UK Gov Petition: Repeal the Online Safety Act | Hacker News Reader

UK Gov Petition: Repeal the Online Safety Act

petition.parliament.uk

51 points83317 comments

I always thought political parties were very sensitive to electoral issues and therefore played everything overly safe, in terms of attempting to avoid consequences for their potential electors. So this legislation actually getting to this point today was very surprising.

I think it speaks volumes of a strong bias in their analysis teams, as well as indictating they're even more out of touch than expected. What they've done is given direct negative consequence to millions of electors in exchange for indirect and mostly imperceivable positive consequence to concerned parents. Personally I don't see a way that ever makes electoral sense, especially given how close the last election was (in raw votes, not seats) and where opinion polls are today (Reform seemingly being considerably ahead, albeit opinion polls are _not_ reliable).

Obviously there's a lot to say about consequence, how the use-case of authentication is at odds with the desire of users to be incognito, how VPNs are considerably better UX; but their use undermines previous legislation like recording host names to help combat extremism, how encouraging users to dish out sensitive id documents online isn't the best habit, how id verifiers are not regulated and often are services hosted abroad. Obviously the biggest negative is that sketchy websites who don't care about being legal will gain considerable traffic, at the expense of websites who are trying to be legit. Children will still probably be able to access pornography and it may just be the case that the pornography is even "worse", yielding the most counter-intuitive outcome.

I'm particularly alarmed that many websites are responding by blanket age-verifying NSFW content. So now reddit resources on mental health, drugs, suicide, domestic abuse, etc are locked behind age verification.

I think you'd be surprised how many people are actually in favour of this bill. Mainstream press totally fell for the "think of the children" angle pushed by a mixture of legitimate children's safety organisations, anti-porn activists, and intelligence apparatus. Meanwhile the privacy argument got little to no lobbying or public discourse.

E.g.:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/15/digital-g...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/19/online-safety-ac...

It's how the (previous) government was able to look like it was doing something about the mental health crisis caused by social media, even though this bill won't fix that at all.

I appreciate that it has a lot of soft support, however concerned parents won't stop being concerned as a consequence. I struggle to see it as being a vote winner but its clear how its a vote loser to many. That the mainstream press have published many positive articles about it, just demonstrates the bias IMHO. Fleet street is become less and less of a proxy of public opinion over time but our political parties still treat the press like they did in the 90s, which I think can often be a mistake given how different the press is since the advent of the internet and how much more fragmented news now is, and how the electorate now receive it.

IMHO the argument for "doing something" is one of those things that people are noisy about but ultimately care little about at the ballot box. The risk is that the typically politically apathetic are driven to the ballot box as a consequence of disrupting their habit in order to protest. Most governments do very little that actually directly interfere with people and their habits, COVID was a very rare event and Boris Johnson fell in no small part due to circumventing the rules his own government imposed on the populace. There's huge electoral risk in giving so many people consequence.

Given the numbers at play, I just don't see how you can square the huge internet traffic for pron and the intrusion into their "workflows" against some presumed other number of electors that will suddenly vote for you because you allowed this bill to take effect. Irrespective of the ethics of the subject it just doesn't feel like good electoral statecraft in a democracy. This is particularly surprising given that most UK political parties generally veer away from doing things that might lose them any significant amount of votes.

This is what happens in a low-trust society. More people start to believe more should be monitored and controlled. Meanwhile society doesn't get better, low-trust continues and so does the loop.

Mainstream press is owned by the same rich who own corporations that benefit from OSA.

British voter here who voted Labour and could change. I'm not wholly against nerfing the web a bit to protect kids. I haven't read the bill or analysed the details to try to figure if it'll work. I think that's not so atypical for voters. Grown ups can always VPN etc.

It's hard to know how it'll work in practice without trying it.

I feel like the law should change to prevent children from having devices that can freely access the internet. i.e. they can still access devices but not own them. Then its about parental supervision. We're only here because parents give their kids smartphones with zero oversight.

"grown ups can always use vpn"

until they can't because they're also made illegal

don't forget this is also the same government that has effectively tried to ban e2e encryption by forcing companies to install backdoors into their algorithms under gag orders

it is no longer (if it ever was) about the children

This is just a corporate land grab disguised as "safety measure". It just shows government corruption at work. If corporations want something, they will get it.

People no longer start their own forum, but create a Facebook group etc.

Interesting that you can watch p0rn directly on Google without any age verification (you don't need to be logged in or anything).

I noticed that google and bing don't appear to return pron in obvious image searches but duckduckgo still does.

If I turn Safe Search off it does (doesn't require age check).

for me, bing refuses to turn off safe search. Lowest it lets me go is "moderate". Google does but doesn't show me pron.

Probably it depends on your geolocation? I'm not in UK and Google image search shows me everything in a Private Window, after I turn off Safe Search

I am in the UK, with UK IP. I get age check on the pr0n websites, but Google doesn't do any age check when browsing incognito and not signed in.

it is very easy to get around it on bing, just go to settings, change region to Germany, then you can switch safe search off. It will ask for age verification, but you can simply click "ok" and that's it.

I am not outspoken politically at all anddon't tend to comment on the state of things publicly. But the implications that the UK Online Safety Act (that has recently came into being) has on the collective voice and society of the UK is something I don't want to be silent on.

For a year that has seen student protests, protests for Palestine, an inflation crisis worsening and more..an act condemning free speech under the guise of protecting children is a horror.

The UK Online Safety Act proposes that to access any information on the internet deemed for adults, an individual must prove their age as being 18+. How is this done? Through verification using YOUR ID. Surely it's a good thing? Ensuring the younger generation does not have access to harmful media and conversation IS a good move.

But this act was NEVER to protect the children. The role of protecting children from harmful content are the adults and people around them and features already EXIST for such a thing, that need only be accessed and monitored by responsible adults in children's lives. It is a guise to gain more control of your activity and data, by either restricting what you see to what is deemed morally appropriate or linking what you view, interact with and post about to your personal ID. It is an invasion of privacy, and an absolutely tragic spiral into censorship.

I find it startling that this is happening and by making the front of this Act to protect children from online pornography is a fantastic way to undermine anyone who would oppose it.

It will lead to consequences that limit thought, speech and freedom of creation. So many video games, books, content and websites will be restricted OR Linked directly back to a personal ID. All this at the same time could only mean a few things, and the government is not in your favour in it.

I believe technology is a burden to humanity in many ways, and we should seek to create a better world with genuine connections and systems that make it safe so we can be present, instead of an online space to supplement this. BUT the answer isn't ruining the internet. We use it as a platform to communicate and supplement where our real life society has failed...a support system, connective space and a communicative one. I don't even have social medias on my phone anymore due to these beliefs (all on my laptop I use about once a week like this post) but I acknowledge it's benefits. This act will deeply maul that.

And it'll impact..

Safe online spaces for discussing issues and recieving support like sexual assault (under the act is not accessible to under 18 year olds due to sexual nature and is currently in accessible in some cases like on the app Reddit) posting and organising protests about the political climate and war (which under the act are classified as violence, and have already censored videos about protests - which I have physically seen myself), out speaking against issues relevant to you and holding an opinion against the favour of the government, and much more..is arguably under threat, at many levels. All of it is determined by those in power. I can't comprehend the negative consequences of this all. Because from the surface it looks a great move.

The answer to the horrific issues we are facing, that coencide with the internet and being absorbed in technology...like disconnection, isolation and lack of meaning..isn't in censoring this technology. It is in creating a better environment and society to exist in, so that people will actually attempt to do so. This act will NOT do that. It will remove what freedom people have. Once again, removing a coping mechanism instead of addressing why it exists.

If you have a moment, sign. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903

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