Online Safety Bill - Thoughts?

BlueHammer85 said:
the 'down to parents' argument is bollox, lets just scrap all child safety laws and legislation, scrap age limits for sex, alcohol, drugs and movies etc as it all just be down to the parents.
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Yes thats just exactly the same thing as having to refusing to your child about internet safety and responsibly monitoring their activity. Much easier to introduce a massively insecure personally identifiable free identity theft generator for every adult in the UK instead.
 
And so it begins. Don't say I didnt warn you....

"Social media companies are blocking wide-ranging content - including posts about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza - in an attempt to comply with the UK's new Online Safety Act, BBC Verify has found."

.."BBC Verify found a range of public interest content, including parliamentary debates on grooming gangs, has been restricted on X and Reddit for those who have not completed age verification checks."
 
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Chippy_boy said:
And so it begins. Don't say I didnt warn you....

"Social media companies are blocking wide-ranging content - including posts about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza - in an attempt to comply with the UK's new Online Safety Act, BBC Verify has found."

.."BBC Verify found a range of public interest content, including parliamentary debates on grooming gangs, has been restricted on X and Reddit for those who have not completed age verification checks."
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It's a Censorship Bill, pure and simple. Soon they'll start banning posts that criticise Labour policies under the guise of it being 'far-right activism'

When are those next by-elections again....the ones they actually allow us to participate in this time, I mean.
 
Metal Biker said:
It's a Censorship Bill, pure and simple. Soon they'll start banning posts that criticise Labour policies under the guise of it being 'far-right activism'

When are those next by-elections again....the ones they actually allow us to participate in this time, I mean.
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I do think the legislation is ill-thought out and should be amended or possibly even scrapped, but this sort of QAnon type conspiracy nonsense doesn’t really help.
 
Ric said:
I do think the legislation is ill-thought out and should be amended or possibly even scrapped, but this sort of QAnon type conspiracy nonsense doesn’t really help.
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I am not sure @Metal Biker meant it literally? He can answer that for himself.

But there's nothing conspiratorial about suggesting that the consequences of this bill is that people may feel uncomfortable posting or sharing what they would have previously felt comfortable sharing.

It may not be illegal to post "Send them home", but is that inciting racial hatred or not? Maybe it is. People may worry that it is and decide not to post it.

That's clearly the sort of dilemma faced by X and Reddit, and they've erred on the side of caution and pulled posts.

This is suppression of free speech whether or not that was the intention. I don't want "parliamentary debates on grooming gangs" being effectively withdrawn from wider public view, do you?

And I might add, on the conspiracy theory front, there's several examples of YouTubers being held at the airport under Prevention of Terrorism legislation, simply for running a YouTube channel that's critical of successive governments failing to control immigration.
 
Chippy_boy said:
I am not sure @Metal Biker meant it literally? He can answer that for himself.

But there's nothing conspiratorial about suggesting that the consequences of this bill is that people may feel uncomfortable posting or sharing what they would have previously felt comfortable sharing.

It may not be illegal to post "Send them home", but is that inciting racial hatred or not? Maybe it is. People may worry that it is and decide not to post it.

That's clearly the sort of dilemma faced by X and Reddit, and they've erred on the side of caution and pulled posts.

This is suppression of free speech whether or not that was the intention. I don't want "parliamentary debates on grooming gangs" being effectively withdrawn from wider public view, do you?

And I might add, on the conspiracy theory front, there's several examples of YouTubers being held at the airport under Prevention of Terrorism legislation, simply for running a YouTube channel that's critical of successive governments failing to control immigration.
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Or they’ve pulled posts in an attempt to undermine the act and to encourage people to believe free speech is under threat?
The fact that you can see the parliamentary debate on grooming gangs on the Parliament website suggests it’s the companies themselves who are doing this, not the act.
 
The Light Was Yellow Sir said:
Or they’ve pulled posts in an attempt to undermine the act and to encourage people to believe free speech is under threat?
The fact that you can see the parliamentary debate on grooming gangs on the Parliament website suggests it’s the companies themselves who are doing this, not the act.
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That's a possibility I suppose but Occam's razor tells us the more likely reason is the obvious one: They are worried about possibly transgressing the law when the law is unclear and open to interpretation.
 
Chippy_boy said:
I am not sure @Metal Biker meant it literally? He can answer that for himself.

But there's nothing conspiratorial about suggesting that the consequences of this bill is that people may feel uncomfortable posting or sharing what they would have previously felt comfortable sharing.

It may not be illegal to post "Send them home", but is that inciting racial hatred or not? Maybe it is. People may worry that it is and decide not to post it.

That's clearly the sort of dilemma faced by X and Reddit, and they've erred on the side of caution and pulled posts.

This is suppression of free speech whether or not that was the intention. I don't want "parliamentary debates on grooming gangs" being effectively withdrawn from wider public view, do you?

And I might add, on the conspiracy theory front, there's several examples of YouTubers being held at the airport under Prevention of Terrorism legislation, simply for running a YouTube channel that's critical of successive governments failing to control immigration.
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What is it they say about sarcasm being so convincing people think you're serious? I've noticed that about Blue moon.

For me this is just another pointless Act that won't actually do anything like it's intended, yet Labour will dust their hands, call it job done, whilst avoiding the actual issues itself. I worry about how it will be exploited, making 'verification checks' the norm and how it will play into the hands of scammers and hackers.
 
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Seems this legislation is even impacting Wikipedia, and they are far from happy about it.

wikimediafoundation.org

Wikimedia Foundation Challenges UK Online Safety Act Regulations – Wikimedia Foundation

Next week, on 22 and 23 July 2025, the High Court of Justice in London will hear the Wikimedia Foundation's legal challenge to the Categorisation Regulations of the United Kingdom (UK)'s Online Safety Act (OSA).
wikimediafoundation.org wikimediafoundation.org

If enforced on Wikipedia, Category 1 demands would undermine the privacy and safety of Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors, expose the encyclopedia to manipulation and vandalism, and divert essential resources from protecting people and improving Wikipedia, one of the world’s most trusted and widely used digital public goods.

For example, the Foundation would be required to verify the identity of many Wikipedia contributors, undermining the privacy that is central to keeping Wikipedia volunteers safe. In addition to being exceptionally burdensome, this requirement—which is just one of several Category 1 demands—could expose contributors to data breaches, stalking, lawsuits, or even imprisonment by authoritarian regimes.
 
It hasn't been a Bill for almost 2 years.

However a dilettante is concerned about the "Bill".
 
Been thinking about this and wonder why people are so up in arms about it.
If, as several posters have said, it's dead easy to get around then what's the problem for adults?
 
stonerblue said:
Been thinking about this and wonder why people are so up in arms about it.
If, as several posters have said, it's dead easy to get around then what's the problem for adults?
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There's a whole load of issues.

On the fraud risk front, kids have no option other than to find a workaround, which might be safer for them. Or they could look for more dodgy sites happy to break the law, where the content could be even worse.

Adults - who tend to be less tech savvy than the kids - may not know of workarounds, or may not think they need to bother and perhaps will just hand over credit card to passport details to people who you really shouldn't be handing them over to. We're almost certain to see an uptick in CC fraud IMO.

For me the bigger issue though is suppression of freedom of speech. Whether the law intends it or not, that will be the outcome. People and organizations will feel less able to say what they think, in case it could land them in trouble. We've already seen organizations pulling content because they are not sure whether readers need to be age-verified. And people worrying about whether they can post something or not.

I speak from experience. I posted earlier today about the shocking story, not much reported in the media about the recent alleged rape of a 12 year old schoolgirl in Nuneaton by 1 man, assisted by another. The nature of my post, was that it COULD have (wrongly!) been contrued as me inciting racial hatred. So I deleted it. Which is a terrible state of affairs I think.

Here's the story, minus my comments about it

www.bbc.com

Men in court over alleged rape of 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton

Two men are charged by Warwickshire Police over the attack in Nuneaton on 22 July.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
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I have not read the bill. It seems to me that the risk of legislating like this is the question: who decides which sites need age checks?
We have seen recently the case of a protest group being banned as terrorists where the gov made secondary decisions.
I remember Tony Blair talking about the 2000 bill saying s44 would only be used in extreme cases, but the gov doesn’t decide how legislation is used by authorities like the police. In fact, the repressive way s44 was used caused it to be abolished in the end.
So, as well as self censorship risks, we need to keep an eye, not on porn sites, but on the other ‘harmful’ categories covered to guard against mission creep.
PS I have just read post #226 above. It seems mission creep has already started.
 
stonerblue said:
Been thinking about this and wonder why people are so up in arms about it.
If, as several posters have said, it's dead easy to get around then what's the problem for adults?
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It’s that easy it’s almost child’s play to get around it.

I will leave you at that.
 
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