from Hacker News

UK Parliament passes Online Safety Bill

by phab on 9/19/23, 4:19 PM with 122 comments

  • by skilled on 9/19/23, 4:21 PM

    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)

  • by pickleoctopus25 on 9/19/23, 9:01 PM

    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.

  • by LightBug1 on 9/19/23, 9:15 PM

    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.

  • by cwales95 on 9/19/23, 8:56 PM

    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.

  • by kulahan on 9/19/23, 9:26 PM

    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?

  • by gustavus on 9/19/23, 9:19 PM

    "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

  • by IYasha on 9/19/23, 9:15 PM

    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.

  • by mattlondon on 9/19/23, 8:50 PM

    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?

  • by DerekBickerton on 9/19/23, 9:32 PM

    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?

  • by pickleoctopus on 9/19/23, 9:01 PM

    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.

  • by Jigsy on 9/20/23, 4:32 AM

    I am personally curious to see if Signal will honor their promise to leave the UK or if Meredith was simply blowing smoke.

  • by dwroberts on 9/19/23, 9:35 PM

    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

  • by octacat on 9/20/23, 8:33 AM

    Oh, we had something like that in Russia, they've extended the list after. Also "to protect children" initially. Once you have a convenient framework, it could be useful to remove any info the government does not want. The next step would be declaring some organisations and groups as "harmful" and removing their info.

  • by Affric on 9/19/23, 9:54 PM

    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?

  • by HeckFeck on 9/19/23, 9:08 PM

    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.

  • by netdoll on 9/19/23, 9:23 PM

    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.

  • by mhandley on 9/19/23, 9:03 PM

    If there is a plus side, I guess it will be that it will teach all our teenagers the importance of using a VPN.

  • by Zuiii on 9/21/23, 2:13 AM

    I can't help but feel sorry for the children and the adults of the UK. People around the world will mostly ignore this bill (and rightfully so) but the people living there will have to live with this broad, poorly defined mess.

  • by t0bia_s on 9/20/23, 6:37 AM

    So what will happen if I'll travel in UK and use Signal or Element on my phone with VPN?

  • by jacooper on 9/19/23, 10:09 PM

    They didn't ban E2E, did they?

  • by flanked-evergl on 9/19/23, 10:24 PM

    UK is all in on Dystopia.

  • by concordDance on 9/19/23, 5:53 PM

    The title of this post is broken. @dang?

  • by jimnotgym on 9/19/23, 8:42 PM

    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.