America Strikes Back Against Foreign Censors with the Rulli Granite Act HR 10174

This blog seems all wrapped up in faux patriotism to me.

As someone actually going through [1] the compliance requirements of the Online Safety Law (OSA), it is not as draconian as it is being painted here.

1. The act only applies if you have a significant number of UK users. In fact a viable strategy to not being subject to it is to simply geoblock UK IP addresses.

2. Selectively quoting where Ofcom say “we don’t care where your servers are located” without also acknowledging that they don’t care about your service (if you’re not impacting UK citizens) seems intellectually dishonest.

3. The requirements for the OSA are that you think about the impacts that your site would have on the vulnerable in society, and document the risks to those people from your service and come up with actual policies to cope with the situation, and make sure you’re not inadvertently doing something illegal either by action or inaction. Unless you’re on the scale of Reddit or Twitter, that’s it. If you are that huge, they require you to also send them those policies for review, and they will be more proactive in holding you to them. For the 99% case though, they’re just making sure you’ve actually put some thought into how you might be seriously hurting someone, because otherwise you might not realise.

4. In many cases, the assumed knee-jerk “censor” reaction just isn’t the case. When you’re thinking about sex workers on your site, for example, Ofcom suggest you are careful in how you react, that it is often preferable to support and allow online sex adverts because otherwise those workers are pushed offline, where they are in significantly more danger. It’s about safety, not censorship.

5. There are similar sections on child (or adult) abuse, human trafficking, slavery, CSAM, child endangerment, grooming, stalking, revenge porn, cyber flashing, etc. etc. You know, dealing with the absolute dregs of humanity. And again, all you’re supposed to do is think about the situation, describe how you’ll deal with it, keep to those self-imposed policies, and … that’s it. Unless those policies are actually illegal (“but I want to host the worlds CSAM archive!”) you’re now good to go.

6. Yes it’s a royal pain in the arse going through all the forms and guidance, but it’s a one-time thing. It might even push you to do something differently just because <whatever> hadn’t occurred to you.

7. It’s also more of an expense. It’s possible to do all this yourself, assuming a modicum of intelligence, the documents are lengthy but clearly written. Since the act specifies criminal penalties, however, it’s probably worth getting a solicitor to go through your responses to make sure it’s above-board and you’ve not assumed something that means you’re not in compliance. That costs a few thousand pounds, which has a chilling effect on new startups (like me!)[1], especially if your business model is “no ads, no tracking, no algorithms, and no selling of user data”. This is the real downside of the act, not some chest-beating faux patriotism about how the GRANITE act will stop UK world-wide censorship (give me a break!)

Anyway, whether you come down on the side of “the internet should be anarchy online” or “we need to protect societies vulnerable, even online” is probably not affected by any of the above. Personally, having seen first-hand what 4chan can do to someone’s life and the years of ongoing suffering in and out of mental asylums, I don’t have much sympathy for their position, but I accept others may differ.

[1] https://blewit.uk/ - a double pun (“blue it” and “blew it”, because Reddit did). An old-reddit-like service that doesn’t sell you or your data, or track you via ads, tracking pixels, or analytics. No algorithms, just talk. Launching soon