The UK’s new online safety laws are already a disaster

10 comments

1. If only anyone with the slightest comprehension of how the internet works had bothered to tell them beforehand.

   Utterly pointless . I’d maybe see the point of it wasn’t so easy to get around with a tiny bit tech know how. The worst is, it’s older adults who’ll struggle more to get round this than more tech savvy teens who are already whizzing round it with VPNs.

2. It’s so comprehensively hopeless, so obviously a complete waste of time, that I find myself wondering what other motivations there might be.

   Usually it isn’t great to go down rabbit holes like this. Most of the time, it isn’t a good idea to assume there’s some sophisticated plot going on. Very often, the thought that nobody can be *that* stupid is… wrong. People absolutely can be that stupid and we should not be surprised that politicians are. They’re not picked for capability, intelligence or knowledge. They’re picked for short-term popularity and nothing more.

   But honestly, this really is *so completely nonsensical* that it’s hard not to think there’s some ulterior motive at play. Is this some sort of info grab by government?

   It probably isn’t. They probably are really that stupid. But christ…

3. > In July 2013, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) agreed to voluntarily offer “default-on” adult content internet filters on all new and existing home network customers. Ofcom has reviewed the implementation of the network filtering which it expects to be completed by the end of 2014.

   [source](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07031/#:~:text=In%20July%202013%2C%20Internet%20Service,by%20the%20end%20of%202014)

   So more than 10 years ago ISP’s were doing it voluntarily, but the government needs to get involved with something it doesn’t understand. As expected.

   But my low stake conspiracy is the U.K. government paid the media to plaster some porn cretins everywhere to try and get everyone on side with OSA.

4. Labour are student politicians and this ill thought out plan is just one of the ways they will fail to make anything better

5. I really think this is the end of Labour.

6. “My kids are watching inappropriate stuff on the internet, YOU should do something about it”

7. ive just purchased a mini pc to set up my gateway vpn had enough already

8. You dont even need to use a VPN. Just google a popular pornographic search term, and the click the images tab. Hundreds of pictures of naked bodies come up.

   Granted, you won’t be able to see a moving video, but if the purpose of the act is to prevent someone having unfettered access to naked bodies, this has failed at the first hurdle.

   You can’t access very specific sites to see porn, but it is still very easily available.

9. All MPs involved in voting or drafting and publishing this law should be able to show a decent level technical literacy. It’s embarrassing that they hide behind these dog whistle statements rather than understand the damage they have caused to numerous non-adult services.

10. There is no way they can insure our data will not fall into the hands of data brokers and worse especially when they cant even be bothered to set up a system to properly regulate it themselves.

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