the real causal issues.
|
| The fact is that humans have for millions of years acted in
| various levels of coordination to raise and look after
| children as a group. Modern society has made this all sorts
| of dysfunctional, but it still exists.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| "but you will find that a majority of parents cba rearing
| their children so they want the state to do it for them"
|
| This is normal and what public education is for. Teaching
| online safety and sex ed should be considered no different
| than teaching history
| graemep wrote:
| To be fair, it is because the state makes it difficult for
| them to rear children.
|
| Long working hours and both parents working full time means
| they do not have the time or the energy. Then you have the
| state offering help, and encouraging parents to drop them off
| at school first thing for breakfast club, and then keep them
| there for after school activities.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Why can't these measures be handled via parental control?
|
| That would be the ideal. Unfortunately, many parents do not
| have the skills and/or motivation to manage their children's
| devices.
| tracker1 wrote:
| For that matter, how many kids manage their parents' devices.
| Maybe less so today, but for a long time, a lot of children
| were far more tech savvy than their parents. The contrast
| between my grandmothers when they were still around was
| stark. One never fell for anything... the other, I was
| cleaning malware it felt like quarterly.
|
| My parents for a long time used their neighbor's wifi,
| despite having their own, because they didn't remember the
| password.
|
| That said, having the carrier assign certain devices marked
| as "child" or "adult" or even with a DoB stamp that would
| change the flag when they became an adult might not be a bad
| thing. While intrusive would still be better than the forced
| ID path that some states and countries are striving towards.
| AngryData wrote:
| That may have been a half decent excuse for parents 2
| decades ago, but it isn't very good now when current
| parents grew up in the computer age with computers at
| school and in the vast majority of homes and even 90 year
| olds are using smart phones daily.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Like I said, likely less so today. That said, there are
| still a _LOT_ of people that can use their devices, but
| have no understanding of security, configuration, etc. My
| SO can 't even handle a password manager, but she can
| manage live TikTok chats/streams (or whatever they're
| called) with ease.
|
| That said, it could definitely be done relatively easily
| at the carrier level, and a really simple addition to
| browsers, even if only on mobile devices.
| jajuuka wrote:
| That's what blows my mind anytime I hear someone complain about
| all the vile content on the internet today and that we need to
| protect children. What about "be a parent" is so impossible to
| do today? Every device and OS has parental controls for a
| reason. Yeah they aren't perfect but they will prevent 99% of
| the content from getting to your kids.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| It does feel like the online environment is pretty
| adversarial and hard for parents to deal with. In particular,
| it seems hard to pick and choose something reasonable. It
| doesn't seem totally unreasonable to want some kind of state
| action to help represent the many parents and encourage
| creating better reasonable options.
|
| Lots of things that feel relatively common online feel like
| they would be very alien and weird situations if they
| happened offline.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| I agree with you but my emotional reaction is similar to
| the parent comment because many of these parents vote for
| the party of "stop big government regulations" and "stop
| government censorship" while also advocating in general for
| personal responsibility.
|
| So I'm actually against this because I hate the indirect
| hypocrisy. I want to teach a lesson to Republicans about
| using overly generalized principals as a political stance.
| varispeed wrote:
| This is because these measures are not about protecting
| children.
|
| It's a distraction.
|
| Real objective is to further increase the barrier of entry for
| SMEs to compete (try start your own forum or any kind of
| challenger to Facebook et al). Government on the other hand
| gets a tidy surveillance tool as a sweetener.
|
| So whenever time comes to turn a screw on dissent, the law is
| ready to be used.
|
| Welcome to British corporate fascism.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Yes, it is a pretense and the point of mentioning "the
| children" is to mobilize the child-worshipping demographic
| who believe, in all cases, that anything that raises any risk
| to children should be banned, and that this should not be
| discussed by decent people. The successful child-worshippers
| also instantly burst into hysterics and aggressive personal
| attacks when spoken to about the subject (hysterics and tears
| when they agree, the latter otherwise.) Their success lies in
| never lowering themselves to discuss anything with anybody.
| They're here to tell you.
|
| They are an extreme minority of every population (mostly
| people who aren't interested in politics or civil liberties
| who enjoy and care about children.) But sensible people are
| also an extreme minority of the population; we normal people
| usually _aren 't_ so sensible, instead we listen to sensible
| people and follow their advice.
|
| So the people who want everybody on the internet to identify
| themselves pit hysterics against measured voices in the
| media, in order to create a fake controversy that only has to
| last until the law gets passed. Afterwards, the politicians
| and commentariat who were directly paid or found personal
| brand benefit in associating with the hysterics start leaving
| quotes like: "This isn't what we thought we passed" and "It
| might be useful to have a review to see if this has gone too
| far." Then we find out that half the politicians connected
| with the legislation have connections to an age verification
| firm which is also an data broker, and has half a billion in
| contracts with the MoD.
| owisd wrote:
| There's a cognitive dissonance to the opposition to this:
|
| a) Content controls don't work, what are the government
| thinking? b) This is parents' problem, they should use content
| controls.
|
| Individual action doesn't work because it only takes one kid in
| the class who doesn't have parental controls then everyone
| loses. There's also obvious workarounds such as VPNs and a
| teenager walking into a pawn shop with PS50 for a second hand
| smartphone without parental controls.
|
| It also makes no sense that parents can't be bothered to turn
| on parental controls yet can be bothered to run a national
| grassroots campaign for this stuff (see e.g.
| http://smartphonefreechildhood.org)
|
| See also- I Had a Helicopter Mom. I Found Pornhub Anyway:
| https://www.thefp.com/p/why-are-our-fourth-graders-on-pornhu...
| 8-year old watches violent porn on friend's iPad:
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/32857335/son-watched-viole...
|
| Although your idea of an OS-level age flag is also being pushed
| by the Anxious Generation's Jonathan Haidt, so definitely has
| merit/traction as an alternative.
| scythe wrote:
| I like to point out in these threads that my first exposure
| to "pornography" was a cunnilingus scene in Al Franken's
| political tirade _Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_. I
| was eleven.
|
| I don't think my parents had realized that scene was in the
| book. But I don't think it matters that much. Kids are going
| to encounter sex. In a pre-industrial society, it's pretty
| likely that children would catch adults having sex at some
| point during their childhood -- even assuming they didn't see
| their own parents doing it at a very young age. Privacy used
| to be more difficult. Houses often had one bedroom.
|
| I don't mean to say that content controls are useless. I
| think it was probably for the better that I wasn't watching
| tons of porn in middle school. But I don't think that content
| controls need to be perfect; we don't need to ensure that the
| kids are _never_ exposed to any pornographic content. As long
| as it isn 't so accessible that the kid is viewing it
| regularly, it probably isn't the end of the world. Like in
| the one story, PornHub didn't even have a checkbox to ask if
| you were eighteen. Just don't do that. I didn't end up
| downloading porn intentionally myself until about five years
| after reading that book.
| Jiro wrote:
| >Why can't these measures be handled via parental control?
|
| Because the government is lying and this is about spying on the
| populace, not about parental control.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Related: I have just written a brief overview of how I understand
| the Online Safety Act to apply to owners of forums without
| 'adult' content, e.g. forums hosted by product companies, about
| their products.
|
| https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/07/29/the-online-safety-...
| bargainbin wrote:
| No one asked for this. Don't blame parents. This is the
| government using the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse to restrict
| your personal freedoms.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| This is a failure of Operating System Vendors, in my opinion.
|
| If Operating Systems had a way for parents to adequately
| monitor/administer the machines of their children, this would not
| be such a huge, massive hole, in which to pour (yet more) human
| rights abuses.
|
| Parents have the right to have an eye on their children. This is
| not repressive, it is not authoritarian, it is a right and a
| responsibility.
|
| The fact that I can't - easily, and with little fuss - quickly
| see what my kids are viewing on their screens, is the issue.
|
| Sure, children have the right to privacy - but it is their
| parents who should provide it to them. Not just the state, but
| the parents. And certainly, the state should not be eliminating
| the rest of society's privacy in the rush to prevent parents from
| having oversight of - and responsibility for - the online
| activities of their children.
|
| The fact is, Operating System Vendors would rather turn their
| platforms into ad-vending machines, than actually improve the
| means by which the computers are operated by their users.
|
| It would be a simple thing to establish parent/child relationship
| security between not just two computers, but two human beings who
| love and trust each other.
|
| Kids will always be inquisitive. They will always try to exceed
| the limits imposed upon them by their parents. But this should
| not be a reason for more draconian control over consenting
| adults, or indeed individual adults. It should be a motivating
| factor to build better computing platforms, which can be reliably
| configured to prevent porn from having the detrimental impact
| many controllers of society have decided is occurring.
|
| Another undeniable fact, is that parents - and parenting - get a
| bad rap. However, if a parent and child love and trust each
| other, having the ability to quickly observe the kids computing
| environment in productive ways, should be being provided,
| technologically.
|
| When really, we should be building tools which strengthen
| parent/child relationships, we are instead eradicating the need
| for parents.
|
| Unpopular opinion, I know: but Thats The Point.
| nsksl wrote:
| Mobile operating systems have very great children controls. You
| should research the topic yourself and you will see.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| I'm a parent, I have researched it, and found it not great
| because it still involves third parties and doesn't promote
| local control/anonymity without involving some external
| entity - i.e. Apple requires accounts, Google still gets its
| metrics, etc.
|
| Unless you've got some specific better examples?
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